Reaction to the much-ballyhooed Biden “big boy” press conference was mixed across the dial. Each of the major broadcast networks carried the presser. Each came away with their own unique spin on what was billed as a “make-or-break moment” for Biden.
ABC News reacted with despondence and doom, in a tone slightly less funereal than for President Joe Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos. ABC’s was the most overtly political coverage, with its focus on whether Biden did enough to remain on the ballot. WATCH:
DAVID MUIR: Let's get right to Mary Bruce, our Chief White House correspondent. Mary, what’s the first reaction from your sources inside The White House, inside this campaign?
MARY BRUCE: Well, David, The White House, a source telling me they feel he knocked it out of the park. That he showed, certainly, his sophistication on a broad range of issues, including fielding all of those foreign policy questions. They feel that he had a good night here. The question is whether any of that is going to be enough, because the president certainly here is digging in. He doesn't seem to want to face that growing chorus of dissenters that we are hearing on Capitol Hill, that continues to grow. Insisting that, yes, he just needs to continue to show them that he can do this in these unscripted moments. But David, the president dismissing, still, much of their concern, and those answers have not yet been given to many Democrats.
MUIR: Rachel Scott live in Washington, you've been chasing down lawmakers. Any of them convinced tonight with this performance?
RACHEL SCOTT: One Democrat put it to me this way, David: that this is a complicated scenario, that this eases concerns, that it does not erase them. Yet another Democrat, Congressman Jim Himes, has called for the president to step aside tonight. Democrats tell me they groaned and cringed when the president said Vice President Trump instead of Vice President Harris. But every Democrat that I talked to tonight said they cannot believe they’re in this scenario where the president’s defending his age with four months to go.
MUIR: Jon Karl, I have just 20 seconds here. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying he needs to make this decision, time is running short. He seemed to indicate again tonight that the decision is made.
JON KARL: He sure did, David. And, look. He took a wide range of questions, complicated issues, did fairly well on all of that, but I think nothing changes the bottom line, and that is that many Democrats think he just can't win in November. And there needs to be a change.
The mood, only slight less funereal than last week, but funereal nonetheless. ABC’s coverage could be summed thusly, after David Muir’s monologue: Mary Bruce did her Mary Bruciest to convey The White House’s elation over the overall presser, before admitting that Democrats are not fully reassured about Biden. Then came Rachel Scott, conveying House members’ concerns, saying “they cannot believe” they have to defend Biden’s age. Finally, Jon Karl comes on to say that this was not enough.
Over at CBS, there was more of a focus on the foreign policy component of the press conference, and away from the cognitive decline stuff. This bit from Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes is most emblematic of CBS’s post-presser coverage:
NANCY CORDES: Well, Norah, I think he was in a setting that was very comfortable for him here at the NATO conference. He went into great detail on foreign policy, on the situation with Israel, Ukraine, his position on China. And what I thought was interesting is that he sort of wove throughout a subtler message about the benefits of being his age -- 81 years old. He argued that it had given him more wisdom. At one point he said the fact that he served in the Senate for decades made him a more effective president who was able to get major pieces of legislation passed.
NBC tried to strike more of a balance between Dems’ ballot doom and the foreign policy aspects of the press conference, but ultimately slid back to Dem ballot doom:
PETER ALEXANDER: Lester, I think you’re right. And he made an interesting point there when he seemed to open the door to the possibility that he would withdraw from this race, saying if he was demonstrated -- shown evidence that Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump and that there was sufficient evidence that he could not. There is already some polling that indicates that Kamala Harris might have at least as good of a chance as he does right now. He said only under those circumstances would he consider it, but he said that is not going to happen.
There was some attempt to mitigate Biden’s “Vice President Trump” gaffe with former President Donald Trump’s own mixups, to little avail.
It is clear that the press conference gave the Regime Media the worst of all possible outcomes. President Biden did just enough to continue to hang on. He converted the 3rd and 2 into a first down. He keeps pressing on, and the clock continues to tick. Meanwhile, the Regime Media will continue to advocate for Regime Change.
Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned special reports as aired on Thursday, July 11th, 2024:
ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
7/11/24
8:26 PM
DAVID MUIR: One more extraordinary moment in this presidential campaign, and then we say this often, and we can't overstate it, that every day in the spotlight is another critical test for President Biden in this election. Having given the debate performance that he did that was so highly criticized afterwards, the moments during that debate. Obviously a lot of criticism for the former President Donald Trump as well. But it’s the president who must make the case before the American people and in front of fellow Democrats that he is the best person to be the nominee for their party moving forward. He took questions from ten reporters there, about 50, 55 minutes or so, also gave comments right at the top. This was wide-ranging. He talked about the success of the NATO summit this week, inflation numbers coming down just today, the economy, how many jobs he's created, manufacturing jobs, microchips. He talked about China, he talked about Russia, Israel, the Gaza war, of course, the war in Ukraine. The situation with Vladimir Putin. Took a number of questions. He was asked about himself and he did acknowledge the debate performance, calling it a mistake. I don't know whether he was talking about the debate as a whole or one particular moment or a couple. But he did use that word in describing the highly critiqued debate, that first debate that The White House, that President Biden has asked for earlier in the cycle than ever before in modern politics. He talked about the debate, he talked about the debate that's coming up in September, the next debate scheduled to be here on ABC. He gave an indication he has every plan to be there, and to debate former President Donald Trump again. He was also asked about Vice President Kamala Harris a number of times. He was asked if the situation changes, is she ready to be the president on Day One? He was unequivocal on that, every time he was asked, at one point, saying, look at her, what she has said about freedom of women's bodies, the message she has been delivering across this country, this election cycle. He said, any issue to come across the table for her, that she was a first-rate prosecutor, a senator, and that she is ready to be president. He said, otherwise, he would not have selected her four years ago in the first place. Let's get right to Mary Bruce, our Chief White House correspondent. Mary, what’s the first reaction from your sources inside The White House, inside this campaign?
MARY BRUCE: Well, David, The White House, a source telling me they feel he knocked it out of the park. That he showed, certainly, his sophistication on a broad range of issues, including fielding all of those foreign policy questions. They feel that he had a good night here. The question is whether any of that is going to be enough, because the president certainly here is digging in. He doesn't seem to want to face that growing chorus of dissenters that we are hearing on Capitol Hill, that continues to grow. Insisting that, yes, he just needs to continue to show them that he can do this in these unscripted moments. But David, the president dismissing, still, much of their concern, and those answers have not yet been given to many Democrats.
MUIR: Rachel Scott live in Washington, you've been chasing down lawmakers. Any of them convinced tonight with this performance?
RACHEL SCOTT: One Democrat put it to me this way, David: that this is a complicated scenario, that this eases concerns, that it does not erase them. Yet another Democrat, Congressman Jim Himes, has called for the president to step aside tonight. Democrats tell me they groaned and cringed when the president said Vice President Trump instead of Vice President Harris. But every Democrat that I talked to tonight said they cannot believe they’re in this scenario where the president’s defending his age with four months to go.
MUIR: Jon Karl, I have just 20 seconds here. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying he needs to make this decision, time is running short. He seemed to indicate again tonight that the decision is made.
JON KARL: He sure did, David. And, look. He took a wide range of questions, complicated issues, did fairly well on all of that, but I think nothing changes the bottom line, and that is that many Democrats think he just can't win in November. And there needs to be a change.
MUIR: Jon Karl in Washington. Jon, our thanks to you, Rachel, and to Mary. That is our coverage of President Biden for now.
CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
7/11/24
8:26 PM
NORAH O’DONNELL: Well, there you have it. The President of the United States holding forth with reporters for nearly an hour taking questions from some ten different reporters, making some verbal gaffes but at the same time showing a great deal of knowledge about foreign policy and drawing some direct contrast with his opponent Donald Trump. Margaret Brennan is with us and Margaret, how did you gauge what we saw tonight?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, there was a stumble out of the gate which the president just referenced there in terms of Harris and Trump and inverting their names, pretty big one. But he then went on and answered for the better part of an hour- questions. Some of them in detail, particularly as it pertains to Ukraine and Russia down to the 17.4% -- excuse me, 17.3%, he wanted to make sure we knew the exact detail in terms of the amount of land that Russia has grabbed. This is of course those- what he’s been talking about back-to-back meetings with world leaders over the past three days. He went into the ability to serve as Commander-in-Chief and what could be a very tumultuous for years, saying “I could talk to Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin now and I could talk to them three years from now, I just don't want to talk to Vladimir Putin until he changes his behavior. So he’s trying to allay some of these concerns, but as you heard throughout, the question of his age and command overshadowed all of this.
O’DONNELL: There's nothing in this press conference that suggests that President Biden is planning to step down any time soon. He believes he is the most qualified for this job. It was jarring to hear him mix up Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but we should note that Donald Trump has confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. He’s misspoken about people’s names as well. Let's bring in Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes, she was in the room for Biden's press conference. Nancy, this was a long press conference, what was your analysis? You cover him daily.
