Gaffes, quips and whispers Biden tries to mend his image but cracks remain

The British politician Roy Jenkins once observed that Tony Blair's challenge in getting Labour elected in 1997 was "like a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor".

- David Smith

Joe Biden dropped the vase, shattering it into a thousand pieces, before his rare press conference even got started on Thursday.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Biden declared at the Nato summit in Washington while introducing Ukraine's Volodymr Zelenskiy.

"President Putin!" It was a cringeworthy moment for European leaders who did not know whether to clap. The 81-yearold US president caught the error and corrected himself, but it was yet another blow to his campaign to convince Democrats that he's still got the vim and vigour to beat Donald Trump in November.

Come the press conference, Biden started by grinding fragments of that vase further into the carpet. The opening question was about him losing support among many fellow Democrats and key unions, and about the vicepresident, Kamala Harris, possibly replacing him on the ticket.

Biden proceeded to mix up Harris and Donald Trump. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice-President Trump to be vicepresident if I didn't think she was qualified to be president," he said.

You could have heard a pin drop in this somewhat sterile, strip-lit room at a convention centre in downtown Washington. Dozens of reporters sat in silence, thinking it best not to stage an intervention.