A defiant President Biden pushed back against his critics in a high-stakes press conference Thursday evening. But he continued to verbally stumble — and pressure continued to build. 

• President Biden insisted yet again he’s not stepping aside. But with the cameras rolling, he opened his press conference by accidentally referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.” That moment came shortly after he introduced visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin.” (Zelenskyy wise-cracked: “I’m better.”) Biden chalked up his disastrous debate in June to a lack of rest, which he called a “stupid mistake.” He insisted he’s kept up a more vigorous schedule than Trump. “I’ve just got to pace myself a little more,” he said, insisting “there’s no indication” he can’t get the job done. “The only thing age does,” Biden said, “is create a little bit of wisdom.”

• Biden said he won’t drop out of the race unless his advisors tell him, categorically, that he cannot win. “No one’s saying that,” Biden said, leaning into the microphone with a curious-sounding stage whisper. 

• Yet the ground continued to shift beneath him.  More than a dozen House Democrats have formally called on Biden to step aside, along with one Democratic Senator. Some longtime Biden staffers have begun quietly saying they think he’ll eventually step aside, and are strategizing about how to convince him to do so, the New York Times reported Thursday, citing three sources. Biden “will never recover from this,” and needs to get out of the race, a Biden campaign official told NBC News. The campaign is quietly polling Vice President Kamala Harris to determine the veep’s mettle in a hypothetical matchup with Trump, the Times also revealed.

• The Biden team dismissed last month’s debate debacle as a “setback,” but said it wasn't a “sea change,” in an internal memo circulated Thursday and obtained by What A Day. The campaign claimed to see multiple scenarios in which Biden can still hit 270 electoral votes, with the so-called Blue Wall states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as the “clearest pathway.” 

• The Biden camp contended that the race remains within the margin of error. But the reality is worse than the campaign is letting on, according to Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer. “Biden is behind,” Pfeiffer said. “He is behind nationally. He is behind in the swing states.” Biden’s path to victory has narrowed since the debate, and “gaslighting” from the president’s cheerleaders doesn’t change that reality, he said. “Biden was behind at the debate, he is now more behind because of the debate,” Pfeiffer said. 

• A slew of polls bear this out. Earlier this week, the Cook Political Report shifted Arizona, Nevada and Georgia from “toss up” states to “lean Republican.” The polling outfit also moved Minnesota, New Hamphsire and Nebraska’s Second Congressional district from “likely Democrat” to “lean Democrat.” Then, a new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll undercut the Biden campaign’s claim that only “elites” want the president to throw in the towel when it found 2 in 3 adults say Biden should drop out and that includes more than 7 in 10 independents. And a new Pew poll has Trump leading Biden by 4 points nationally.