High-Stakes Press Conference: False Claims and Election Issues

United States: On Thursday, President Joe Biden had a news conference by himself after a big NATO meeting in Washington. He wanted to show voters that he can do his job well and to assure Democratic leaders that he can win against former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

Biden’s and Putin’s gaffe moment

Biden played down a gaffe he made at an event earlier on Thursday in which he had mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” before correcting himself moments later. Biden said at the press conference: “I said, ‘No, I’m sorry, Zelensky.’ And then I added five other names.

Biden’s travels

Biden spoke of a need to “pace” himself in his activities. He said, “The next debate, I’m not going to be travelling 15 time zones a week before and anyway that what it was about.”

Biden attended a fundraiser in the Los Angeles on June 15, returned  to the White House on June 16 and went to Camp David on June 20 for the intensive debate preparations he stayed  at the Camp David until the day of the CNN presidential debate against Trump which was held in Atlanta.

What Trump said about NATO

Biden, criticizing Trump’s position on the NATO military alliance, said, “I think he said at one of his rallies, don’t hold me to this, recently, where, ‘NATO – I just learned about NATO,’ or something to that effect. Foreign policy’s never been his strong point.”

As reported in CNN, Trump said at his Tuesday rally in Florida: “I didn’t want to be obnoxious because I felt, you know, it was the first time I’d ever done this. I went; I didn’t even know what the hell NATO was too much before, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out. Like about two minutes. And the first thing I figured out was they weren’t paying.” (Trump continued by making his usual false claims about NATO’s funding structure.)

Hamas and the West Bank

Talking about the war going in between the Israel and Hamas said Thursday, “there is a growing dissatisfaction in , on the West Bank and from the Palestinians about Hamas and Hamas is basically not popular now in the context of this.”

Biden’s endorsement from the United Auto Workers

When a reporter told Biden that Reuters had reported recently on Thursday that the leadership of the United Auto workers union was concerned about the Biden’s ability to win the election, Biden responded, “UAW just endorsed me, but go ahead.”