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>> c-span. powered by cable. good friday morning. headlines coming off of yesterday's press conference, this is "the washington times," center stage of defensive biden is the front-page book, "the new york times," bidens isolation deepens. "the huffington post," joe is in survival mode. and then the cover of today's "new york post," biden blasts his way through a make or break qa day. are any democrats convinced?

this is how the press conference started yesterday. [video clip] >> mr. president, your political future has hunger over the nato summit a little bit. speaker pelosi made a point of saying your decision to stay on the race is still open. george clooney and a handful of lawmakers have called on you to step aside. they are concerned about your ability to win. pres. biden: they just endorsed me, but go ahead. >> how are you incorporating these developments into your decision to stay? separately, what concerns do you have about vice president harris' ability to beat donald trump if she were at the top of the ticket? pres. biden: i would not have picked vice president trump to be vice president, so we will start there, number one. the fact is that the

consideration as i think i'm the most qualified person to run for president. i have eight him once, and i will beat him again. -- i have eaten and was, i will beat him again. [end video clip] host: donald trump jumping on the club in which the president called the vice president, vice president trump, saying crooked joe began the press conference with i would not have picked vice president trump if i do not think she was qualified to be vice president, good job, joe, is what the former president set on true social. the president responded saying, yes, i know the difference, one is a prosecutor, the other is a felon. and so one from there, asking about your response to yesterday's press conference by the president. democrat, republican, independent, taking this conversation the first hour of the washington journal this morning. nika and chicago, good morning.

caller: good morning. this is my first time calling. i bet i will call a lot in the coming months because this election is taking a as much time from actual life, but in terms of the president, you know, he is presidential. and the bar for that is not extremely high because i'm 36, so i remember when george w. bush was first elected, and i'm feeling a lot of bush-ism being what is defining this current conversation around biden's fitness, which it was always on the line when people were

critiquing bush's credibility as president for the job, but i think the question of whether or not, in president biden's case, they are coming from cognitive issue is very stressful to me personally because something that did not come up last night is that we are still reeling from a major public health issue. host: he was asked yesterday whether he would take another cognitive test. do you think you should and release that to the public? caller: well, i don't have a problem with that. i will say that i recently took a neurological test. again, i made 36-year-old female and very fine mental and

physical health, so i cannot imagine biden's neurological test will measure up to mine. so i don't know what that will prove or produce. host: on our independent line, mike, florida. good morning. you are next. what did you think of the press conference? caller: i just wanted to say, watching the suppose it shows last night on whether biden stays on the cognizant issue, i think anybody at that level who has their finger on the pulse of our national security, as well as our nuclear safety system, they should all be taking the tests, period. i don't care what party they belong to. host: mike, the republican line,

what did you think watching is a republican? caller: thank you to c-span. i watched it, it was rather pathetic, to be honest. he is a reflection of the elite media liberal -- liberal media's values. [indiscernible] it is a rigged game. it is a wonder why the republicans can never win because they have to be the liberal media and the democrats. host: the president commented that it is the elite liberal media getting him to step down and he said he does not want to do what they are trying to get him to do. that is one of the statements he and his team has put out. caller: i know that, but they generally would like the democrats to win. america knows that. but, you know, everything is up now, too. everything is up, the grocery stores, everything is up thanks

to his liberal taxes, policies. everything is up, everybody feels it. and that is why some of the blacks and minorities are coming over to the republicans because everybody is feeling the pinch because of him and his policies. he does not get it, the left will never get it because they are choosing to money us. host: mike in california on inflation. news on that front yesterday, good news for the president with inflation numbers of the past, saying that it climbed the moderate pace in june compared to the year earlier and felt on a monthly basis. do new york times writes that the federal reserve is looking for more evidence that they wrestled rapid inflation under control. overall, it was 3% in june, down from 3.3% in may, softer than the 3.1% economists forecasted. those numbers coming out

yesterday. back on the line for democrats, doug, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. joe biden should definitely stay in the race, is everybody stupid? you want to be president? you got it because he got immunity. [indiscernible] so, spend the republican party -- host: that is dug in florida on whether joe biden should stay in the race. a new poll from "the washington post" out today. the question was given his performance in the debate on june 27, what do you think joe biden should do, step aside or continue his campaign as president? 67% say he should step aside. 30% say he should continue as president. among just, cuts, the majority

say he should step aside, 56%, 42% say he should continue to campaign for president. new numbers from "the washington post" out today. washington, new jersey, republican, go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you critiquing my call. personally, what upset me about the press conference was i believe he knew what those questions were and he picked the people who would ask him those questions. somebody asked him about harris, he put her in charge of the border. i would like to ask what was her report back to you when you put her in charge of the border? the other question i would have liked is about afghanistan, the billions of dollars of equipment left there ended up in the hands of thomas and other organizations. ukraine, he has spent billions and billions of dollars over there.

