Blinken praises Biden for restoring Global confidence in US leadership

• Blinken defended President Joe Biden’s performance in the recent debate against Donald Trump.
• Blinken emphasized that Biden’s policies have increased global confidence in American leadership.
• He emphasized that global media outlets are focusing on Biden’s accomplishments since taking office.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to criticism of President Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s debate. He asserted that Biden’s policies over the past three and a half years have boosted confidence in American leadership worldwide.

With global media outlets expressing alarm at Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump, Blinken was asked at a Brookings Institute event what “friends and foes” around the world should know about US leadership under Biden.

Blinken said people around the world are focusing on what Biden has accomplished since taking office, not just one debate performance, and that they appreciate his policies.

“They’ve seen a president who’s reinvested America, reinvested America in the world, reinvested in these alliances, in these partnerships in ways that they seek and want,” Blinken said.

Many Americans expressed dismay at both candidates after last Thursday’s 90-minute debate on CNN. Biden, the 81-year-old Democratic incumbent, stumbled over some answers and trailed off during others, his voice hoarse from a cold. Republican Trump, 78, repeated several outrageous claims that have been proven false many times, including assertions that he won the 2020 election, which Biden did not refute.

Since Thursday, it was the first time that Blinken, the top US diplomat and a long-serving aide to Biden, was asked about the debate. He emphasized Biden’s performance in office.

“If you look at surveys around the world, for what they’re worth, you see it again and again and again, that confidence in American leadership has gone up dramatically over the last 3-1/2 years,” he said.

“That doesn’t just happen. … It’s the product of policies that we pursue, it’s the product of our engagement. And they see President Biden having led the way in all of those different areas, and in ways that are bringing people together and focused in the same way on the challenges that we have before us and that are common to so many other countries.”

Biden supporters had hoped the debate would dispel worries that he was too old for another term, but instead, it fueled concerns. Some Democrats have called for Biden to drop out of the race.

Biden’s performance sparked cries of alarm in global media. France’s newspaper Le Monde compared Biden to a shipwreck. Britain’s left-leaning Daily Mirror labeled his performance a “gaffe-strewn nightmare.” The Sydney Morning Herald stated, “Trump monstered Biden. The Democrats can’t win with Joe.”

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