As I have mentioned before, one of the news sources I like to check is the UK's Telegraph. 

A "broadsheet" paper, meaning that it is part of the less boisterous, more staid media outlets. It leans right without being partisan, meaning that it doesn't shill for any side but simply presents the news from a center-right perspective. 

I like checking it because, first, it covers US politics well, and second, it does so without the spin or coverups. 

Case in point? The NATO summit. 

🗣️ Biden’s gaffe has ruined months of our hard work, say European officials https://t.co/EUX4i7xtt6

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 12, 2024

Apparently, things weren't so comforting for NATO diplomats behind the scenes. Despite the Prime Ministers of the UK and Germany defending Biden in public, diplomats were ticked as you can imagine behind closed doors. 

Biden was late, committed gaffes and stumbles, and reassured nobody that he could do the job as leader of the free world. 

Giorgia Meloni made international news when she was caught on camera rolling her eyes and making fun of Biden as the delegates waited an hour for Biden to finally show up to a meeting, and her colleagues clearly were sympathetic to her impatience. 

We’re all Meloni now

pic.twitter.com/bj1ECQJIXC

— John Carney—Trade Wars Are Good and Easy To Win (@carney) July 11, 2024

But more worrisome was the substantive concerns the world leaders have. 

Joe Biden’s gaffes have ruined months of hard work and undermined the Nato summit, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph.

On stage, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz defended the president over a slip of the tongue in which he called Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin”.

The US leader went on to call Kamala Harris “vice-president Trump”.

But roaming the corridors of the summit, aides were more frank in their verdict of the president’s performance. 

“It was awful,” an official said, describing standing in the crowd as events unfurled.

The consensus amongst diplomats and officials who spoke to The Telegraph, and were granted anonymity to speak more freely, was that it took less than a minute to change the narrative of an entire summit.

The sources realised they would be forced to read about the gaffe on tomorrow’s front pages instead of stories of their successes.

The point of the summit was to present a united and strong front against Russia and China, both for international consumption but also to their domestic audiences, who are as restless in Europe as they are in the United States. Perhaps more so. Everybody wanted to come out looking good.

Instead the front page headlines were Biden's gaffes, which gave Putin and the Chinese ample room to make fun of NATO. Not what they wanted, to say the least. 

There was also a sense of frustration that this moment would dominate questions put to other leaders in their final press conference before heading home.

Sir Keir Starmer was asked no fewer than three times if he thought President Biden was up to the task of running for a second term in the White House.

The Prime Minister said the US leader should be “given credit” for his work at the Nato summit, in defence of his ally.

He would’ve preferred to have been able to boast of his own achievements at the gathering instead of being the receiving end of diplomatically tricky questions. 

The Telegraph even has a running sort of blog covering the political train wreck in the United States, further undermining Biden's attempt to use his foreign policy chops to bolster the impression that he is not a drooling idiot who nobody respects in the wider world. 

It's not good when your allies are spending time wondering if and when your presidency collapses. 

Here's the current top story on the blog:

They have a helpful timeline of their posts, and it's not encouraging if you are a Biden supporter. 

Last night I commented on our shared live blog with Beege and Ed that I understood why Biden was leaning into foreign policy at a NATO summit, but pushing foreign policy to a domestic audience can't help Biden. Nobody cares. Perhaps they should, but Biden has done a terrible job on foreign policy anyway, and Americans are not obsessed with it the way that Elites are. 

Now it's pretty clear that, while Biden insists that everybody outside the United States thinks he is Bismarck and Metternich, they actually think he is a character from "Dumb and Dumber" and a liability. 

And while ordinary Americans probably don't care that much about what Georgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron think, the elites sure do. And it is the Elites who provide the money and political muscle to keep his campaign alive. 

That's the key problem Biden has right now, even more than Americans' doubts about him. The Elites want him gone.