NANCY CORDES: Well, Norah, I think he was in a setting that was very comfortable for him here at the NATO conference. He went into great detail on foreign policy, on the situation with Israel, Ukraine, his position on China. And what I thought was interesting is that he sort of wove throughout a subtler message about the benefits of being his age- 81 years old. He argued that it had given him more wisdom. At one point he said the fact that he served in the Senate for decades made him a more effective president who was able to get major pieces of legislation passed. And he also argued that because he has been in this town and been in a position of leadership for such a long time, he has deep relationships with foreign leaders. He argued as he has many times in the past that he has spent more time with Chinese president XI Jinping than any other foreign leader. And so it sounded like he's trying to make the case that, yes, he doesn't walk as quickly as he used to, he doesn’t speak as well as he used to, as he has said in the past. There are also some benefits of being his age. And interesting at the end he made the point that there are other Democrats he thinks could beat Donald Trump, but he argued it is not that easy to start from scratch only four months from election day which is an argument that his aides have been making behind the scenes as well.
O’DONNELL: Nancy Cordes, thank you. Let's bring in our Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett. Your take?
MAJOR GARRETT: Very quickly, Norah. The president said he doesn’t believe negative poll data that says he’s losing or could lose. And that he's not going to lose any delegates, the Democratic National Convention in August and he’s going to keep going, and the best way to reassure the country is to assure himself he’s the most qualified. That's what he did.
O’DONNELL: All right, we just witnessed President Biden in that hour-long press conference. Our coverage will continue on CBS News 24-7, your local news, and we’ll see you soon, for those in the West, on the CBS Evening News.
NBC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
NBC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
7/11/24
8:26 PM
LESTER HOLT: President Biden leading a lengthy news conference, a solo news conference, the first we have seen since last November, a considerable amount of time. As we expected, he took a lot of questions about his cognitive ability, about the move among many Democrats to remove him from the ticket. Many he deflected, others he took straight on. Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson is with me. Our friend, Peter Alexander…
HALLIE JACKSON: Props to Peter.
HOLT: …our colleague, what I wanted you to talk about. We look at this differently than a typical news conference, because we're looking for all these things that have created such concern among Democrats. What did you see?
JACKSON: Yeah, that early flub where he misspoke and said Vice President Trump instead of Vice President Harris got a lot of attention almost right away, from Republicans including, as Peter notes, former President Trump,who jumped on that. But remember, in the course of this hour-long-nearly news conference, the president also took a series of questions on foreign policy, on the kind of substance that his campaign believes and are saying publicly, even in the last few minutes, that President Biden really shines on this front. I've heard from one sitting Democrat who says this was kind of an ink blot test, this news conference here. If you were with Joe Biden coming into it, you are probably feeling good about where he is now, or at least feeling okay. If you believe the president should be stepping off the ticket, this probably didn't do much to change your mind in the eyes of this person here. And I think that that is probably the dynamic that you’re going to see play out over the course of the coming hours and days. Lester, you make an important point here. In an alternate universe where that debate performance exactly two weeks ago tonight did not happen, there would likely be far less attention on the flubs, on the demeanor, on sort of the style points for President Biden here, and more of a focus on the substance. But the reality is, Democrats are concerned. More than a dozen of them have come out publicly now, as of tonight, and said they believe that President Biden should come off the 2024 ticket. The call is coming from inside the house from Democrats here, Lester. So it's just not the current reality that the focus is going to be on these international issues right now, when the president is very much tonight speaking to that domestic audience and to his own party.
HOLT: Let's talk to our friend Peter Alexander right now, Chief White House Correspondent who was at the president's news conference. Peter, I want to get your thoughts. I did notice something near the end of the news conference, where the president acknowledged there could be others who could defeat- other Democrats who could defeat Trump.
PETER ALEXANDER: Lester, I think you’re right. And he made an interesting point there when he seemed to open the door to the possibility that he would withdraw from this race, saying if he was demonstrated- shown evidence that Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump and that there was sufficient evidence that he could not. There is already some polling that indicates that Kamala Harris might have at least as good of a chance as he does right now. He said only under those circumstances would he consider it, but he said that is not going to happen. I do want to echo some of what Hallie said there. I think, performatively for the president tonight, he’s going to be haunted by the opening comments that many Americans likely saw where he misspoke and here referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trope- Trump. At the end -I just misspoke myself- at the end, I asked him about it, and he said of former President Trump, “just listen to him”. But substantively, of course, he did demonstrate his years of service, his understanding of foreign policy from China, to Russia, Israel, and across the world. So now the challenge for this White House is that a lot of this is going to be digested in simple sound bites that are seen outside of this news conference. Where it’s either weaponized or manipulated, or people only see bits of it. And the question is, is that enough to snuff out the rebellion among Democrats and does it satisfy the president’s critics? Lester.
HOLT: And the president didn't seem in much of a hurry to leave, Peter
ALEXANDER: I think that's exactly right, Lester. He stuck around, he heard there was a lot of yelling from other reporters…took one more before departing
HOLT: All right, Peter. Thanks. That concludes this NBC News special report.
