The Messages From Biden That Are Understood, and Not

President Biden’s failure to speak clearly in the unscripted setting of a presidential debate late last month plunged his party — and his re-election campaign — into crisis.

He’s hoping an unscripted appearance at the NATO summit in Washington tomorrow will help him turn things around.

The political drama over the past two weeks has turned in part on Biden’s fundamental struggle, in a moment that really counted, to send a message that could be widely understood. His effort to clean up the mess with an interview late last week created new questions about his communication skills, some of which were as absurd as the matter of whether he said “goodest” or “good as” when neither option really made sense.

It all underscores the fact that a president who for decades has delighted in the power — and the abundance — of his own speech has become, in certain moments, just plain hard to understand. Does it matter that the public can find itself turning up the volume or parsing the sometimes-corrected transcript to figure out what he meant?

“He’s become someone who, unless he’s giving a major speech, you have to lean forward to hear what he’s saying and sometimes you have to think twice to understand what he’s saying,” said David Kusnet, a former speechwriter for President Clinton who has observed Biden’s speeches for decades.

In scripted appearances or when he can rely on notes, the president typically has an easier time making a strong point — such as the unequivocal assurance he has made this week that he has no plans to bow out of the presidential race. His first solo news conference since the debate, scheduled for tomorrow evening, will amount to a critical opportunity for him to show his party that he can still be understood when speaking off the cuff.