Lawrence O’Donnell Declares Biden Presser ‘the Most Masterful Televised’ Foreign Policy Talk From a President: ‘As Good As It Gets’
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell offered a flood of praise for President Joe Biden’s Thursday press conference from NATO, declaring it to be the best televised foreign policy talk by a president ever.
Biden took to the stage Thursday evening from Washington amid calls from many within his own party to drop his reelection campaign. An unusual amount of attention was paid to the foreign policy talk as debate continues to rage about the president’s health and stamina.
O’Donnell praised Biden for his remarks made without a teleprompter when answering questions from reporters.
O’Donnell said:
The big question for Joe Biden is how does he handle speaking off the teleprompter? That’s been the big question since the debate…so what followed was nothing less than the most masterful televised presidential press conference about foreign policy. There have been other presidential press conferences that have exhibited mastery at different points by some presidents but on foreign policy, complex foreign policy involving the Middle East and the situation in Ukraine, this is as good as it gets with an American president.
The president did receive some criticism and mockery for small mistakes made before and during his talk, including briefly referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin and calling Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump.”
Many of the questions focused on questions about the future of Biden’s campaign, but the president insisted yet again he is going nowhere and remains the best chance to beat Donald Trump.
O’Donnell honed in on one complex foreign policy question, asking his audience to “imagine” how Trump would answer compared to Biden. David Sanger of The New York Times asked the president about a NATO declaration calling China a “decisive enabler of the war in Ukraine” thanks to their growing partnership with Russia, a partnership Sanger noted Biden seriously cast doubt on.
The president noted he’s spent more than with China President Xi Jinping (90 hours) than any other world leader and their partnership with Russia comes down to pure economics, arguing China believes “it’s a large enough market that they can entice European countries to invest there.”
“China has to understand that if they are supplying Russia with information and capacity along with working with North Korea and others to help Russia in armament, that they’re not going to benefit economically,” Biden said.
“He actually thinks,” O’Donnell said in his praise of the president. “You can see him thinking while he’s answering.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
