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    Biden Digs In as Democratic Fears Deepen

    The president put on a competent showing at his pressure cooker of a news conference, but it remained in doubt if he could stem the bleeding of Democratic support.Days after President Biden said only the “Lord Almighty” could drive him from the race, he laid out a far more earthly scenario at his closely watched news conference on Thursday night: His advisers would have to prove to him that he was headed for certain defeat.But leaning into the microphone and whispering to dramatize his defiance, Mr. Biden made clear that he did not foresee this happening.“No one’s saying that,” he said. “No poll says that.”He seemed to open the door to an alternative, then swiftly shut it. Sure, “other people can beat Trump,” he said, but it would be too hard to “start from scratch.”The president’s first news conference since the debate amounted to a competent presentation, if not a compelling performance. But it remained in doubt whether it was enough to stop the bleeding of Democratic support that has threatened to hemorrhage. Minutes after he left the stage, the drip-drip-drip of Democratic members of Congress calling for him to step aside continued unabated.“I believe I’m the best qualified to govern,” said Mr. Biden, who has for decades pointed to naysayers to fuel his own comeback narratives. “And I think I’m the best qualified to win.”The high-stakes, mostly unscripted hour — Mr. Biden’s longest since the debate that sent his candidacy into a tailspin — came as some of those around him have talked about how to persuade him to drop out, and as his campaign has commissioned a survey to test the strength of Vice President Kamala Harris in a matchup he has insisted will never come to pass.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden dice ‘vicepresidente Trump’ refiriéndose a Kamala Harris

    El mismo día en el que presentó al presidente ucraniano Volodímir Zelenski como “presidente Putin”, Biden cometió otro desliz.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El presidente Joe Biden se refirió a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris como “vicepresidente Trump”, cometiendo un desliz en su respuesta a la primera pregunta que se le planteó en una esperada conferencia de prensa durante una cumbre de líderes de la OTAN.Un reportero de Reuters le preguntó a Biden si le preocupaba la capacidad de Harris para derrotar al expresidente Donald Trump si él decidiera abandonar la contienda, algo que Biden ha dicho enfáticamente que no hará, a pesar de la presión de muchos dentro de su partido.“Miren, no habría elegido al vicepresidente Trump para la vicepresidencia si no creyera que está cualificado para la presidencia”, dijo.Biden cometió otro desliz al presentar al presidente de Ucrania, Volodímir Zelenski, como “presidente Putin” después de una reunión de líderes de la OTAN en Washington.“Quiero ceder la palabra al presidente de Ucrania, quien tiene tanto coraje como determinación”, dijo Biden desde el podio con Zelenski a su lado. “Señoras y señores: el presidente Putin”.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden Says Harris Is Qualified to Be President, but Vows to Remain in Race

    President Biden said on Thursday that Vice President Kamala Harris was qualified to be president, but pitched himself as the best person to defeat former President Donald J. Trump in November.During a news conference, Mr. Biden defended Ms. Harris’s readiness to take charge amid reports that he feared she could not beat Mr. Trump even as he made clear that he would not step aside. But in his answer to a question about Ms. Harris’s chances of beating Mr. Trump, he confused the two leaders’ names, committing just the sort of verbal misfire that has unnerved Democrats and prompted them to wonder if she should instead be the nominee.“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, did I think she’s not qualified to be president,” Mr. Biden said. “So let’s start there, No. 1. The fact is that the consideration is that I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again.”Polls in recent weeks have generally showed that Ms. Harris is just as likely, or possibly more likely, to defeat Mr. Trump, and the former president’s campaign has ramped up attacks on her recently.Following Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance two weeks ago, panicked donors, political groups and even allies began to rally around Ms. Harris as a potential placement for him. Ms. Harris has stood behind Mr. Biden’s decision to stay in the race.The Biden campaign has been quietly testing Ms. Harris’s chances against Mr. Trump this week, with some speculation that the results would determine whether Mr. Biden would consider dropping out of the race.Asked whether he would reconsider his decision to stay in the race if his team showed him data that Ms. Harris would fare better in a matchup, Mr. Biden repeatedly said he would not drop out of the race.“No,” he said, “unless they came back and said that there’s no way you could win. No one’s saying that.”When asked about her qualifications, Mr. Biden pointed to Ms. Harris’s work elevating reproductive rights and praised her “ability to handle almost any issue on the board.”“This was a hell of a prosecutor,” Mr. Biden said of Ms. Harris, who was the district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California. “She was a first-rate person, and in the Senate she was really good. I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. From the very beginning. I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her.” More