how has that many been accounted for and how so? what effect did he think when he cut the oil have on the economy? when he did that, although truckers raise their prices, and they raise the prices because of the shortages. there are no more shortages, there is no more pandemic, but they still have the prices up. he did not mention anything about that. host: one of the first things you said was you wished reporter asked about harris. president biden was asked about the vice president's readiness to step into the presidency. this was his response yesterday. [video clip] >> vice president harris would be ready to serve on day one, can you elaborate? what is it about her attributes and accomplishments over the last four years that maker ready to serve on day one, if necessary? pres. biden: first of all, the way she has handled the freedom of women to handle their bodies, secondly, her ability to handle

almost any issue on the board. this was a helluva prosecutor, she was a first-rate person. i would not have picture on the site that she was qualified to be president. from the very beginning. i made no bones about that. she is qualified to be president. that is why i picked her. [end video clip] host: president biden yesterday at the press conference following the nato summit. you can watch the entirety online at c-span.org. as we noted, more democratic congress members called for the president to step aside and campaign 2024. according to the ongoing list from "the washington post," the number of congressional democrats that have: him to drop out, 20. that list is continually updated. you can see the tracking day by

day. a big jump yesterday and calls for him to drop out of that race. six democratic numbers of congress calling him to step out, including the democratic congressman from illinois, scott peters of california, jim himes of connecticut, ranking member on the intelligence committee, greg stanton yesterday of arizona, bradley schneider of illinois, as well. you can see that list day by day, the comments that they make the calls. byron, democrat, what did you think? caller: to record to chemical. i see you are moving fast this morning. i would like to make three points. the first, lacks, we only -- blacks, we only have one country, and we have to stick diet. 2 -- stick by it. two, the thing about the supreme

court decision, biting can now do what he would like to do. the third point, victor or on -- victor or bond just visited putin last week. they should have issued an executive order that 60 days after a person meets with putin on one of those communist leaders, they cannot come to the united states. thank you. host: that is firing in baltimore, maryland, talking about russia. coming back to that "washington times" headline about gas taking center stage, it was during those solar press conferences or that happened, and it happened yesterday is president biden was introduced to state lome zelenskyy of ukraine to reporters at the nato summit. [video clip] pres. biden: now headed over to

the president of ukraine who has as much courage as determination, ladies and gentlemen, president clinton -- president putin. he's going to beat president pro utin. i'm so focused on beating russia, that i said president putin. >> i'm better. pres. biden: yes, you are. [end video clip] host: the press conference what about one hour and 50-something minutes as the president answered questions, the first time since the june 27 debate that began this barrage of questions on whether he should stay in the race. franklin, d.c., independent, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to chime in to say that after watching this couple of weeks now, i think this diagnosing from a distance that everybody has gotten comfortable

doing, it is pretty full is -- foolish, particularly from the hundreds and elected representatives who were leading the charge on it, they would like to have a conversation on whether or not he is the most effective messenger against donald trump. i think that is a valid conversation that they should have had a year ago. i think it is rather weird that they're coming out with this now, and it is important to point out the others that you listed who are out so far, have any plan or any better idea. just as a quick aside. i a 39-year-old man, i'm a paraplegic, i lived my entire life helping, i now with a permanent disability.

one in six people in the world have a disability, and that is not indicate necessarily anything about your ability to do any given thing that you would like. i think we in this country have a bad streak of anytime anybody shows any weakness, we are ready to call into account, though the amount, put them out to pasture, and as someone who personally has lived on both sides of that, this does strike a chord with me that i think biden is absolutely correct. his accomplishments speak for themselves, his experience speaks for itself. at the debate, it was awful. did he give bad speeches? he always has. a secret is ready to listen to sometimes? sure, but this is not a popularity contest, this is not -- somebody said the grammys --

i think bernie sanders said that. but we have turned it into that, which is why trump is impressive to some people because he goes out of his way to take on that strawman persona, but we need to step back from who we are and who we would like to be and who brings those attributes to the table. but it really is has become very uncomfortable to me -- not uncomfortable, but everybody is stepping back. everybody on the phone, everybody you have ever known or met is going to get old and decline, and there is going to be something wrong with all of you, if there already isn't. now, you tell me, does that mean you cannot do any given thing given people's perceptions of you? i think that is an entirely different conversation that we should all have with ourselves. host: lifer democrats, renee, florida -- line free democrats,

renee, florida. caller: i cannot agree with that man more. i think there is something with the algorithms they are feeding these people that makes them think that their opinion is the only thing that matters. i have seen so much media lately trying to call the shots, and instead of letting the voters decide, these congressmen and members, i would just like to say, i have watched c-span and all those hearings, and i watch all of your rallies, trumps rallies, items rallies -- trump's rallies, and biden's rallies, which are not as many as trump. i watch all of these, so i can say i know what is going on, and i see the media.

i don't know where they are coming from, but what happened to this country? when i was growing up, my grandmother had empathy for people with anything. joe biden has a stutter. my son started out with the stutter growing up. he had to learn to overcome that. i imagine when you get older and tired, that stutter comes back, and all the people running around in his head that he has to remember the names of, why aren't we talking about victor or bond -- victor or bond -- viktor orband being at mar-a-lago? and another thing, trump was convicted fraud by a jury of his peers. that is me and you that go out and listen and decide, and i

trust these people that are deciding stuff in our courts. host: renee in florida. reese in waco, texas, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: tigre. i just wanted to say it was absolutely disgusting. all it did was show how incompetent biden is. he has not had a cabinet meeting since october. the cabinet members say they are all being scripted and controlled, and now we know why they haven't brought -- they have not brought him out. everybody online saying he is just getting old, will that he is in the wrong business. i'm sorry. everybody gets old. they retire. that is wachovia needs to do, but they keep ringing him out there and showing to the world how weak the united