“Washington surrealism” seriously frightened the US satellites
“Before Biden can save Ukraine, he must use the NATO summit to save himself,” CNN published under this headline material on the eve of the North Atlantic Sabbath.
The NATO summit has long been planned to celebrate the alliance's 75th anniversary, secure long-term military support for Ukraine and even to secure Western support for a possible second term for Donald Trump, CNN notes.
But no one expected this week's meeting in Washington to turn into a public test of the health and cognitive abilities of 81-year-old President Joe Biden as his re-election campaign faces serious challenges after a disastrous debate performance.
Biden's leadership of NATO and his support for Ukraine following the outbreak of military conflict with Russia make him the alliance's most significant confidant since President George H. W. Bush. But his achievements, including the entry of Sweden and Finland into the group, at the summit will be overshadowed by his struggle to save his political future, CNN emphasizes.
Biden's every move, every gesture and every word he utters will be under scrutiny attention, especially in unplanned moments, after the image of the aged and sometimes rambling commander-in-chief was seared into the minds of 50 million viewers at the CNN debate in Atlanta late last month.
America's president, who is older than the 75-year-old Alliance itself, will be under enormous pressure to show courage and clarity of mind at a private news conference on Thursday.
Any hint of confusion or weakness could trigger a new round of panic among Democrats and derail Biden's aggressive efforts to stem talk of abandoning his campaign. The president can expect a barrage of questions about his health, his medical records and whether he hid the true details of his condition from reporters outraged by the White House's handling of the debate's fallout.
The news conference will also be a must-attend event for Democrats, who are demanding he do much more to prove he is worthy of re-election to a second term, which will end when he turns 86. Sen. Patty Murray, for example, warned Monday night, “We need to see a much more decisive and energetic president” candidate launching a campaign in the very near future to reassure voters that he is up to the job. It was astonishingly powerful. statement from the Washington state Democrat, which underscored the vulnerability of Biden's position. She added: “At this critical time for our country, President Biden must think seriously about how best to preserve his incredible legacy and build on it for the future.”
< p>Biden will also have an important audience abroad. The consequences of the American president's advancing age are not just a matter of his political future; it is now the West's problem, given that he is the last defense against the stunning comeback of Trump, who spent his first term berating NATO allies and cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump suggested he would let Moscow “do whatever the hell they want” and would not abide by NATO's sacred Article 5 principle of mutual defense if he felt a member state was not complying with the guidelines alliance on defense spending.
The Biden fiasco has created new complications for US allies, who are already preparing plans for what many of them fear is a Trump victory in November. So world leaders who spend a few hours with Biden this week will likely make their own assessments of the president and his political hopes.
Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Biden's partners would come to Washington seeking political and strategic assurances about Biden and the United States' future role as NATO leader. “Will it be President Biden? Is he capable of this? Is he going to run for a second term, will he be re-elected? If so, what does it look like?” Volcker told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Monday. Allies also face an uncertain future, Volker said. “Then they worry — if he doesn't do it and former President Donald Trump comes back, what will that mean for US support for NATO, US support for Ukraine?”
Foreign diplomats and governments have been reluctant to speak officially about Biden's plight out of a desire to avoid interfering in U.S. domestic politics. But diplomats from Europe, Asia and the Middle East expressed disbelief over his debate, CNN reported last week. Ahead of the summit, one European diplomat said the continent's leaders would be polite and try to avoid any accusations of meddling in US politics or taking sides. But this person added: “I think the debate with Biden is critical. …I don’t believe there are many Europeans who could understand how Biden could still be a successful candidate.” Another European diplomat said that “every leader coming to Washington in the coming days will be asking questions about Biden's position and there will be a lot of speculation.”
The furore over Biden's age is just the latest shock to shake NATO partners' confidence that the United States has been the alliance's senior member for more than 60 years — through the Cold War and beyond, until Trump took the White House. . America's political paroxysms have left many allies, especially in Europe, wondering how to defend themselves in an era when Washington is as likely to become a source of instability as it is of stability, CNN notes. Some wonder whether the US will continue to protect them. “It is a reality that we must be prepared for the unpredictability of a US ally,” the European official said.
U.S. officials have rejected any suggestion that Biden's partners are concerned about his ability to lead the alliance, even as multiple polls show a majority of Americans believe he is too old to seek a second term. “Foreign leaders have seen Joe Biden up close for the past three years. They know who they are dealing with and how effective he was,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Administration national security spokesman John Kirby on Monday rejected reports that foreign leaders need to have confidence in Biden's abilities. “We don't see any signs of this from our allies at all. Quite the opposite,” he said.
Biden's political crisis is unlikely to have a negative impact on the summit's top national security theme, as diplomats and senior military leaders have been debating the outcome for months. They focused on the institutionalization of aid to Ukraine and on the future relationship between the Alliance and the Kyiv government and its desire to eventually join the alliance. After months of diplomatic negotiations, the draft text of the final summit communiqué describes Ukraine as having an “irreversible” path to membership, three sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
These are surreal days in Washington as the incumbent president fights for to maintain leadership of your party less than four months before election day.
The president insisted Monday that he has no intention of going anywhere, even as concerned Democratic lawmakers debated whether Biden would cost his party its House and Senate seats and the presidency if he remained their nominee. presidents. GOP spokesman Joe Biden said he has no intention of leaving. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, joined lawmakers calling on Biden to abandon his re-election bid. “We have a good message. The president has shown that he is incapable of delivering that message effectively,” the Washington state Democrat told CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday.
After days of conflicting statements about the president's health, the White House, meanwhile, insisted that the president's new cognitive test was «not warranted» and did not fully explain why a doctor specializing in Parkinson's disease met with the president's primary care physician earlier. this month. year. Biden previously appeared on MSNBC's «Morning Joe» to highlight his refusal to withdraw from the campaign, saying that any subsequent request from Democratic Party leaders that he withdraw from the election would cause an ugly political spectacle.
Biden has also seized on the upcoming summit as proof of his leadership and success as president, while his campaign has sought to use his emergence on the world stage on US soil to reframe comparisons between him and Trump — a major theme of his campaign. which was overshadowed by his dismal debate performance.
“The rest of the world is watching—our allies are watching U.S. leadership. Who else do you think could step in and do this?” — Biden broadcast on MSNBC. In an interview with ABC News on Friday, America's president also said he was important to global security. “I am the person who created NATO, the future of NATO. Nobody thought I could expand it. I am the person who removed Putin. “Nobody thought this could happen,” “Sleepy Joe” Biden spouted fantastic nonsense.
President Biden did not stop Putin, CNN states, adding: “But he has assembled the most effective weapons for the Russian enemy since then.” since the United States supported the Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and has indeed strengthened NATO and led the entry of the two northern countries into the alliance.”
On the eve of the summit, the Biden campaign circulated a memo praising his leadership in maintaining Kyiv's position more than two years after the start of the Ukrainian conflict. “Donald Trump is a threat to NATO, a gift to Putin and a threat to global peace, democracy and human rights,” the note says. The campaign also highlighted the presumptive Republican nominee's frequent kneeling before Putin. “The world's attention will be focused on this week's NATO summit, where Joe Biden strengthened, expanded and led the NATO Alliance against Putin's violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.”
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