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Democrats walked out of Thursday night’s presidential debate in a panic as President Biden’s appearance left Americans questioning his ability to govern for another term.
Though he was well prepared with facts and figures, Biden’s shaky voice and shaky demeanor without a teleprompter quickly made headlines at the debate.
His raspy voice, halting answers and occasional incoherent remarks revealed a side of Biden that had previously been carefully hidden.
Biden criticized for ‘old’ appearance and ‘weak’ voice during first presidential debate: ‘Very disturbing’
It will be difficult for Biden to recover from this performance and the risky gamble his campaign took by holding an early debate.
There were no “cheap fake” videos here. The real videos will be flooding the internet on Friday because sometimes the spin on a debate is more important than the debate itself. And the spin on this debate is all one-sided.
Nearly every focus group and pundit agrees that the Biden campaign has suffered a major blow: It was already trailing in the polls, and this win was meant to be a milestone boost for it.
The Biden-Trump presidential debate was an unprecedented event
The best the campaign can hope for is a well-staged convention that can repair the damage and revisit the nominees. There will be some debate about a new nominee, but as David Axelrod pointed out, the delegates were chosen through a democratic process, the votes were cast, and only Joe Biden can change that. The party will continue to solidify its support for Biden.
President Biden’s campaign was already lagging in the polls, and this was meant to be a landmark event to boost it.
Former President Donald Trump, by contrast, remained calm no matter what insults were hurled at him, and he kept repeating his message on immigration over and over again, even though he had few facts or figures to work with.
Trump has brushed off various traps aimed at him, including retaliation, respecting the election results and postponing January 6th, and has claimed that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had turned down 10,000 National Guard troops that Trump had allegedly offered in advance.
The Biden-Trump presidential debate was an unprecedented event
There was no handshake before or after the highly personal debate, which saw accusations of “felon,” “criminal” and “liar” hurled.
The low point of the debate was a serious argument over golf handicaps.
Why did the president’s team convene this debate? It’s a question that will be debated for a long time.
The moderators were surprisingly fair and asked fairly issue-oriented and relevant questions about domestic and foreign affairs. The moderators were polite and invited the candidates to answer questions but did not comment on candidates who did not answer.
On these issues, Mr Trump has generally played sensible roles, always returning to immigration, calling retaliation a “success” and rejecting the idea of a national abortion ban.
Surprisingly, Trump did not repeat his policy of not taxing tips. He defended his corporate tax cuts and his China policy. Perhaps his best line was calling Biden a Palestinian, a bad Palestinian, and saying he would get the job done on Israel.
After all, Biden threw out all the names and negative stories about Trump, false or not, and Trump hit back. Voters don’t care about personal animosity.
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In the end, it wasn’t what the candidates said that mattered, but how they said it. Trump didn’t seem to have done much preparation for this debate, other than an apparent determination to keep his cool. He succeeded in that objective.
Biden was clearly trying to memorize his closing and other key answers, but it didn’t help.
Naturally, there will be new criticism of Attorney General Garland’s refusal to turn over tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with the president, because they likely reflect an unstable president and the transcripts may have been redacted.
Democrats have done everything they can to eliminate the Democratic primary, whether it be Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Dean Phillips. Biden has never been tested in that process and has managed to avoid all but the most favorable circumstances until this debate.
So why did the president’s team convene this debate? It’s a question that will be debated for a long time.
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Regardless of the circumstances or the rules, Donald Trump, despite his lead in the polls, quickly decided to embrace the opportunity, confident that he could present a stronger and more consistent performance than Biden.
As it turned out, he was right.
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