The question is so, so obvious: Can you imagine Donald Trump giving that news conference?

Okay, early on, President Biden had one of his patented slip-ups, calling Vice President Harris “Vice President Trump.” He also introduced President Zelenskyy at the NATO summit as President Putin, before quickly correcting himself. It’s well known that Biden has committed these malapropisms throughout his long career in the Senate and in the White House. One reporter for NBC recalled that there was a blog, back in the days when there were blogs, called “Oh, Joe!” that reporters used to list his verbal miscues.

And then there was his nearly 10-minute answer about the intricacies of the U.S., NATO, and Pacific nations relationships with China; there was his command of information about NATO, which after all was the ostensible subject of the conference that just ended; there was his answer about Gaza, the Palestinians, and Israel, when he made one of his strongest condemnations of Israel’s “war cabinet;” and there was his quite detailed answer about discussions with NATO nations about increasing each nation’s capacity to produce its own military hardware and munitions.

And there were the answers that everyone on MSNBC said “made news.” He said delegates at the Democratic Convention in August can “vote their conscience.” In answer to one of the questions about how the race stands right now, Biden said he would listen to his advisers and staff if they come to him and make the case that he cannot win, and he said there “are other Democrats who can beat Trump.” Also making news was his statement that if his doctors think it is necessary, he will undergo another neurological exam.

This was the Joe Biden everyone who has paid attention to American politics for the last several decades remembers. It was the Joe Biden who turned people’s heads when he gave his most recent State of the Union address to Congress. And it was Joe Biden without a teleprompter, speaking off the cuff, answering questions from a press that was, if not clearly hostile, at least dubious about Biden as president and candidate.

At the end, when reporters were shouting questions at him, Biden paused and listened to the one from a reporter who brought up calling Vice President Harris “Vice President Trump.” The reporter said Trump was probably already talking about Biden’s mix up. What did Biden have to say about that?

“Listen to him,” Biden answered as he turned to walk off the stage, meaning listen to Trump.

Not enough listening to Donald Trump is being done by the mainstream press, which is one of the reasons I wrote the column last night with links to clips taken at Trump’s Doral rally on Tuesday. Biden is being watched by the media using a microscope, while they’re not even bothering to seriously cover Trump’s utterly unhinged rallies and statements he makes all the time that are outright lies. Trump’s statement that he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 and doesn’t know “who is behind it” was contradicted yesterday when someone posted on TwitterX a clip of Trump at a Heritage Foundation event congratulating them for Project 2025 and saying that he would put it into operation when he is elected.

From the mainstream media? Not a peep.

We’ll see how they deal with Biden’s exemplary performance and command of the issues and the facts at his press conference tonight. But don’t get your hopes up. The punditocracy was probably on their phones during the press conference texting their billionaire donor friends and the many, many Senators and Congressmen they are in regular contact with.

What did I take away from tonight? I saw Joe Biden teaching the world why he was elected president in 2020 and why he should be reelected in November. But I also saw Joe Biden at least open the door to stepping aside in favor of Kamala Harris if he becomes convinced that he cannot beat Donald Trump.

That is the good-willed, steady, admirable Joe Biden I remember, and I’m sticking with him until he makes a decision to turn over the reins to Vice President Harris. Then I will heartily support her. I would vote for a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield before I would vote for the lying, felonious rapist orange elephant that is Donald Trump.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.