President Biden hoped to add momentum to his re-election by agreeing to debate nearly two months before his official nomination. Instead, his hesitant and disjointed performance Thursday night triggered a wave of panic among Democrats and reignited debate over whether he should be nominated at all.
Over the course of 90 minutes, a hoarse-voiced Mr. Biden struggled to hold his lines and counter the acerbic but deeply dishonest former President Donald J. Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president’s ability to deliver an energetic and to conduct a competitive election campaign. The election. Instead of addressing concerns about his age, Mr. Biden, 81, made it the central issue.
Democrats who have defended the president for months against his doubters – including members of his own administration – exchanged frantic phone calls and text messages within minutes of the debate’s start as it became clear that Mr Biden was not at his best. Some were practically in despair, taking to social media to express their shock, while others debated among themselves whether it was too late to convince the president to step aside in favor of a younger candidate.
“Biden is facing a barrage of calls for his resignation,” said a veteran Democratic strategist who has strongly publicly supported Mr. Biden. “Joe enjoyed deep affection among Democrats. It’s dried up.”
“Parties exist to win,” this Democrat continued. “The man on the stage with Trump cannot win. Fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now the same fear will increase calls for his resignation.”
A group of House Democrats said they would watch the debate together, and one who spoke on condition of anonymity acknowledged it was a “disaster” for Mr. Biden. The person said the group was discussing the need for a new presidential candidate.
Mark Buell, a prominent donor to Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party, said after the debate that the president needed to think carefully about whether he was the best person to run. “Do we have time to get someone else in there?” Mr. Buell said.
He added that he was not yet calling for Mr Biden’s withdrawal, but that “Democratic leadership has a responsibility to go to the White House and show clearly what America thinks, because democracy is at stake here and we are.” “Everyone nervous.”
Mr. Biden’s goal in accepting a general election debate held earlier than ever before in presidential history was to recalibrate the contest as a choice between him and a criminal who was trying to overturn an election, and in his opinion, if he were given presidential power again, it would destroy American democracy. Mr. Biden left the CNN studio in Atlanta and instead faced a referendum on himself and his abilities that will linger for days, if not longer.
The 78-year-old Mr. Trump appeared to breeze through the debate, rattling off one falsehood after another without being effectively challenged. He appeared confident but avoided the overly cocky demeanor that hurt him in his first debate with Mr. Biden in 2020, appearing content to let his opponent stew in his own troubles.
While Mr. Trump digressed at times and made convoluted, difficult-to-understand and outright untrue statements, he did so with energy and scope that masked his misstatements and managed to remain on the offensive even on issues that were vulnerable to him, like January. 6, 2021, assault and abortion.
Mr. Biden appeared on defense most of the time, either not using the lines laid out for him by his campaign’s pre-debate advertising or muttering them as he passed in such a way that they were barely noticed.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Mr. Biden said he was battling a cold. “I have a sore throat,” he said. But he was happy with his performance. “I think we did well.” Asked about Democrats’ concerns about his performance and calls for him to consider leaving the race, he said: “No. It’s hard to debate a liar.”
Mr. Biden’s advisers have long dismissed speculation about his departure, dismissing them as unwarranted nervousness even though he is trailing Mr. Trump in the battleground states needed to win this fall. Biden’s advisers and allies have repeatedly questioned the polls and suggested that predictions of Democratic defeats in recent elections were exaggerated. The reason they cited for an early debate was to make it clear to the public that these are the two options and no one else will be nominated.
“Folks, the facts are, if Joe Biden had resigned, he would have done so a long time ago,” said Symone Sanders, a former adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris. “That’s not my opinion, those are literally the facts. So no, he will not be resigning tomorrow morning. He is the nominee, and I suspect a number of Democrats will be defending him in the next few days.”
The campaign quickly dispatched Ms. Harris to defend the president on CNN after the debate, although even she admitted that “it was a slow start, that’s clear to everyone.” Mr. Biden, based on his many accomplishments for Americans, has shown that he can handle the task, she said, and “the Joe Biden that I work with every day is someone who has worked in a way that was about putting people in the Oval Office.” ”
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, one of those mentioned alongside Ms. Harris as a possible replacement for Mr. Biden, dismissed talk of a candidate change. “I would never turn my back on President Biden’s record,” he told reporters, serving as the official surrogate for the campaign in the spin room after the debate. “I would never turn my back on President Biden, and I don’t know any Democrat in my party who would, especially after tonight.”
But that didn’t stop the speculation. “Folks, Democrats should nominate someone else — before it’s too late,” Andrew Yang, who ran against Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020, wrote on social media before the debate ended, adding the hashtag #swapJoeout.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, called it “a crisis” and said her phone was “blowing up” while senators, activists, donors and other distraught Democrats did “more than just hand-wringing” about what would happen next .
“Joe Biden had one thing to do tonight and he didn’t do it,” she said on MSNBC. “He had one thing to do, and that was to reassure America that he was up to the task at his age, and he failed at that tonight.”
This judgment reached beyond the political class. On PredictIt.org, a betting site that takes bets on political events, Mr. Biden’s perceived chances of winning the nomination plummeted within hours. His odds of becoming the party’s nominee fell to 60 cents, down 26 cents, meaning bettors essentially assumed there was only a 60 percent chance of him being nominated, even though he won the primary has no internal opponents and controls the party apparatus.
No incumbent president has dropped out of the race this late in the campaign cycle, and there was little consensus about what would happen if he did. On Thursday evening, Democrats imagined scenarios in which party elders such as Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina would intervene with Mr. Biden.
There was no indication that any of them would agree to this. Other Democrats said they feared it was too late, pointing out that Mr. Biden is a proud, stubborn man who has long insisted he was the best equipped to defeat Mr. Trump and no one but anyone perhaps would listen to his wife Jill Biden. who strongly supported another run. Democrats have long feared there is no obvious successor and are unsure whether Ms. Harris, Mr. Newsom or another party figure could be up to the challenge.
Sitting presidents often stumble in the first debate of a general election season, either because they are rusty or overconfident, but in many cases they make up for it with better performances afterwards. Mr. Biden’s problems were particularly reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s first debate in 1984, when he appeared old and worn out; He saved his campaign at his next debate with a well-timed joke about not taking advantage of his opponent’s youth and inexperience.
The problem for Mr Biden is that there is no further debate scheduled before September 10, meaning he has no obvious opportunity to recover for months. And as the veteran Democratic strategist said, it wasn’t like Obama losing to Mitt Romney in 2012, which was a tactical setback. “This is existential,” said the strategist.
So instead of rebalancing the campaign in Mr. Biden’s favor, as expected, the president’s team ended the evening knowing that the task of the next few days, if not weeks, would be to contain the damage and get the party behind them to gather beleaguered leaders.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Katie Rogers and Annie Karni contributed reporting.
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2024-06-28 12:48:49
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