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    Democrats React to Biden’s Press Conference Performance

    President Biden entered Thursday night hoping that a steady performance at a news conference with the national press corps would quell dissension among Democrats, some of whom want him out of the race.But within minutes of his departure from the stage, two more Democratic representatives joined the growing number of party members calling for him to end his re-election campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.“The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism,” Representative Jim Himes, a moderate Democrat from Connecticut and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.”And Representative Scott Peters of California also argued that Mr. Biden should leave the race, saying, “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course.”Later in the evening, Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois joined their ranks, becoming the 18th Democratic member of either the House or the Senate to call for Mr. Biden to step aside.More Democrats may defect on Friday, now that members of Congress no longer have to worry about embarrassing the president during the NATO summit that took place in Washington this week. But other Democrats said Mr. Biden’s deft grasp of policy — and the fact that he answered questions for nearly an hour — was heartening, despite awkward moments like a flub in which he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden defiende su candidatura en una conferencia de prensa

    El presidente Joe Biden, en una comparecencia de casi una hora, no dio indicios de que fuera a considerar la posibilidad de retirarse y defendió los logros de su gestión.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El presidente Biden dio una serie de respuestas, a veces titubeantes, a las preguntas de los periodistas durante una rueda de prensa de casi una hora el jueves, pero también demostró su dominio de la política exterior y evitó cualquier momento desastroso que pudiera haber proporcionado más argumentos a quienes le piden que renuncie a su intento de reelección.Después de leer inicialmente de un teleprompter y repetir su promesa de permanecer en la campaña, Biden tuvo problemas al contestar algunas preguntas sobre su edad y aptitudes para el cargo. En un momento, se equivocó en una pregunta sobre la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris al decir que “no habría elegido al vicepresidente Trump para ser vicepresidente” si no tuviera confianza en ella. Eso ocurrió justo después de que presentara al presidente de Ucrania, Volodímir Zelenski, como “presidente Putin” en una reunión de la OTAN.La conferencia de prensa, su primer encuentro en solitario con los medios en ocho meses, estaba diseñada para demostrar que sigue teniendo la agilidad y la resistencia necesarias para llevar adelante la campaña contra el expresidente Donald Trump. Se presentó ante los periodistas en medio de reportes que afirman que algunos asesores y viejos aliados están tratando de convencerlo para que renuncie a su candidatura.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    George Clooney: Me encanta Joe Biden. Pero necesitamos un nuevo candidato

