Biden mixes up Zelenskiy, Putin names as calls to end campaign grow

(Corrects spelling of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in first paragraph)

By Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" on Thursday, as more members of his Democratic party called on the 81-year-old to drop his bid for re-election.

"And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden said at the NATO summit in Washington, drawing gasps from those in the room.

"Going to beat President Putin, President Zelenskiy. I am so focused on beating Putin," Biden said while correcting himself.

The gaffe came shortly before a highly anticipated news conference where Biden hopes to ease fellow Democrats' fears that he no longer has the ability to beat Republican Donald Trump in the November election, or to lead the country for another four-year term.

So far, 13 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate's 51 Democrats have appealed publicly to the president to withdraw from the race.

Top officials at the United Auto Workers union met on Thursday to discuss their concerns with his candidacy, three sources familiar with the matter said, after endorsing Biden in January. The 400,000-member union has a big presence in industrial states like Michigan that Biden will need to carry to win re-election.

During his solo news conference on Thursday evening, Biden will have to respond to questions on a wide range of topics -- including his fitness for another four years in the White House.

Biden's campaign has been on the ropes for two weeks, since his poor debate performance against Donald Trump, his 78-year-old Republican rival.

Top advisers met with Senate Democrats to try to quell further defections. His campaign argued that the debate has not dramatically shifted the race, even as it laid out a narrow path to re-election that acknowledged that it faced an uphill climb in many states he won in 2020.

Before the news conference, four more Democrats in the House of Representatives called on Biden to end his campaign: Brad Schneider of Illinois, Greg Stanton of Arizona, Ed Case of Hawaii, and Hillary Scholten of Michigan.

"For our country's sake, it is time for the President to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders," Stanton said in a prepared statement.

Others stopped short of calling for Biden to drop out, even as they questioned his ability to lead the country. "I doubt the President’s judgment about his health, his fitness to do the job, and whether he is the one making important decisions about our country, rather than unelected advisors," Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement.

None of the party's leaders in Congress have called for Biden to end his candidacy, though former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday declined to say he should stay in the race.

Some Senate Democrats said they were still uncertain about Biden's ability to win after meeting with Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and other top aides.

The campaign has commissioned a survey to test how Vice President Kamala Harris would fare if she were to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Harris would fare no better than Biden if she were the Democratic nominee, as both were statistically tied with Trump.

The New York Times reported that some longtime advisers were considering ways to convince him to drop his reelection bid, while NBC News reported that some campaign staffers thought he stood no chance of winning the election.

ALL EYES ON THE NEWS CONFERENCE

Congressional Democrats will be watching closely later this evening when Biden fields questions from the White House press corps.

At his first formal solo news conference since November 2023, Biden will have to speak on a wide range of topics - including likely questions on whether his doctors have found evidence of mental decline.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Biden and Trump tied at 40% each. Other opinion polls have found Trump widening his lead over Biden, and some strategists have warned that Trump stood a chance of winning reliably Democratic states like New Hampshire and Minnesota.

In their strategy memo, the campaign argued that it has always expected a close election and could win by focusing on three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

If he won those states, along with others considered to be reliably Democratic, he would win 270 electoral votes -- the bare minimum needed to secure the presidency. Biden won 306 electoral votes in 2020.

The campaign characterized other battleground states he won in 2020 as "not out of reach."

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose and Andy Sullivan; additional reporting by Allende Miglietta, Tyler Clifford, Richard Cowan, Jasper Ward, Jarrett Renshaw, Makini Brice, Andrea Shalal, Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Scott Malone, Deepa Babington, Alistair Bell and Diane Craft)