New British PM says Biden on ‘really good form’ after meeting

Sir Keir Starmer, the new British prime minister, said President Biden was on “really good form” after the two leaders met at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., this week.

Starmer sat for an interview with the BBC after his visit.

He was asked about the growing number of people concerned about Biden’s health, his ability to beat former President Trump in the upcoming election, and his ability to serve another four years if reelected.

“We had a really good bilateral yesterday. We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour,” Starmer said. “We went through a huge number of issues at pace.”

“It was actually a really good form,” he continued, adding that Biden “absolutely across all detail.”

Starmer became the U.K. prime minister last week in the Labour Party’s landslide victory.

He said the meeting with Biden was “very important to” him because it was his first opportunity to have a bilateral meeting.

“He’s shown incredible leadership,” the prime minister said of Biden.

Starmer, like many other international leaders, was Washington for the 75th anniversary of NATO. He said the world leaders were in agreement that NATO countries “face more threats now than we’ve faced for many years.”

“President Biden has led through … some of the most challenging issues, actually, that we are facing globally,” he said.

Starmer said he and Biden covered a lot of strategic ground in their meeting, not only the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

The meeting and NATO summit come as Democrats struggle internally with what to do ahead of this November’s election. As of Thursday, 14 House Democrats and one Democratic Senator have called on Biden to step aside and let someone else run.

Biden’s performance at the debate sparked the turmoil and left the party in a panic. The summit was seen as an opportunity for Biden to reassure the public and world leaders that he is up for the job.

For the second time in the interview, the prime minister said Biden “was on good form.”

“So, I was actually really pleased to have the opportunity to be clear about a special relationship and about our longstanding commitment to NATO at this really important time,” Starmer said.