--- title: Joe Biden Meets The Press, Fails To Quiet Worries description: Biden doubled-down on running for re-election, but mistakenly called Kamala Harris "Vice President Trump." canonical: https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-07-12T00:16:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T17:10:37.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Joe Biden Meets The Press, Fails To Quiet Worries og:description: At a closely watched press conference, Biden doubled-down on running for re-election, but mistakenly referred to his running mate as "Vice President Trump." og:url: https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442a9a6bec64e4e7/698a589c9862f549ae895e4c/GettyImages-2161018578.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-NATO-SUMMIT-DIPLOMACY-BIDEN og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Joe Biden Meets The Press, Fails To Quiet Worries twitter:description: At a closely watched press conference, Biden doubled-down on running for re-election, but mistakenly referred to his running mate as "Vice President Trump." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442a9a6bec64e4e7/698a589c9862f549ae895e4c/GettyImages-2161018578.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Joe Biden Meets the Press, Fails to Quiet Worries > Sponsored content. 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Ignoring mounting calls from political allies, President Joe Biden doubled-down on his plans to run for re-election Thursday evening, telling reporters he is not worried about his legacy but rather is committed to finishing the job he started._ by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/) and [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/) Updated: Jan 19, 2026 5:10 PM UTCPublished: Jul 12, 2024 12:16 AM UTC Ignoring mounting calls from political allies, President Joe Biden doubled-down on his plans to run for re-election Thursday evening, telling reporters he is not worried about his legacy but rather is committed to finishing the job he started. by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/) and [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/) Updated: Jan 19, 2026 5:10 PM UTCPublished: Jul 12, 2024 12:16 AM UTC Ignoring mounting calls from political allies, President Joe Biden doubled-down on his plans to run for re-election Thursday evening, telling reporters he is not worried about his legacy but rather is committed to finishing the job he started. “We’ve got more to do. We’ve got to finish the job,” Biden said during a rare solo press conference. The moment of defiance comes as Democrats are overwhelmingly despondent about his candidacy. A disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump on June 27 sparked plenty of second guesses about their presumptive candidate’s odds to hold the White House. Ignoring the handful of Democrats who have publicly urged Biden to step aside, Biden said he has what it takes to continue the job for a second term. “My schedule has been full bore,” Biden told reporters after a high-stakes summit of NATO members and allies. “I always have an inclination, when I was playing sports or doing politics, just to keep going. I’ve got to pace myself.” As he has in the past, he blamed aides for his own stumbles. “I love my staff, but they add things. They add things all the time. I’m catching hell from my wife. Anyway,” he said, trailing off yet again. Biden insisted that he could still win in November and that none of his aides had told him his bid was doomed to fail. Asked if he would drop out of the race if his staff showed him polling that Vice President Kamala Harris could defeat Trump, Biden said “no,” that wouldn’t be enough. “Unless they came back and said there’s no way you can win. No one’s saying that. No poll says that,” he said. Biden’s showing was at times halting, often stopping to clear his throat and speaking through a hoarse voice. He opened with a strong affirmation of U.S. commitment to NATO and boasted about a new economic report that showed a strengthening domestic economy. He criticized Trump’s veto-from-afar of a bipartisan border security deal and reminded those listening of his efforts to bring an end to the war in Gaza. But it was clear he understood the stakes and was on a tight leash. “I’ve been given a list of people to call on here,” Biden said. Answering his first question, Biden messed up the name of his own understudy, as he tried to speak on Harris’ ability to swap onto the ticket as a replacement. “I would not have picked Vice President Trump to be Vice President if I didn’t think she was qualified to be President.” The gaffe came just hours after Biden drew [gasps](https://time.com/6997620/biden-zelensky-putin-press-conference/) from the room of diplomats for mistakenly calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by the name of his foe who invaded the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin. The flubs came amid a gobsmacking two weeks of half-starts and false-resets following the debate in Atlanta. Donors benched themselves, aides consoled one another, and prominent backers like actor George Clooney and lawyer-bundler John Morgan urged Biden to rethink his next steps. Democrats on Capitol Hill weighed whether to be circumspect or conspiratorial in trying to get Biden to step aside. And some of Biden’s insular inner circle were quietly wondering how he might stage his own exit in a way that preserves his legacy and demonstrates grace. While there is a near-universal agreement that the candidate who took the stage in Atlanta is unlikely to win against Trump, there is less comity in the position that anyone else can fare better. The