President Joe Biden’s performance in the first debate against former President Donald Trump was meant to soothe concerns from voters and Democrats about his age and mental fitness to continue serving another four years but an uneven performance in Atlanta has reignited those problems for some.
A rocky start with a hoarse voice as the president is reportedly dealing with a cold that exacerbated issues with stumbling over words, struggling to clearly rebut points made by Trump and appearing to lose his train of thought. It was a stark contrast from his State of the Union address earlier this year, where Biden was energetic and defiant, raising baseless claims about him using performance-enhancing drugs from Trump and his allies.
While the State of the Union performance provided some optimism, Thursday night’s debate performance is doing the opposite. Biden improved as the night went along, landing some forceful shots against Trump’s character issues and legal troubles, but also failed to forcefully combat Trump’s messaging on several issues and struggled to clearly convey his talking points in spots.
Just minutes into the debate, he struggled to defend his stewardship of the economy and the specifics of how he was able to lower the cost of insulin and get Medicare the right to negotiate for the cost of prescription drugs. At one point in the answer, he incorrectly said how much his administration lowered the price of insulin and said, “we finally beat Medicare.”
Trump jumped on the gaffe immediately, responding, “That’s right, he did beat Medicaid, he beat it to death. And he’s destroying Medicare.”
The former president tried to play up Biden’s stumbles even when he gave a clean response to a question. In response to one of Biden’s answers on dealing with immigration, Trump charged that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“While talking about the border, Biden said, “I’m going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the — the total initiative, relative to what we can do with more border patrol and more asylum officers.”
“I really don’t know what he said at the end of this and I don’t think he knows what he said either,” he said after Biden finished answering a question about the border.
Even former close advisers to the president were unenthused with his performance on Thursday night.
“Look, it was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden. I don’t think there’s any other way to slice it,” former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said on CNN.
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His campaign has tried to steer messaging toward the debate still showing a contrast between Trump and Biden that works in their favor.
“It was a slow start, that’s obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point.
“I’m talking about the choice in November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime. And do we want to look at what November will bring and go on a course for America that is about a destruction of democracy?” Vice President Kamala Harris told newsmen.
Biden’s advisers have batted back calls from some to have him drop out of the race for someone younger, an idea that never took off with potential primary challengers or voters as Biden cruised through primaries without any serious challengers. But his performance has reignited those calls from some.
Andrew Yang, who challenged Biden for the 2020 nomination before starting a third party, said in a post on X that Biden should drop out of the race.
“What’s Joe Biden’s superpower? That he’s a good guy who will do the right thing for the country. In this case, that’s stepping aside and letting the DNC choose another nominee. #swapJoeout” Yang wrote.
No incumbent president has ever dropped out of a reelection race and it’s unclear what would happen for Democrats even if Biden make the highly unlikely decision to drop out. Harris also has very low approval ratings and many of the other likely options like Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom of California or Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are untested on a national stage.
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