How did Joe Biden and Donald Trump perform in the first US presidential debate of the 2024 election season? Our writers give their views on the debate.
Now I’m certain: Donald Trump will win in November.
Joe Biden called for a summer debate to remind voters of Trump’s extremism. Instead he showcased his own senility. There’s no way to be polite. This wasn’t a debate, it was a medical emergency – the president resembling an animated corpse, his voice so weak it sounded like the whisper of leaves around an ancient tomb. Never mind, will he last four years? The audience wasn’t sure he’d last 90 minutes.
Trump, yes, had his faults. He exaggerated his achievements; was hyperbolic about Mr Biden’s failings. The nation has apparently become “a third world country”, a “rat trap” and “Hell”. Mr Biden is a Chinese agent and an honorary Palestinian (though a “bad” one). At points he outright lied: in the section on Roe v Wade, he said every legal expert wanted to get rid of the Supreme Court ruling – which is very untrue. Mr Biden’s high point was probably accusing Trump of having had sex with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, though “porn” sounded to me like “pork”, which boggles the mind.
A tetchy, nasty debate deteriorated at the end into a row about who has the lowest handicap – reminding us that Trump isn’t much younger than Mr Biden. The evening had the feel of a row in a retirement community.
On the other hand, the disciplined mic-control and CNN’s tight questioning actually played to the Republican’s advantage: unable to shout Mr Biden down, Trump was less distasteful than usual, and wisely let Joe’s physical decline speak for itself. He hit immigration hard: it’s his best issue. The key thing is that Trump hasn’t really changed since 2016. The years have been good to him and the fake tan pays off. Only the hair was a misfire: flatter than usual, he appeared to have stepped out of a weak shower.
Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom would’ve made mincemeat out of Trump, even Kamala Harris. But the Democrats have chosen to renominate a man who, when he stared down at his notes – presumably written in enormous font – looked as if he had briefly died. He stuttered. He rambled. Here’s one full Biden quote on healthcare: “Making sure we are able to make every single solitary person, er, eligible for what I have been able to do with, uh, Covid – excuse me, with dealing with everything we’ve been able to do with, er… Look, if… we’ve finally beat Medicare.”
Trump replied to this nonsense: “He’s right, he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.” An appropriate follow-up question would have been: “Do you know where you are, Mr President, and will someone drive you home?”
The Democrats must think seriously about replacing him. It would be difficult; it would require Mr Biden stepping aside before the convention. The man is plainly deluded about his health – but maybe showing him video of this debate would convince him that not only is he risking a Trump election victory but, even if he won, it would be dangerous to allow such an ailing man to run a superpower.
The first Trump debate, against Hillary Clinton, was hilarious. His first against Mr Biden was amusing in its own crazy way, and Mr Biden probably won it by refusing to be steamrollered. But watching this was a very painful, embarrassing moment for the United States. The Democrats should end the Biden candidacy, before God does.
Tonight’s debate was the biggest disaster for Joe Biden since this race began.
White House aides have spent the last three weeks claiming that any stories about the US president’s age and mental capacity were manipulated “cheapfakes” or outright lies.
But those at home watching the two men on stage tonight were left with an unavoidable conclusion: Mr Biden struggled to hold his own, and Donald Trump wiped the floor with him.
As the event opened, the camera first panned to Mr Biden as he made his way on to the platform, his microphone picking up the sound of him mumbling to himself.
In the first words he spoke, it became clear the seven days of intense prep had led to him losing his voice. He sounded croaky and feeble.
From then on, every answer Mr Biden gave contained at least one sentence that trailed off, or a series of words that were incomprehensible to the TV audience.
The most excruciating moment came ten minutes in, when Mr Biden gave a rambling answer about the national debt. His response trailed off into a thought on the coronavirus pandemic, which went nowhere.
For several seconds, you could have heard a pin drop. Mr Biden looked down, then straight at the camera. No words came.
“We beat Medicare…”, he began, in an attempt to restart his answer, but was cut off by the moderator.
Trump chimed in: “He did beat Medicare. Beat it to death.”
The strict rules for tonight’s debate prevented either candidate talking over the other, and each was equipped with a microphone that would automatically shut off at the end of their allotted time.
Trump, who said he had not taken part in any mock debates, did not quite manage to keep his trademark rambling under control.
He spent a fair portion of his time telling far-fetched stories about various groups and people who supported him and trying to disprove each of Mr Biden’s criticisms.
But he did his best to reassure the ever-shrinking number of undecided voters on some policy issues, by ruling out a federal ban on abortion pills and insisting that he would not accept Vladimir Putin’s offer to end the war in Ukraine.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most heated exchanges between the two men were on personal issues, not questions of policy.
Mr Biden, who has often criticised Trump for his love of personal insults, was much more aggressive than he has been in the past.
He called him a “sucker” and a “loser” and, 40 minutes in, referred to him as a “convicted felon” who had slept with Stormy Daniels, molested women and held the “morals of an alley cat”.
The character takedown went well, and he tricked his opponent into saying the words “I did not have sex with a porn star”, which will now be endlessly clipped for social media.
Trump came back with a direct attack on Mr Biden’s age, after making several comments about his speech being difficult to understand.
“He’s not equipped to be president. You know it and I know it. It’s ridiculous,” he said.
The two men then spent almost two minutes discussing their golf handicaps, in an unedifying exchange in which both boasted of their skills that no one believes exist.
CNN’s live feed of the debate sometimes split the screen to allow viewers to watch the reaction of each nominee to the other’s attacks.
When Mr Biden was being criticised, the screen showed him standing with his mouth open, eyes darting from side to side, looking aghast.
Even his closing statement – a pre-rehearsed two minutes of airtime – had at least three mistakes and verbal slip-ups that made it difficult to follow.
Trump was undeniably tonight’s winner. Mr Biden’s position as the Democrat nominee is now in major jeopardy.
Source Agencies
