Joe Biden: The US President’s slip-up during an interview in which he reaffirmed his candidacy

In his first response, Biden referred to his own vice president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump” — a painful blunder on national television.

It came an hour after another gaffe that made newspaper headlines at a NATO summit, when Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin,” drawing loud gasps from the audience.

He quickly corrected the first verbal slip involving the Ukrainian leader. A second he didn’t notice, even as some of the journalists in the room murmured in surprise, and several of his top cabinet secretaries, sitting in the front row, remained passive.

The moments — the only major setbacks so far in what appears to be certainty, if not vigor — are sure to surprise Democrats who fear more chaos to come if the president continues his campaign.

Biden, 81, has continued to face questions about his age and ability to serve another term, which intensified after the debate.

But during the interview, he vowed to fight not for his legacy but to finish the job he started when he took office in 2021.

“If I’m going slow, if I can’t do the job, that’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

“But there’s no sign of that yet.”

Depending on your perspective, this attitude can be seen as a sign of dogged determination or a state of denial about how bad a man’s situation has become.

Minutes after the interview ended, several Democratic members of Congress publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race, along with at least a dozen other Democratic lawmakers who had already done so.

The question for the Biden campaign is whether the floodgates will open now or whether the tide will stop.

At least for now, Biden appears to be a happy fighter who insists on moving on. Although the hoarseness and coughing that appeared during the debate two weeks ago still seemed to linger, he smiled and said he might emulate Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.

He reiterated that he did not need a cognitive test, telling reporters that his critics would not be satisfied if he saw “two doctors or seven.”

The campaign hasn’t even started yet — and he’s repeatedly said he can beat Trump in the November election.

Democratic delegates who officially support him as the party’s nominee at next month’s convention are free to change their minds, he said, before whispering, “That’s not going to happen.”

Biden said he would consider dropping out of the race if his team presented him with data showing he couldn’t win, but polls still suggest the race is tied.

In this case, he has good support. For example, an Ipsos Institute poll released Thursday showed Biden a point behind his opponent — within the margin of error. If one thing has been clear since the start of the year, it’s that support for both candidates has remained remarkably stable despite the unprecedented drama surrounding them.

But elections alone won’t ease the panic among many Democratic officials, and the storm clouds hanging over Biden’s campaign won’t dissipate so easily.

Other Democratic politicians who are said to be ready to announce their break with the president are waiting until after the NATO summit to air their concerns.

This is the first round of testing for the President in the hot seat. On Monday (15/7) he had another major interview with anchor Lester Holt from US network NBC. Donors are eager, and as of early Thursday, multiple reports indicated that even members of the president’s own campaign were plotting ways to get their candidate out of the race.

Despite all this, Biden made it clear that withdrawing the nomination from him would be a challenging task. The 81-year-old, who at times grabbed the pulpit with both hands, insisted that the “most qualified person” to rule the country would not leave the scene quietly.