    Toda mi vida he sido demócrata; no me disculpo por eso. Estoy orgulloso de lo que mi partido representa y defiende. Como parte de mi participación en el proceso democrático, y en apoyo al candidato que he elegido, he dirigido algunas de las mayores recaudaciones de fondos de la historia de mi partido. Barack Obama en 2012. Hillary Clinton en 2016. Joe Biden en 2020. El mes pasado colaboré en la organización la mayor recaudación de fondos en apoyo de un candidato demócrata de la historia, para la reelección del presidente Biden. Digo todo esto solo para expresar lo mucho que creo en este proceso y lo importante que creo que es este momento.Me encanta Joe Biden. Como senador. Como vicepresidente y como presidente. Lo considero un amigo y creo en él. Creo en su carácter. Creo en su moral. En los últimos cuatro años, ha ganado muchas de las batallas a las que se ha enfrentado.Pero la única batalla que no puede ganar es la lucha contra el tiempo. Ninguno de nosotros puede. Es devastador decirlo, pero el Joe Biden con el que estuve hace tres semanas en la recaudación de fondos no era el Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden de 2010. Ni siquiera era el Joe Biden de 2020. Era el mismo hombre que vimos en el debate.¿Estaba cansado? Sí. ¿Resfriado? Tal vez. Pero los líderes de nuestro partido tienen que dejar de decirnos que 51 millones de personas no vieron lo que acabamos de ver. Estamos tan aterrorizados ante la perspectiva de un segundo mandato de Trump que hemos decidido ignorar todas las señales de advertencia. La entrevista de George Stephanopoulos solo reforzó lo que vimos la semana anterior. Como demócratas, contenemos colectivamente la respiración o bajamos el volumen cada vez que vemos al presidente, a quien respetamos, bajar del Air Force One o acercarse a un micrófono para responder a una pregunta no programada.¿Es justo señalar estas cosas? Tiene que serlo. Se trata de la edad. Nada más. Pero tampoco es algo que pueda revertirse. No vamos a ganar en noviembre con este presidente. Además, no ganaremos la Cámara de Representantes y perderemos el Senado. Esta no solo es mi opinión; es la opinión de todos los senadores y congresistas y gobernadores con quienes he hablado en privado. Todos y cada uno, independientemente de lo que digan en público.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.

    I’m a lifelong Democrat; I make no apologies for that. I’m proud of what my party represents and what it stands for. As part of my participation in the democratic process and in support of my chosen candidate, I have led some of the biggest fund-raisers in my party’s history. Barack Obama in 2012. Hillary Clinton in 2016. Joe Biden in 2020. Last month I co-hosted the single largest fund-raiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election. I say all of this only to express how much I believe in this process and how profound I think this moment is.I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.We love to talk about how the Republican Party has ceded all power, and all of the traits that made it so formidable with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, to a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency, and yet most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden no ganará. Los demócratas necesitan un plan. Aquí hay uno

    Recuerden mis palabras: Joe Biden estará fuera de la contienda presidencial de 2024. Esté o no dispuesto a admitirlo. Su petición a los demócratas del Congreso para que lo respalden no unirán al partido en su apoyo. Biden dice que seguirá en la carrera, pero solo es cuestión de tiempo para que la presión demócrata y los sondeos públicos y privados lo lleven a abandonarla. Se acabó el juego, y cuanto antes lo acepten Biden y los líderes de su partido, mejor. Tenemos que avanzar.Pero no puede ser eligiendo a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris o a cualquier otra persona como posible candidato demócrata. Tenemos que hacerlo de manera abierta; exactamente del modo contrario a como Donald Trump quiere que hagamos.Por primera vez en su vida, Trump está rezando. Para ganar la Casa Blanca y aumentar sus posibilidades de evitar usar un uniforme naranja, necesita que los demócratas sigan los pasos equivocados en los próximos días: es decir, que parezcan amañar la nominación de un presidente en decadencia o de la vicepresidenta en ejercicio o de algún otro aparente heredero. Trump necesita poder escribir en MAYÚSCULAS publicaciones en redes sociales sobre los agentes del poder y los grandes donantes que lo arreglan todo. Necesita, en otras palabras, que los demócratas acaben por echarlo todo a perder.No vamos a hacer eso.Vamos a nominar una nueva candidatura de forma muy democrática y novedosa, no en las trastiendas de Washington, D. C., o Chicago.Estamos en un momento en el que necesitamos ideas constructivas sobre cómo avanzar. El representante Jim Clyburn y el columnista de Opinión del Times Ezra Klein han hablado de unas miniprimarias demócratas, y a mí me gustaría desarrollar esa idea.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More