MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire said Thursday that President Joe Biden’s press conference “won’t silence” Democrats suggesting he drop out of the 2024 presidential election.
Biden will face the media Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m. for a “news conference,” a rare event for the president.
Lemire told “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist that Biden’s “news conference” will come after “a long day” Wednesday at the 75th anniversary NATO Summit and a “pretty grueling week for the president.” Ahead of the press conference, Biden is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also plans to campaign in battleground state Michigan tomorrow.
“Let’s talk about that news conference, 5:30 today. Which I point out comes at the end of a long day for President Biden. He’s got a bilateral meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine among meetings around that 75th anniversary of NATO. What should we expect at about 5:30 tonight?” Geist asked.
“All eyes will be on this news conference at 5:30 p.m.,” Lemire said. “The president has not done many of these extensive solo news conferences since the early days of his term. In fact, the first news conference he did, which was I believe in March of 2021, went more than an hour. And after it did so, First Lady Jill Biden reprimanded staff, saying it was ‘too long.’ The president’s performance had faded as it went along.”
“Normally we see him in smaller events,” he continued. “Usually standing with a foreign leader, and each, known as a two-and-two. Each leader takes two questions from a pair of reporters. But this one is gonna be the president alone. We don’t know how many questions yet, but we’ve been promised it will be substantial. Whether that means four questions, six, ten, we’ll have to see. But it can’t be overstated. This is a big moment. It, the biggest for this president since the debate.”
Panicked Democrats have pounced on Biden following his poor debate performance on June 27 in a pressure campaign questioning his cognitive decline and ability to run for reelection. Biden has continued to face backlash despite his campaign’s facilitation of several damage control efforts to prove himself to the public, including interviews with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, “Morning Joe” and two radio hosts from Milwaukee and Philadelphia. (RELATED: ‘I Don’t Think He Can Serve Four More Years’: George Stephanopoulos Gives Blunt Assessment After Major Biden Interview)
“Let’s separate his performance in office, which all Democrats continue to praise, versus his continued viability as a candidate,” Lemire said. “So many Democrats within the last 24 hours have said, especially as the defections continue at the moment with Speaker Pelosi on our air on ‘Morning Joe’ yesterday, that they need to a see a strong, they want to be reassured. They want to see a strong performance. And he will be up there. It will be off-the-cuff. It will be spontaneous. There will be no teleprompter.”
“First time he’s had a moment like this since that debate that went horribly for him. And it’s a chance to reassure the Democrats if he does well,” Lemire continued. “Now, what is the standard of doing well? That remains to be seen. What sort of performance does he need to to deliver? At the moment, momentum suggests that no matter how well he does tonight, it won’t silence all Democrats’ worries, uh, Joe. But it can certainly help. It can certainly help. And if he does poorly, then I suspect which the avalanche will only grow for calls they have to get out of the race.”
Democratic California Rep. and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi avoided endorsing Biden Wednesday on “Morning Joe.”
“It’s up to the president to decide if he’s gonna run,” Pelosi told Geist, adding that she will support “whatever he decides.”
During his entire presidency, Biden has only held 36 solo and joint press conferences — a dramatic shift from presumptive Republican 2024 presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump’s 88 total, according to data from The American Presidency Project. Joint press conferences are those held with at least one foreign official also taking part. Among all of Biden’s solo or joint press conferences, only 3 joint press conferences were conducted in 2024 at the time of writing.
