Biden defiant on campaign trail but pressure mounts

DETROIT, United States — A fired up Joe Biden again rejected speculation he would quit the US presidential race and tried to turn the spotlight on rival Donald Trump as he took his crisis-hit reelection bid back on the campaign trail Friday.

But as he addressed a lively rally in the battleground state of Michigan, the drumbeat of Democrats urging the 81-year-old Biden to step aside kept getting louder following a disastrous debate performance against Trump.

"There's been a lot of speculation lately. What's Joe Biden going to do, is he going to stay in the race, is he going to drop out?" Biden told supporters in the city of Detroit, to chants of "Don't you quit!"

"Here's my answer: I am running and we're going to win! I'm not going to change that," Biden said.

Opposition continued to grow however despite a defiant Biden coming out fighting at a high-stakes press conference at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday.

Nineteen Democratic lawmakers have now called on him to bow out of the race due to concerns over his health and mental acuity in the wake of the June 27 debate debacle.

He told his first solo news conference for eight months that he was the "most qualified" person to run for president. It was watched by 24.2 million people in the United States, almost half the number who saw the debate.

A series of gaffes at the summit, including referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump" and mixing up Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, kept the focus on his fitness to serve.

At the Detroit rally Biden tried to brush off the blunders.

In scenes more reminiscent of rallies by his rival where the press are often abused, reporters in Detroit were booed after Biden addressed them and said they were "hammering me because I sometimes confuse names."

Biden then urged the media to focus on Trump's "lies" and on "Project 2025," a blueprint for power by hard-line conservatives that Democrats have said the former president would implement.

The 78-year-old Trump denies he is involved with the program

"Americans want a president not a dictator," Biden said to cheers. Referring to Trump's comment that he would only