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European leaders have defended US President Joe Biden after he made a number of gaffes at a NATO summit, while media outlets across the continent saw it as further proof that Biden is unfit to defeat Donald Trump in November’s presidential election.
Biden, 81, drew gasps when he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “President Putin” and then confused Vice President Kamala Harris’ name with Trump’s at a news conference in Washington that his aides orchestrated to bolster public trust in his intelligence.
Fellow Democrats and supporters have called on Biden to abandon his re-election bid after his sometimes incoherent performance with Trump in a June 27 televised debate heightened concerns about his ability to win the Nov. 5 election and meet White House demands.
Although European leaders attending the summit were diplomatic toward Biden and praised the organization of the summit, European media such as the British Daily Telegraph concluded: “Biden looks finished.”
“Slips of the tongue are inevitable, and if you monitor everybody all the time, you’ll find enough of them,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said when asked by reporters whether Biden had confused Zelensky with Putin.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schauf also expressed the same view.
Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking before Biden’s gaffe, said he and the president were able to resolve some issues “quickly” during their first meeting.
“He’s actually in very good form, he’s thinking very quickly and he’s getting all the details right,” Starmer told the BBC.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Biden looked “very good” and, unlike other leaders, attended all the summits. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meroni was less enthusiastic but also praised Biden for organizing “a very good summit.”
A European official said foreign leaders would not speculate on who would win the U.S. election, while highlighting some of Biden’s achievements, including passing an aid package for Ukraine without a majority vote in Congress.
“As allies, we are not going to speculate on the possibility of a Trump win behind Biden’s back,” the official said. “No one can say for sure that Trump will win.”
Other European politicians were less tolerant.
Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right party that won the last Dutch election, mocked Biden, posting a photo of Zelensky and Harris on X with the caption “President Putin meets Vice President Trump.”
Ukrainians surveyed by Reuters were largely sympathetic to Biden’s confusion between Zelenskiy and Putin.
“I think he’s just tired,” said Yevhen, 33, an IT specialist in Kyiv who declined to give his last name.
But he also worries that such a gaffe “could have some consequences for Ukraine” if the American public no longer trusts Biden — given concerns about how a Trump would approach NATO and a Russian invasion of Ukraine if elected.
The post-summit press conference failed to convince the European media that Biden could rebuild confidence in his mental acuity.
A headline in the Times of London read: “This was Joe Biden’s chance to win over the doubters. But he blew it.” While Italy’s Il Giannis concluded that it was “the end of Biden.”
Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Biden’s closing press conference as a “humiliation… To put it bluntly: the dignity of those in power has been irreparably tarnished.”
The Guardian agreed, saying the press conference was “unbearable to watch” and that “politics is like a blood sport.”
Switzerland’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung concluded that the Democrats’ only chance of defeating Republican Trump in November is if Biden drops out of the race.
The Zurich newspaper wrote: “An old man showing off his political prowess, raising his fragile voice, does not look strong… This president is not fit for a second term.”
Read more by Euractiv
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