Hello and welcome to our coverage of the Nato summit in Washington DC, where all eyes will be on Joe Biden this evening as he steps up to the lectern and answers questions from journalists in a critical test after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump a fortnight ago.
Biden is scheduled to begin speaking at 6:30pm EST to close out the three-day Nato summit in his first solo news conference in eight months, amid growing calls for him to step aside his Democratic party’s presumptive nominee.
The US president’s performance tonight will be closely watched by his aides and advisers, who have reportedly been discussing how to persuade him to leave the presidential race, as well as the Trump campaign who reportedly want him to stay.
We’ll stream Biden’s press conference here and bring you more news coming out of the Nato summit.
Earlier today, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, was asked about his meeting with Joe Biden at the White House.
Biden was “on good form” and went through serious issues at pace during their first bilateral talks, Starmer answered.
The British prime minister said his personal view, having spent almost an hour in private talks with Biden and attended a dinner for Nato leaders at the White House, was that the US president was mentally agile.
Asked in a round of broadcast interviews whether criticism of Biden was misguided, the prime minister said:
Yes … my own personal view is he was on good form. I was very keen obviously to discuss Ukraine, but there were many other issues that we got through.
Downing Street said Starmer had not raised the issue of Biden’s health or his future plans in their meeting, but reporters asked him about media speculation that Biden could have early dementia symptoms. Starmer said:
No, we had a really good bilateral yesterday. We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour. We went through a huge number of issues at pace, he was actually on really good form.
Joe Biden did not hear any concerns from world leaders during the Nato summit regarding his health or re-election campaign challenges, the White House said.
The White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said leaders instead offered “a drumbeat of praise for the United States, but also for President Biden personally for what he’s done to strengthen Nato”, Associated Press reported.
Biden was praised not just for his time as president but for his decades in politics, Sullivan said.
Sullivan, who helped prepare Biden ahead of the disastrous debate performance, said he did not “have concerns” about the president’s health, adding:
He said he had a bad night.
Hello and welcome to our coverage of the Nato summit in Washington DC, where all eyes will be on Joe Biden this evening as he steps up to the lectern and answers questions from journalists in a critical test after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump a fortnight ago.
Biden is scheduled to begin speaking at 6:30pm EST to close out the three-day Nato summit in his first solo news conference in eight months, amid growing calls for him to step aside his Democratic party’s presumptive nominee.
The US president’s performance tonight will be closely watched by his aides and advisers, who have reportedly been discussing how to persuade him to leave the presidential race, as well as the Trump campaign who reportedly want him to stay.
We’ll stream Biden’s press conference here and bring you more news coming out of the Nato summit.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
