The Biden campaign is taking a victory lap after President Biden’s highly anticipated NATO press conference on Thursday, claiming he not only met expectations but surpassed them.
A Biden campaign official told Fox News Digital that Biden’s performance was what the American people were looking for and praised the president’s insightful responses to questions that went into great detail on foreign policy, including the Russia-Ukraine War, China and other topics dealing with foreign affairs.
The campaign also believes that the performance proved Biden can handle Trump and believes that substance over style matters, and it matters to voters who will ultimately be swayed by the actual merits of what the two candidates are saying.
Biden, according to the campaign, articulately laid out the economic progress under his watch and discussed complex foreign policy issues in a way that Trump is unable to do.
Biden, during the press conference, was also peppered with questions from reporters who pressed him on whether he would step aside amid mounting pressure from members within his own party following his disastrous debate performance last month.
Despite the glowing review, the campaign source acknowledged that one night, be it a debate or a press conference, will not significantly move the needle in terms of votes and voters will instead be moved by robust campaigning, knocking on doors, phone calls, advertisements and campaign travel, which Biden plans to do more of in the coming weeks as part of a ‘full bore’ schedule.
Biden said he is ‘determined’ to stay in the race and maintained that he is fit to serve as president now and for the next four years.
While some Democrats rushed to defend Biden’s NATO press conference, Republicans pointed to gaffes from the day, including a response from Biden where he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as ‘Vice President Trump.’ Biden also introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as ‘President Putin’ shortly before the press conference before correcting himself seconds later.
‘President Putin? He’s going to beat President Putin. President Zelenskyy. I’m so focused on beating Putin,’ Biden said. ‘We got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr. President.’
The Trump campaign told Fox News Digital that it views the highly anticipated and much-scrutinized news conference as a win-win for the former president.
‘It appears Biden did enough to convince his apologists that he should remain on the ballot, but he also reinforced what the American people know. Their lives are being hurt by his weakness and failure on a daily basis,’ a Trump campaign official, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely, told Fox News Digital.
A large majority of Americans want Biden to drop out of the race, including a majority of his own supporters, according to a Thursday poll from ABC News and The Washington Post that was released ahead of his press conference.
A full 67% of respondents said Biden should drop out of the race, and 85% say he is too old to serve out a second term. Meanwhile, 60% of respondents also said former President Trump is too old for a second term, up from 44% in the spring of 2023.
Biden has remained defiant in the face of calls for him to step down, and a campaign spokesperson aboard Air Force One on Friday said that donations on the night of the NATO press conference were significant.
‘Since last night we’ve seen a strong support across our coalition,’ the campaign said. ‘Most importantly, we see it with our grassroots base. We had close to 40,000 donations last night alone. Donations exploded during the president’s press conference. In fact, we’ve hit 7 times our average during the press conference.’
The campaign also pushed back against critics who highlight Biden’s long track record of gaffes by releasing a two-minute video highlighting Trump’s mishaps on the campaign trail in an attempt to paint him as ‘feeble.’
Fox News Digital’s Kyle Morris, Brooke Singman and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
