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For Democrats who watched Thursday night’s debate looking to allay their concerns about President Joe Biden’s age and acuity, they found no solution. Ten minutes into the event organized by CNN, some of Biden’s most loyal supporters wondered whether the nomination was, in fact, a done deal.
How bad was it? Vice President Kamala Harris rushed to join the cleanup, scheduling late-night cable TV appearances.
“Yes, there was a slow start, but a strong finish,” said Harris, whose prospects of replacing her boss at the top of the ticket were being closely scrutinized in real time as the debate unfolded. “Listen, people can debate about issues of style, but ultimately this election and who is President of the United States has to be a matter of substance, and the contrast is clear,” she told CNN, in a demonstration unity with your boss.
At times shocking and deserving of surprise, the night left Democratic members shocked. His campaign team tried to mask the disaster, but there was no denying that things didn’t go as planned. And with a painful 53 days until Democrats have their next big night in front of a national audience with the opening of their nominating convention in Chicago, the awkward impression left Thursday night will be the image that endures for a long time.
Biden has faced crucial nights like this before, the most analogous being his March State of the Union. Then, as now, voters looked more at Biden’s performance than substance. Fears about the President’s capabilities eased a little when Biden nailed this performance. No one would say anything close to that on Thursday.
At times appearing paralyzed and at other times confused, Biden rambled during a 90-minute session against former President Donald Trump. Although the night settled down and Biden relaxed, the initial burst of anxiety among Democrats was not the prototypical bed-wetting that the president’s inner circle has proven adept at ignoring. The split screen was impossible to ignore: Not only was Trump more restrained than is typical of him, but he seemed more steady, even as he sidestepped specific issues in favor of populist platitudes.
Biden took the stage with small, slow steps. He often stood with both hands on the pulpit. He looked down for a few uncomfortable moments, looking lost. And some of his responses strayed completely from his intended objectives, such as his invocation of Americans murdered by those in the country illegally. The issue at stake? About the right to abortion.
“I spent half my career being criticized for being the youngest,” Biden said when asked directly about his age. Then, spontaneously, he started talking about computer chips. of Trump.
There are some facts that no performance – even impeccable – can erase or reverse. These are the two oldest presumptive candidates in history. The presidency harms everyone, and both men moved into the Oval Office when they were not yet young. By the time of their first head-to-head debate in 2020, they looked like patrician party leaders trying to stabilize a nation torn apart by a pandemic. Four years haven’t helped him look younger either, and there’s no denying that Biden, in particular, looks a little less steady, his voice a little thinner, his punches a little duller. Certainly, this Biden is not the man who ended the panic within Democratic circles in 2012, after Barack Obama’s first objectively terrible debate against Mitt Romney.
The stakes for a night like this are always high. Americans face a choice between an 81-year-old sage with a literal senatorial streak and traces of forgetfulness or a 78-year-old braggart dragging criminal convictions and looming indictments behind him. At the heart of the decision is a posed by Ronald Reagan in the only debate of the 1980 presidential race: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
see more information: Our exclusive interview with President Joe Biden
The debate comes at a time of fierce campaigning, with Trump narrowly leading in most countries. researches and become stronger in the handful of states that will ultimately decide the race. Trump has narrowed Biden’s fundraising advantage and appears to have paid no real price for his 34 criminal convictions in New York. And it’s not exactly a secret, even among Biden’s biggest supporters, that the incumbent needed to oust him on Thursday..
“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either,” Trump said in an opening statement that was harsh. “We’re trying to justify his presidency,” he said later.
Biden’s actions did little to remedy this reality. Message chains among Washington Democrats evolved as the night unfolded in paralyzing anxiety. “Unintelligible must have been the [closed captioning],” mused a senior Democratic strategist. “It would have been the most honest thing.”
Panic is not a very strong word to describe some of these conversations. More than a few text chains asked who knew the Democratic National Committee’s rules about how a candidate is blocked. All of the older strategists still hoping to be part of Biden’s orbit appeared to have found themselves on flights Thursday night, unable to comment because they claimed they weren’t even watching.
Trump is, at his core, a showman with few beliefs of his own. Biden, who has half a century of debating experience under his belt and spent a week isolated at Camp David practicing for the debate, did not put on a corresponding spectacle. Instead, Biden tried to prosecute the fact-based case against Trump while his predecessor danced around the details and hurled invectives across the 8-foot distance between the men.
“He is paid by China. He is a Manchurian Candidate,” Trump said.
A cheap shot, of course. But it’s something that sounds much louder than almost anything Biden had on hand.
“If he wins this election, our country won’t have a chance,” said Trump, once again making vague warnings.
A disturbing echo of that sentiment continued to emerge: If Biden remains the nominee, Democrats might not be the nominee either.
There were still small reasons for Democrats to maintain hope, however faint. Trump remains a petty figure who continues to insist that the 2020 election was fraudulent and therefore illegitimate. He continues to promise revenge against those he feels have wronged him. “Joe may be a convicted felon,” Trump said. “This man is a criminal.” And Trump – who It is a convicted criminal – continued to throw inaccurate statements and innuendos while blatantly misrepresenting their own stories.
“The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” Biden said.
Biden also tried to fact-check Trump and landed some rehearsed barbs. “You have the morals of a stray cat,” Biden said in a sharp turn of phrase, recounting a litany of Trump’s history.
But Biden’s retorts were no match for Trump’s antagonism. It was clear that Biden had prepared, but he suffered the curse of someone who memorizes a script without understanding any of its subtext. To remember the words he hammered out, he often seemed to be staring into space.
Meanwhile, Trump simply showed up and made a coded appeal to his supporters.
“You destroyed so many people’s lives,” Trump said, accusing Biden of ruining the lives of innocent individuals linked to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. He continued to insist that the rioters who ransacked the Capitol be escorted by police. And despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Trump continued to indulge in the Big Lie that he had actually won but the results were rigged.
“There is no evidence,” Biden said.
Was he right. But that’s the norm when it comes to Trump. What is not the norm — at least not for most Americans — is seeing a president seem to sleepwalk through 90 minutes of live television. The Ambien-induced ride could become ambient noise in politics if Democrats don’t have a plan to change history.
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