President Joe Biden caused some head-scratching when he paused during a press conference to say “I beg your pardon?” after an unspecified interruption.
Biden held an hour-long press conference Thursday evening amid pressure to drop out after his debate performance, in what was seen by many as a make-or-break moment.
Despite an ostentatious gaffe to kick things off — Biden referred to VP Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” while answering the very first question — the president performed well enough to earn praise from many who’d had grave doubts after the debate.
Critics of the president seized on the moment when he paused to suggest that he was reacting to an imaginary person and other false claims:
But even other viewers had trouble making sense of the interruption.
During the broadcast, the disruption was audible but indistinct — it turns out it was a reporter’s laptop playing a recording as Biden talked about the global consequences if former President Donald Trump were to win.
Marek Wałkuski of Polskie Radio accidentally played back part of his own question while the president was answering:
MAREK WAŁKUSKI: And your — yourself was warning just two minutes ago about it. So, my question is: Do you think that Europe will be left on its own if Donald Trump wins the election? And what’s your advice to European leaders to prepare for possible U.S. disengagement?THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, I think —
how can I say this without sounding too self-serving? I’m not having any of my European allies come up to me and say, “Joe, don’t run.” What I hear them say is, “You’ve got to win. You can’t let this guy come forward. He’d be a disaster. He’d be a disaster.”I mean, I think he said at one of his rallies — don’t hold me to this — recently where NATO — “I just learned about NATO” or something to that effect.Foreign policy has never been his strong point. And he seems to have an affinity to people who are authoritarian. That worries — as I don’t tell you, from Poland — that worries Europe. That worries Poland. And nobody, including the people of Poland, think that if he wins in Ukraine, he’s going to stop in Ukraine, that that’s going to be the end of it.And so, what I can say is I think I am the best qualified person to do the job, to make sure that Ukraine is not fall — that Ukraine succeeds, that the European alliance stays strong.You may recall, no one was talking about Finland joining NATO. I remember talking to Putin in — when — right after we got elected, in Geneva. And he was talking about what we should do — he — what we couldn’t have —be in Eastern Europe, et cetera. And I said, “You’re looking for the Finlandization of Ukraine.” I said, “You’re going to get to NATOization of Finland.”And about four weeks later, I got a call — that — that’s not true — probably five months later — from the president Finland, could he come and see me. Becau- — in my office, I had — I invited him to the Oval Office. We sat down and talked. He said he wanted to join NATO, could I help. And I did. It wasn’t automatic.And then I got a call from the Swedes.(An audience member’s laptop computer plays audio.)MAREK WAŁKUSKI: (recording) “…in Poland and across Europe…”THE PRESIDENT: I beg your pardon?MAREK WAŁKUSKI: It was a recording.THE PRESIDENT: And so, Finland joined NATO. Eight-hundred-mile border — it’s a significant — and they were already allies, but they weren’t part of NATO.
Watch above via Pool.