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Biden’s debate performance is a blow that will leave a mark - The Washington Post [1]

['Karen Tumulty', 'Associate Editor']

Date: 2024-06-27

ATLANTA — Get ready for the Great Democratic Freakout. It will be difficult for even the most creative spinners in President Biden’s camp to manufacture a victory narrative out of his dreadful performance at Thursday night’s debate against his predecessor, Donald Trump. Which means the anxieties that Democrats have had all along about Biden’s decision to run for a second term will come to the fore, along with far-fetched scenarios in which he might be compelled to step aside. There will no doubt be talk of throwing open the Democratic convention in Chicago in August to pick a new nominee.

But the turmoil that would create would be catastrophic. Biden and Trump are the candidates that each party has cast its lot with — a choice that polls consistently show is the most distasteful one that Americans have faced in modern history.

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All along, Biden’s age has been the biggest concern that voters have about him. At 81, he is the oldest sitting president in history; he would be 86 by the end of a second term.

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The president’s performance on Thursday will have done nothing to allay their worries. He lost the debate from the first moments. His voice was weak and hoarse, shockingly so. At times, he struggled for words and appeared to lose his train of thought. It was a drastic contrast from the vigorous Biden who delivered a robust State of the Union speech in March.

Though Trump, at 78, is only three years younger than Biden, he dominated throughout.

The lowest moment for Biden — the one likely to be remembered the most, and replayed many times in coming days — came early in the debate, at the end of a rambling answer in which Biden concluded: “We finally beat Medicare.”

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Trump, predictably, pounced: “Well, he’s right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”

Then, in typical fashion, Trump went on to falsely claim that “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants would “destroy Social Security” and are weakening Medicare, as well. (In fact, the opposite is true. Undocumented immigrants actually strengthen both systems. They are barred by federal law from receiving Medicare and Social Security benefits, despite the fact that many pay into both programs.)

The fact-checkers no doubt will be sent into overdrive by the litany of lies that Trump delivered. And he was slippery when confronted with uncomfortable subjects — for instance, attempting to deflect a question about his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by talking about the state of the border and the economy on that day.

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But overall, Trump appeared better prepared and more disciplined than most anyone might have expected. There was some of the bluster and self-aggrandizement we are accustomed to seeing at his rallies, but this wasn’t the unhinged bully who showed up for his first debate with Biden four years ago. No doubt it worked to Trump’s benefit that he was constrained by a rule, insisted upon by Biden’s team, that required each candidate’s microphone to be shut off when it was not his turn to speak.

The showdown marked the first time in history that Americans have seen a former and current president side by side on a debate stage. By this point, they are well acquainted with the strengths and the weaknesses of both men. There is little mystery to where each stands on the major policy questions of the day. All of which heightened the degree to which this debate was about impression and performance.

Even when it came to the question he should have most expected — one from CNN’s Dana Bash about his “capability to handle the toughest job in the world well into your 80s” — Biden was rambling and incoherent, first talking about how he spent much of his career as the youngest person in politics and then launching into a disquisition about computer chips.

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Biden has tried to turn this election into a referendum on his opponent, which is always a hard thing for an incumbent to do — and particularly so for him. Biden’s job approval in a new Gallup poll is a dismal 38 percent, which is about where it has been for months and about 10 points below the threshold that all reelected incumbent presidents in the modern era have cleared by Election Day.

The same survey found Republicans were nearly twice as likely as Democrats to say they are pleased with their nominee, though fewer than half of those polled viewed either candidate favorably.

In calling for this debate, which was the earliest ever in a general election campaign, Biden was taking a big gamble, and hoping that it would shake the dynamic of a race that is excruciatingly close. He was right, but not in the way he hoped.

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[1] Url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/27/biden-trump-debate-democratic-freakout/

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