President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump squared off in Atlanta on Thursday for the first of two scheduled presidential debates. While Trump delivered a strong performance marked by a series of scathing indictments of Biden’s tenure in the White House, Biden put forth what may go down as the worst single debate performance of any presidential candidate in history – one so bad that even the president’s staunchest allies in the corporate media were left openly suggesting he should be replaced as the Democrat nominee.
For Trump, the biggest success of the night was undoubtedly his ability to hammer home several key issues that will move votes and matter most to the American people.
On a broad level, Trump repeatedly accused Biden of destroying the country and being the “worst president ever.” Those charges, while undoubtedly subjective and arguable, landed because they channeled a deep anger among the American public that has been reflected in public polling on both Biden’s performance as president and general sentiment on the direction of the nation.
Trump also repeatedly mentioned that the border crisis is threatening to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare – a narrative that the corporate press has conspicuously avoided but that nonetheless surely caught the attention of high-propensity senior voters and those approaching retirement age.
The other issues Trump returned to time and again were likewise the items high on the list of things Americans care most about – inflation, illegal aliens taking American jobs, the Afghanistan debacle, and the decline of American prestige abroad. Just as he has so effectively throughout the course of his political career, Trump honed in on the concerns weighing on the mind of everyday Americans that the political class typically ignores.
One of the best moments for Trump – and the most humorous of the night – came when Biden attempted to drag the former president into a debate about who is the better golfer. After a few back-and-forth barbs, Trump implored Biden, “Let’s not act like children,” steering the conversation back toward the issue at hand. For a Biden campaign that has sought to portray Biden as “the bigger man” and the more serious candidate in the race, that seemingly minor exchange may prove devastating in terms of what it conveyed to the voters watching.
But that was hardly the worst moment for Biden – after all, he was at least coherent when he was talking about his golf game.
The same cannot be said of Biden’s performance during the rest of the debate, particularly during the first half when the largest number of people were watching. At several points during the first few minutes of the program, Biden stumbled over his words and looked visibly confused – appearing to confirm everything his opponents have been saying about his cognitive decline.
In fact, Biden was so incoherent at times that Trump even had trouble responding to his statements when given the opportunity. “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows either,” the former president said at one point following a rambling answer from Biden on immigration.
What little strategy Biden appeared to have centered on bringing up every debunked media con from the past eight years, from the thoroughly discredited “very fine people on both sides” story to the most recent “bloodbath” hoax. While that line of attack may prove effective in rallying diehard MSNBC and CNN fans, it likely did little to sway the Independents and disaffected Democrats more concerned about the cost of groceries and their mortgage than some ostensibly damming comment Trump supposedly made nearly a decade ago.
As a final display of just how weak and frail Biden appeared throughout the debate, First Lady Jill Biden was forced to gingerly help him down the stairs as the candidates departed.
But while Thursday’s debate provided viewers plenty of insights about Trump’s vision for the country and underscored serious questions about Biden’s physical fitness for office, the real headline may be the full-blown panic Biden’s performance incited from the liberal media.
Immediately following the debate, after a halfhearted attempt to explain away Biden’s poor performance by suggesting that the president had a “cold,” every panelist on both CNN and MSNBC acknowledged the undeniable – the night was a complete and unmitigated disaster for Biden’s re-election effort.
NBC’s Kristen Welker and Chuck Todd along with CNN’s John King and Abby Phillip and MSNBC’s Joy Reid all reported hearing “panic” from top Democrat operatives during the debate. Todd remarked that “Biden looks like the caricature that conservative media has been painting.” King described the feeling emerging among Democrats as a “deep, wide, and very aggressive panic.”
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s own former communications director, called his performance a “disappointment.” Former Obama advisor Van Jones described watching the debate as simply “painful.”
Even more concerningly for team Biden, several normally friendly voices in the media have now begun openly speculating about replacing him on the Democrat ticket. For a media establishment that has thus far gone to great lengths to spin all of Biden’s failures as successes and cover for all of his gaffes, this response felt like a watershed moment.
The second and final debate is not scheduled until September 10, after the RNC and DNC conventions. But now more than ever, Americans are right to wonder if the same two candidates will be standing on that stage.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
