Biden Spox All But Pops Champagne Amid Mixed Reviews for High-Stakes Press Conference: ‘He’s Just That F*cking Good’

President Joe Biden has received mixed reviews for his high-stakes press conference on Thursday, but at least one member of his inner circle started celebrating his performance before it had even ended.

“To answer the question on everyone’s minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs,” wrote White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates on X while the press conference was ongoing. “He’s just that fucking good.”

To answer the question on everyone’s minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs.

He’s just that fucking good.

— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) July 12, 2024

Biden showed flashes of his old self mixed in with some misstatements, like when he referred to his own vice president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump.”

As a result, the press conference ended up serving as a kind of Rorschach test for the commentariat.

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes marveled at Biden’s “startlingly impressive command of the issues.”

“He is a master of the foreign policy field and has been for decades in his career in the Senate,” declared Maddow.

The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin was similarly floored. “Unlike many, I have refused to say: GO! or STAY! I said, show us,” she wrote. “Tonight he did. He must continue to show how on top of it he is. He knows more about foreign policy than anyone since Bush 41. He was impressive.”

Others were less impressed.

CNN’s David Axelrod said “The wisdom of doing this press conference at NATO is clear. Shaky on other stuff, the @POTUS is very comfortable on national security issues.”

But he also added that “VP Trump was unsettling” and remarked toward the end of the event that “it sounds like Biden’s team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern, and his odds of victory are very, very slim.”

Stephen Hayes, the CEO of The Dispatch and NBC News political analyst, was even more unsparing.

“The president opened his press conference by mistaking VP Harris for Pres Trump. He said he was going to follow the advice of the commander in chief – military chief of staff. He spoke about pacing himself and better managing his schedule to accommodate his challenges. He spoke gibberish about Ukraine’s ability to strike into Russia,” observed Hayes. “He said: ‘We’re gonna make sure that rents are kept at 5% increase, corporate rents for apartments and the like, homes, are limited to 5%.’ Extended nonsequitirs and half-thoughts on Japan, South Korea. And all this just two hours after he introduced Volodmyr Zelensky as Vladimir Putin.”

“If we think that’s a good night because he also had moments of coherence, even extended ones with substantive answers, we’re not just grading on a curve – we’re nuts,” he concluded.