Biden mistakenly calls Kamala Harris ‘Vice-President Trump’
Biden is now taking questions from reporters.
He is asked if he has concerns about vice-president Kamala Harris’s ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket.
Biden says he “wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was not qualified to be president”.
Key events
Biden says he has “no good reason” to talk to Vladimir Putin right now.
Biden says he is dealing with Xi Jinping and is in direct contact with the Chinese president.
But the Russian president is not prepared to do anything in terms of “accommodating any change in his behaviour”, Biden says.
I’m not ready to talk to Putin unless Putin’s ready to change his behaviour.
Biden is asked about whether he has a strategy of trying to interrupt the partnership between China and Russia.
Biden says he has spent more time, including his time as vice-president, with Xi Jinping than any other world leader has.
He says China has to understand that they are not going to “benefit economically” if it supplies Russia with information and capacity, and if it works with North Korea to help Russia’s armaments.
Biden says that he has not had European leaders coming up to him and asking him not to run.
What I hear them say is, you’ve got to win. You’ve can’t let this guy [Donald Trump] come forward. It would be disaster.
Biden says that Trump seems to have an affinity to people who are authoritarian and that worries Europe.
What I can say is, I think I’m the best qualified person to do the job to make sure that Ukraine does not fall, that Ukraine succeeds.
Biden is asked how he can assure the American people that he won’t have “more bad nights” like on the debate stage last month.
Biden says the best way to assure them is to ask if he is “getting the job done”. He says:
Can you name me somebody who’s got more major pieces of legislation passed in three-and-a-half years?
Biden is asked if he is reconsidering lifting the restrictions placed on Ukraine on the use of American weapons in targets in Russian territory.
Biden says the question is what would be the best use of the weaponry that Kyiv has.
If Zelenskiy had the capacity to strike Moscow, to strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldn’t.
He says he is following the advice “of my commander in chief, my chiefs of staff of the military as well as our secretary of defense and our intelligence people” to determine what is a “logical thing to do” on a day-to-day basis.
Biden calls the debate two weeks ago “a mistake” and says his schedule since then has been “full bore”.
He says he has been “catching hell” from his wife, Jill Biden, over his schedule.
Biden denies reports that he needs to go to bed earlier, but admits that it would be “smarter for me to pace myself a little more”.
Instead of my every day starting at seven and ending at midnight, it would be smart for me to pace myself a bit better.
Biden notes that Donald Trump has “done virtually nothing” and has spent his time “riding around his golf cart, filling out his scorecard”.
Biden says he has always had the “inclination”, whether playing sports or in politics, to “just to keep going”, so now he has to pace himself a little more.
Biden gives a ringing endorsement of his vice-president, Kamala Harris, minutes after calling her “Vice-President Trump”.
Asked about Harris’s accomplishments over the past four years which would make her ready to serve, Biden says Harris has handled the issue of the freedom of women’s bodies, and was “a hell of a prosecutor”. Biden says:
I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. From the very beginning, I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her.
Biden is asked about his earlier gaffe where he mixed up the names of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Biden doesn’t answer the question directly, but instead asks if anybody has suggested if the Nato summit hasn’t been incredibly successful.
He says he knows it sounds “too self-serving” but that other Nato leaders have been thanking him and telling him that he is “the reason we’re together”.
Biden says he thinks he is “the most qualified person to run for president”. He says he beat Donald Trump once, “and I will beat him again”.
Biden says there’s a “long way to go” with his campaign, and that he is “just going to keep moving” because he has “more work to do”. “We’ve got more work to finish,” he says.
Biden mistakenly calls Kamala Harris ‘Vice-President Trump’
Biden is now taking questions from reporters.
He is asked if he has concerns about vice-president Kamala Harris’s ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket.
Biden says he “wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was not qualified to be president”.
Biden says a strong Nato is “essential to American security”, and that he believes the obligation of Article Five is “sacred”.
The US president says he has made it clear that he will not “bow down” to Putin.
I will not walk away from Ukraine. I will keep Nato strong. That’s exactly what we did, and exactly what we’ll continue to do now.
Biden says America “cannot retreat from the world”.
Biden says he rallied a coalition of 50 nations from Europe to Asia to help Ukraine defend itself, and notes that his foreign policy experts had thought that Kyiv would fall in less than a week after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Biden says:
Today, Kyiv still stands, and Nato stands stronger than it has ever been.
The alliance is not only stronger, but it is bigger because of the memberships of Finland and Sweden, Biden says.
Biden notes that his predecessor, Donald Trump, “made it clear he has no commitment to Nato” and that he has “already told Putin ‘do whatever the hell you want’.”
Biden condemns Putin as ‘murderous madman on the march’
Biden says Nato was created out of the wreckage of the Second World War, and that the idea was to create “an alliance of free and democratic nations that would commit themselves to collective defense.”
The US president says that to those who thought that Nato’s time had passed, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a “rude awakening” and resulted in “some of the oldest and deepest fears in Europe” roaring back to life.
“Once again, a murderous madman was on the march,” Biden said.
Biden begins press conference
Joe Biden has begun speaking at the news conference at the Walter EWashington Convention Center, where many of the Nato summit events this week have been held.
The US president begins by saying this year’s Nato summit was a “great success” and a “special moment”.