Embattled Biden to give high-stakes press conference

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00:00Joe Biden's political future is overshadowing the NATO summit that's on now in Washington.

00:06Concerns about the president's fitness for a second term in office and his ability to

00:09beat Donald Trump have been swirling ever since last month's disastrous debate performance.

00:15More and more Democrats publicly saying now Joe Biden has to step aside, including Peter

00:20Welsh, the first Senate Democrat to do so.

00:23On Wednesday, the actor and celebrity donor George Clooney wrote an op-ed for The New

00:28York Times saying he thinks the president should leave the race as well.

00:32For the very latest on this, let's bring in our Washington correspondent, Fraser Jackson.

00:36Fraser, what started out as a trickle from just a few Democrats a while back asking Biden

00:40to step aside is getting stronger and stronger as the days go by.

00:47Joe Biden wasn't really paying attention to the few Democratic lawmakers in the House

00:51when they expressed their concerns, but I think these new people coming out against

00:56him will hold more weight.

00:58The first Senate Democrat to say that he can't beat Donald Trump and that he should drop

01:04out of the race was quite a big moment, it must be said.

01:07And then, of course, there was the interview early on Wednesday morning with Nancy Pelosi,

01:11somebody who holds a lot of weight in the Democratic Party and someone who is a decades-old

01:15friend of Joe Biden as well.

01:17I think it's fair to say that if Joe Biden loses the support of people like Nancy Pelosi,

01:22people like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, the big wigs of the Democratic Party, then

01:27it will be hard to see how his campaign will continue.

01:31We're now basically waiting to see whether this is going to be a case of death by 1,000

01:34cuts.

01:35Is it going to be a slow drip, or has Nancy Pelosi's refusal to take a stand one way or

01:41another started to open the floodgates for more Democrats to come out and say how they

01:46truly feel?

01:47That is one aspect of it, but then you look at the donor class as well, people like George

01:51Clooney, who wrote that op-ed in The New York Times.

01:53Some may say, well, he's just a Hollywood actor, but he is quite a big donor to the

01:57Democratic Party.

01:58That fundraiser he held for Joe Biden raised $28 million for Joe Biden's campaign.

02:03And he said that the Joe Biden that was at that fundraiser was not the Joe Biden of 2010.

02:07It wasn't the Joe Biden of 2020.

02:09It was the same Joe Biden that we saw at the debate two weeks ago.

02:13Now, the White House will say that that was around the same time that Joe Biden was preparing

02:17for the debate.

02:18He just came back from two trips to Europe with a quick stop back in the U.S. in between,

02:22and then went back nine hours in time zones.

02:24So they'll probably say that he was tired and jet-lagged and had a bad cold, all the

02:28reasons that they gave for the poor debate performance as well.

02:31But whether that holds water remains to be seen.

02:34So later today, President Biden will really be fighting for his political life, giving

02:38this solo press conference, the first one since the debate.

02:42I mean, that's a lot of pressure for anyone, much less an 81-year-old president who's probably

02:47very tired.

02:48Yes, the debate performance has been trying to be rewritten by the Biden campaign and

02:54by the White House.

02:55They've given him multiple unscripted events in the wake of that.

02:58He had a couple of campaign stops last weekend.

03:01He also had the interview with ABC on Friday last week as well.

03:06But to be honest, it must be said, I think the White House is missing an opportunity

03:09here to flood the zone, as they like to say.

03:11If they got Biden out more, this wouldn't be such a pivotal press conference.

03:16But it has now been bigged up to such a degree that realistically, everybody will be watching

03:20what Joe Biden will be doing and what he will be saying as well.

03:23We expect this press conference to be just him.

03:26It's going to be the U.S. press and those who follow him closely.

03:29We're expecting about six to seven people to ask him questions.

03:33And we're expecting, therefore, this to go on maybe about 30 minutes or so.

03:36It must be said, this is the first press conference that Joe Biden has holding solo since November

03:412022.

03:43So that shows how pivotal this moment could be in persuading people one way or another.

03:48Because so far, what he's done has really failed to move the needle.

03:51After this as well, he's also got a big interview on Monday on NBC with Lester Holt.

03:56Another opportunity for him perhaps to get his message out there.

03:58Some say that he needs to stop being on the defense and go on the offense and start attacking

04:02Donald Trump and his record.

04:04And that may be trying to put this behind him and stem the bleeding.

04:06All right, Fraser, thanks for that.

04:08Fraser Jackson there reporting live from Washington.

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