overwhelming sense inside party circles is that Thursday's presser was less a make-or-break moment and more of a sideshow. Biden’s slow-motion meltdown has left Democrats worried about their odds of keeping control of the Senate and claiming a majority in the House. While the polls so far have [shown](https://www.washingtonpost.com/tablet/2024/07/10/july-5-9-2024-washington-post-abc-news-ipsos-poll/) scant changes in head-to-head surveys, Democrats on the Hill have started lashing out at Biden’s inner circle for hiding the President’s perceived decline. Biden’s performance Thursday evening—starting late as aides milled around—was unlikely to change that dynamic. The verbal gaffes and stammering that have been part of his identity for a half century were on full display. But those fumbles will only add to unease among Democrats and provide fodder for ridicule from Republicans. Biden's embarrassing sound bites are likely to be seen more widely than the cogent, detailed responses he delivered on the importance of American global leadership, what he’s doing to counter China’s support for Russia’s war machine, or how he’s structured a deal intended to bring the war in Gaza to an end. At one point, answering questions about the weapons pipeline to Ukraine, he had another stumble. “I’m following the advice of my commander in chief, my—the chief of staff of the military,” Biden said, appearing to say he deferred to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, his principle military adviser. A minor hiccup, sure, but at a moment when the public is allowing him no margin of error. As Biden wrapped up the 58-minute press conference, NBC News’s Peter Alexander stood up and told him that Trump was mocking his age and memory for calling Harris, “Vice President Trump” earlier in the evening. Asked how he combats that criticism from Trump, Biden stopped and suggested voters should pay attention to how Trump himself speaks. “Listen to him,” Biden said. ## Transcript Mr. President, your political future has hung over the NATO summit a little bit this week. Speaker Pelosi made a point of suggesting that your decision on whether to stand the race was still open. George Clooney and a handful of lawmakers have called on you to step aside. Ruters is reporting tonight that UAW leadership is concerned about your ability to win. A W et endorse me, but go ahead. Thank you. My question for you is, how are you incorporating these developments into your decision to stay? And separately, what concerns do you have about Vice President Harris' ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket? Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, but I think she was not qualified to be president. So let's start there. Number one. 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. Secondly, the idea I served in the Senate a long time. The idea that senators and congressmen running for office, worry about the ticket is not unusual. And I might add, there are at least five presidents running or incumbent presidents who had lower numbers than I have now. Later in the campaign. So there's a long way to go in this campaign. And so I'm just going to keep moving. Keep moving, and because, look, I got more work to do. We got more work to finish. There's much we made so much progress. Think about it. Think about where we are economically, relative to the rest of the world. Name me a world leader who wouldn't want to trade places with our economy. We've created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs. 1.5 million I mean, things are moving. We got more to go. Working class people still have need help. Corporate greed is still at large. The prices, corporate profits have doubled since the pandemic. They're coming down, and so I'm optimistic about where things are going. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/"},"headline":"Joe Biden Meets the Press, Fails to Quiet Worries","datePublished":"2024-07-12T00:16:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T17:10:37.000Z","description":"Biden doubled-down on running for re-election, but mistakenly called Kamala Harris \"Vice President Trump.\"","url":"https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/","keywords":["Joe Biden"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442a9a6bec64e4e7/698a589c9862f549ae895e4c/GettyImages-2161018578.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Philip Elliott","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442a9a6bec64e4e7/698a589c9862f549ae895e4c/GettyImages-2161018578.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-NATO-SUMMIT-DIPLOMACY-BIDEN","caption":"US-NATO-SUMMIT-DIPLOMACY-BIDEN","creditText":"Mandel Ngan—AFP via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/joe-biden/","name":"Joe Biden"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/","name":"Joe Biden Meets the Press, Fails to Quiet Worries"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Biden Defiant in the Face of Critics Calling for Him to Drop From Presidential Race","description":"Ignoring mounting calls from political allies, President Joe Biden doubled-down on his plans to run for re-election Thursday evening, telling reporters he is not worried about his legacy but rather is committed to finishing the job he started.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/mdJ9zaQZ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-07-12T00:22:35.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mdJ9zaQZ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/","duration":"PT2M25S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6997640/joe-biden-press-conference-2/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```