- Experts say while Europe is better prepared, Trump remains ‘unpredictable’
Senior European officials have called on the US Democratic Party to axe Joe Biden following his disastrous Thursday night performance over fears a win for Trump could spell disaster for Ukraine.
‘We’re very concerned because we, more or less, understand what it means for Ukraine, a Biden presidency, and we really don’t know what it means for Ukraine, a Trump presidency,’ Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told CNN.
While Biden, 81, has backed Ukraine with billions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid in defiance of Putin‘s reign of terror since 2022, Trump, 78, has threatened to cut spending, raised questions over the future of NATO and ominously said he could end the war in ‘one day’ if elected.
Michael Link, a German FDP politician, said Biden’s party should ‘consider who is best placed to prevent Trump from returning to office using his usual methods – allegations, insults, distortions, outright lies,’ as reported by The Telegraph.
Allies within the Democratic Party acknowledged the difficulty Biden had in getting words out at this week’s event in Atlanta, Georgia, some warning there was ‘panic’ in the party as others suggested it was time for change.
Biden managed to reassure supporters somewhat at a rally in North Carolina on Friday, appearing with more energy and intelligibility and vowing to ‘get back up’ and ‘defend democracy’.
Speaking in the swing state on Friday, Biden told several hundred supporters that despite not being as young as he used to be, ‘I know how to tell the truth’.
‘I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth.
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‘I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.
‘I would not be running again if I did not believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job.’
Still, critics continue to voice concerns it might not be enough to persuade key voters and defeat Trump in 2024.
Around the world, there is growing concern that if Trump is re-elected, support for Ukraine may too dry up – allowing Putin to steamroll through Europe and setting a dangerous precedent for bellicose dictators to act with impunity.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz previously cheered on Biden’s prospects for re-election, but a senior defence figure in the ruling coalition lamented Biden’s performance and urged Democrats to find another candidate.
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‘The fact that a man like Trump could become president again because the Democrats are unable to put up a strong candidate against him would be a historic tragedy that the whole world would feel,’ Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, of the liberal FDP party, told the Rheinische Post paper.
A spokesperson for Scholz did not comment on the specifics of the debate, but said the chancellor valued Biden highly and had never spoken to Trump as their terms did not overlap.
‘Joe Biden can’t do it,’ said Matteo Renzi, a centrist who was close to the Democrats while serving as Italy’s prime minister.
Renzi said on Twitter/X that Biden had served the United States with honour, adding: ‘He doesn’t deserve an inglorious ending, he doesn’t deserve one. Changing horses is a duty for everyone.’
Radosław Sikorski, the veteran foreign affairs minister for Poland, wrote ‘it’s important to manage one’s ride into the sunset’ in a cryptic reflection on legendary Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ ‘screwed up’ succession, ‘starting Rome’s decline’.
‘Marcus Aurelius was a great emperor but he screwed up his succession by passing the baton to his feckless son Commodus (He, from the Gladiator),’ he wrote on Twitter/X.
‘Whose disastrous rule started Rome’s decline. It’s important to manage one’s ride into the sunset.’
‘American democracy killed before our eyes by gerontocracy!’ added Guy Verhofstadt, a member of the European parliament and a former prime minister of Belgium who posted pictures of Biden and Trump on X.
‘Unlike eight years ago, we are much more prepared, as are other European and Asian allies,’ said Kunihiko Miyake, a Japanese former diplomat and now research director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, a think tank.
‘Still, Mr Trump is unpredictable.’
Biden refused to stand down after his performance on Thursday night, urging that in spite of his age he still knew how to do the job and would defend American democracy against perceived threats.
During the debate, Trump claimed that US veterans ‘can’t stand’ Joe Biden and appeared to the president for Putin’s invasion.
‘As far as Russia and Ukraine, if we had a real president, a president that knew – that was respected by Putin, he would have never – he would have never invaded Ukraine,’ he claimed.
‘I’ve never heard so much malarkey in my whole life,’ Biden responded to Trump’s statement.
‘If you take a look at what Trump did in Ukraine, he’s – this guy told Ukraine – told Trump, do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. And that’s exactly what Trump did to Putin, encouraged him, do whatever you want. And he went in,’ Biden said.
Trump did say that Putin’s terms – keeping the occupied territory in Ukraine – were ‘unacceptable’ to him, before talking about the cost of the war.
Trump said Biden had given ‘$200 billion now or more to Ukraine’.
Between February 2022 and February 2024, the US delivered or committed weapons and equipment worth $46.2bn (£36.52bn) to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute – amounting to about 0.18 per cent of GDP.
Smaller sums were offered in humanitarian aid support and budget support.
Trump has meanwhile boasted that he could stop the war in Ukraine in just ‘one day’.
Speaking on GB News last year he said: ‘If I were president, I [would] end that war in one day. It’ll take 24 hours. I will get that ended. It would be easy.
‘That deal would be easy. A lot of it has to do with the money. That war has to be stopped. It is a disaster.’
Reuters reported earlier this week that two advisers close to Trump have presented him with a plan to end the war that involves threatening to withhold weapons unless Ukraine enters into peace talks with Russia.
Ukraine has vowed not to give up any of its land to Russia.