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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday became the latest European leader to publicly voice his confidence in President Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities and political endurance, as Biden’s own party debates whether to abandon their prospective nominee.
In a wide-ranging interview in Washington with PBS, the German leader said it would be a “big mistake” to underestimate Biden and called the U.S. president a “great campaigner.” He also praised Biden’s continued support for the NATO alliance and his engagement on transatlantic issues.
“I just can tell you from my perspective as someone that is speaking with Biden, he’s very focused and he’s very intensely doing what a president of the United States has to do for leading the alliance,” Scholz told PBS anchor Amna Nawaz.
Scholz’s comments follow earlier defenses of Biden from his fellow European heads of state. World leaders have been peppered with questions at this week’s NATO summit in Washington about Biden’s age following a disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump last month. Fears have also emerged on both sides of the Atlantic that a second Trump presidency would see the U.S. roll back its engagement on transatlantic security issues and its support for Ukraine.
Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted Biden was “on really good form” during their hour-long bilateral meeting at the White House on Wednesday, swatting away a BBC reporter’s question about the American president’s possible “senility.”
Meanwhile, Finnish President Alexander Stubb emphasized that he has “absolutely no concerns about the capacity of the current president of the U.S. to lead his country, and to lead our fight for Ukraine, and to lead NATO.”
But a growing cascade of congressional Democrats have called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential election and pass the torch to younger leadership. An even larger section of Biden’s own party has publicly expressed concerns about his mental fitness and Democrats’ ability to defeat Trump in the November election in the wake of the debate and the less-than-steady clean-up operation from the White House and Biden campaign.
A verbal snafu at an event inaugurating the Ukraine Compact, where Biden mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin” before quickly correcting himself, has added more fuel to the fire, as Republicans argue Biden is not fit to discharge the duties of the presidency. The gaffe occurred after Scholz’s interview, which was pretaped, so Scholz could not respond to the mixup.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who delivered a press conference shortly after the mishap, appeared unfazed by the slip-up, telling reporters that “lapses happen to everyone,” adding “that could even happen to me tomorrow.”
Starmer, for his part, dodged questions about whether Biden should step aside. “I would urge everyone to look at the substance at what has been achieved over these two days,” he said. “We have a bigger NATO, we have a stronger NATO, we have a real sense of resolve.”
“President Biden led through all of that. It’s an incredible achievement of this council,” he continued.
The interview with Scholz also saw the German leader defend his country’s decision not to provide Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles. The U.S. and U.K. have provided Ukraine with their equivalents, in the U.S. case, the ATACMS missile system. But Germany has refused to provide Ukraine with Taurus missiles, even though it has provided Kyiv with Howitzers and tanks.
Scholz emphasized that Germany was unwilling to “deliver weapons which have a long-range and where we do not have enough control about what will happen if they will be used at aims that are far away.”
Stefan Boscia and Laura Kayali contributed to this report.
