Gaffes, stumbles and missteps – for Biden, the cracks were showing

The British politician Roy Jenkins once memorably observed that Tony Blair’s challenge in getting Labour elected in 1997 was “like a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor”.

Joe Biden dropped the vase, shattering it into a thousand crazy pieces, before his rare press conference even got started on Thursday.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Biden declared at the Nato summit in Washington while introducing Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “President Putin!”

It was a cringeworthy moment for European leaders who did not know whether to clap. The 81-year-old US president caught the error and corrected himself, but it was yet another blow to his anguished campaign to convince Democrats that he’s still got the vim and vigour to beat Donald Trump in November.

Related: Joe Biden defiant despite gaffes at Nato press conference as he battles calls to stand aside

Come the press conference, Biden started by grinding fragments of that broken vase further into the carpet. The opening question was about him losing support among many fellow Democrats and key unions, and about Kamala Harris possibly replacing him on the ticket.

Against the backdrop of Nato blue and eight US national flags, Biden proceeded to mix up Harris and his opponent Donald Trump. “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president,” he said.

Harris is a 59-year-old Black woman and former criminal prosecutor. Trump is a 78-year-old white (orange) man and convicted felon beloved by white supremacists. The two are easily confused.

You could have heard a pin drop in this somewhat sterile, strip-lit room at a convention centre in downtown Washington. Dozens of reporters sat in silence like a concerned family sitting around of an elderly patient speaking nonsense. They said nothing, thinking it best not to stage an intervention.

Tragically, the only person unaware of what had happened was the patient himself. Indeed, Biden’s critics say he is the only one who cannot see what everyone else can: time has caught up with him and he should quit the US presidential race.

After a start like that, it had all the makings of total disaster, a bitter sequel to the president’s calamitous debate performance. His old foe, the frog in the throat, must have stowed away on Air Force One and followed him all the way from Atlanta.

There were more stumbles. “I’m following the advice of my commander-in-chief,” said the commander-in-chief. Sometimes his voice trailed off with an “anyway”. Sometimes he defaulted to his strange whispering habit.

No doubt a hundred members of Congress were sitting with their fingers poised on the “send” button to call for the president’s exit. If only George Clooney, the Hollywood star and Democratic donor who has wielded the dagger like Brutus in a New York Times column this week, was up on that stage, looking presidential.

And yet, as the night wore on, it wasn’t quite so simple. The second question reminded Biden of his Putin-Zelenskiy confusion and asked if he is damaging American’s standing in the world. He laughed and retorted: “Did you see any damage to our standing in my leading this conference?

“Have you seen a more successful conference? What do you think? I thought it was the most successful conference I’ve attended in a long time and find me a world leader who didn’t think it was.”

Biden has recently been accused of turning Trumpy, stubbornly digging in and putting his own interests ahead of the nation. The saviour of democracy in 2020 could destroy it all. What if you ruin your legacy? one reporter wondered. “Look, I’m not in this for my legacy,” he insisted. “I’m in this to complete the job I started.”

And reports of his early bedtime were “not true”, he said, though he acknowledged: “Instead of my every day starting at 7am and going to bed at midnight, it would be smarter for me to pace myself a little more.”

His schedule since the debate has been “full bore”, he added, before taking a swipe at the opponent who recently challenged him to a round of golf. “Where’s Trump? Riding around on his golf cart filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?”

Less helpfully, he quipped: “I love my staff but they [add] things. They add things all the time at the very end. I’m catching hell from my wife.”

The questions about neurological exams and his fitness for office kept coming, and he continued to bat them away. “If I slow down, I can’t get the job done, that’s a sign that I shouldn’t be doing it. But there’s no indication of that yet! None!”

Nato is like a home fixture for Biden. He proved expansive on foreign policy regarding China, Israel, Russia and other parts of the world. He reminded everyone of his role in rebuilding alliances and partnerships. Among the “elites” that Biden now professes to scorn, he fought this near hour-long exchange with 11 reporters to a score draw.

For the Bidenites, there was a reminder of his canyons of expertise and experience: this man knew Golda Meir! Do you really want to throw all that away for some neophyte? The president himself observed: “The only thing age does is creates a little bit of wisdom, if you pay attention.”

But for the anti-Biden rebellion, there was sufficient hubris and missteps to confirm their view that he is going to lead the party to defeat in November. Remember King Lear: “Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither; / Ripeness is all.”

Sadly for the president, quotable gaffes will get more attention – on cable news, social media and late-night TV – than a snoozy masterclass on foreign policy. When the official questions were done, a chorus of reporters shouted more, including one about Biden’s Harris-Trump mix-up.

Peter Alexander of NBC News noted that Trump was already using the gaffe to mock Biden’s age and memory. Asked how he would combat that criticism, Biden smiled and said simply, “Listen to him,” then departed stage left. Piece by piece, he was putting the vase back together – but the cracks were showing.