According to Donald Trump, Joe Biden is either a very talented debater or a completely incompetent debater.
When details of the presidential debate, which takes place in Atlanta on Thursday, were announced last month, Trump mocked Biden as “the WORST debater I’ve ever faced,” adding, “He can’t put two sentences together.” And yet, speaking on the All-In podcast last week, Trump praised Biden’s performance in the 2012 vice presidential debate.
“He destroyed Paul Ryan,” Trump said. “So I’m not underestimating him.”
The twist could be Trump’s belated effort to temper expectations about his performance in the face of an incumbent president with extensive debate experience. With four presidential campaigns and two terms as vice president under his belt, Biden knows the debate scene well and has demonstrated a keen ability to launch scathing attacks on his opponents.
But as a sitting president who has faced historically high inflation and multiple foreign wars since taking office, Biden enters his next debate with a unique set of challenges he will have to overcome to convince voters to re-elect him. Although Biden, 81, is only a few years older than Trump, 78, voters expressed more worry more about the president’s age than his opponent’s, and he will try to address those concerns in the debate.
These five memorable moments from Biden’s latest debates offer some insight into the president’s strengths — and vulnerabilities:
A Lasting Dig on Giuliani
In 2024, Biden is the President of the United States while Rudy Giuliani is Trump’s disgraced former lawyer. But in 2007, both men were presidential candidates. As a former New York mayor who led the city after the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani was widely seen as a front-runner in the 2008 Republican primaries.
During a Democratic primary debateBiden mocked Giuliani as “the least qualified man since George Bush to run for president,” arguing that he was incapable of presenting a coherent proposal for his candidacy.
“There are only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11. There is nothing else,” Biden said.
The debate audience greeted the joke with laughter and applause, and the remark became one of the most enduring criticisms of Giuliani, whose presidential campaign ultimately failed spectacularly, giving way to an even more shameful downfall. Biden will try to come up with similarly memorable lines of attack against Trump on Thursday.
A sad moment during the Sarah Palin debate
Before the 2008 vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin had already made headlines for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric and Tina Fey’s devastating impersonation of Alaska’s self-proclaimed “hockey mom.”
Biden’s debate strategy was based on boosting his credentials without falling into condescension against Palin, who invoked the importance of the American “Joe Six-pack” in an apparent effort to paint his opponent as out of touch. Biden confronted the criticisms head on by referencing his family history and the death of his first wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972, demonstrating how he met the difficulties in his life.
“I understand what it’s like to be a single parent,” Biden said. “I understand what it’s like to sit at the kitchen table with a father who says: ‘I have to leave, champion, because there are no jobs here…’
“The notion that somehow, because I’m a man, I don’t know what it’s like to raise two children alone, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child that you’re not sure you’re going to make it. – I understand. I also understand, with all due respect to the governor or anyone else, what it’s like for those people sitting at the kitchen table. And guess what? They are looking for help.”
The exchange marked one of the most humanizing moments of the debate for Biden, who has now developed a reputation as comforter-in-chief. Biden’s ability to connect his personal story to voters’ lives could give him an edge over Trump, who has struggled to do the same.
A challenge to Paul Ryan’s experience
While Biden may have followed a more careful debate strategy in 2008, he came out in 2012 against Paul Ryan, who was then Mitt Romney’s running mate.
Like Ryan explained With his plan to cut taxes by 20% while preserving benefits for middle-class workers, Biden criticized the proposal as “mathematically impossible.” Whenever Ryan tried to justify the policy, Biden quickly jumped in to criticize.
Ryan then said, “Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates and increased growth.”
Biden replied: “Oh, are you Jack Kennedy now?”
The comment alluded to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen’s infamous speech mockery by Republican Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice-presidential debate, and appeared to successfully deflate some of Ryan’s grand vision for a new tax system.
If Biden follows a similar approach on Thursday, it could serve two goals: undermining Trump and assuaging concerns about the president’s mental acuity.
A rebuke to Trump’s constant interruptions
The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 was defined by chaos. Trump spoke repeatedly about Biden, while even moderator Chris Wallace struggled to say a word. At one point, Biden attempted to answer a question about the Supreme Court, but continued to be derailed by Trump’s comments about the “radical left” and efforts to “pack the Court.”
Then, Biden reached his breaking point. “Will you shut up, man?” he told Trump. “This is so unpresidential.”
The comment could have sounded flippant, but instead it seemed to resonate with viewers as an attempt to inject order into a debate that sorely needed it. Looking ahead to Thursday, CNN decision Muting candidates’ microphones when it’s not their turn to speak could prevent similar interruptions, but Biden’s willingness to stand up to Trump could still work to his advantage.
An unforgettable instruction for the Proud Boys
Perhaps the most memorable moment of the first debate between Biden and Trump came when Wallace asked Trump to specifically condemn white supremacist and militia groups. Despite the simplicity of the request, Trump tried and failed to ignore the issue.
“Almost everything I see comes from the left wing, not the right,” Trump said. Pressed by Wallace, he added: “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”
Biden responded: “Say it. Do it. It says.”
Trump then asked, “What do you want to call them? Give me a name.”
Biden provided the name of the Proud Boys, a far-right, neo-fascist group, and Trump then issued this infamous instruction: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
The comment reinforced Democrats’ warnings about Trump’s power over the far-right faction of his party, which seemed prescient after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Former Proud Boys national president Enrique Tarrio was later sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in orchestrating the attack.)
As he prepares for his next debate, Biden will again try to make clear to Trump his relationship with far-right groups and the violence they have caused.
