Joe Biden had one mission last night and one only: to reassure his voters that he had the vitality necessary to carry out a second term, despite his 81 years. He proved the opposite. And it was sometimes difficult to watch. From the outset, the debate, which began without handshakes between the rivals, got off to a bad start. It was his turn to speak first, on inflation, and his response was a long, boring list of justifications and promises, going as far as a very hypothetical rent cap. But the most striking thing was his veiled, tired voice, sometimes difficult to hear.
Blame it on a cold, his staff was quick to say, as the first worried reactions were blooming on the web. But after twelve minutes, the worst happened: Biden tripped over himself while answering a question about the country’s colossal public debt. He began to explain that he was going to solve the problem by making the rich pay, then stopped because he had lost his train of thought. Silence on the air. Staring into space. A moment of great embarrassment. Donald Trump, who had been blatantly ignoring him from the start, even seemed surprised: he glanced at him, as if to see if he was still alive. Biden finished his sentence but no one understood his reasoning. Trump continued. Mouth half open, the president was frozen. The expression on his face was that of a man who knew he had had the moment of absence he dreaded so much, in front of millions of viewers.
“I saw your swing!” : when the two men fight over… golf
And Trump then had a field day. To a question about the migration crisis, Biden accused him of sabotaging his immigration law, then he stuttered as he announced the hiring of customs and border agents to process immigration applications. ‘asylum. “I didn’t understand anything at the end of his sentence and I think he didn’t either,” said the former president. Later, Trump, when asked about his age – 78 – boasted that he had won two golf tournaments recently “and you have to be very fit to do that.” It was the only light moment in this very tense debate where the mutual hatred of the two men was visible.
Biden then tried to tackle him by saying that when he was vice president, he was an excellent golfer, “with a handicap of 6.” Trump, known for playing well and often playing the sport, then burst out laughing. “That’s the biggest lie of the night. I saw your swing,” he told him, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Biden then dug in, this time mentioning an “8 handicap” (not as good, therefore). “Let’s not behave like children,” Trump then fired off, to close the debate. The kind of dig we expected from Biden, who was supposed to be “the adult in the room” yesterday, but who was a shadow of himself.
Absent, Biden does not even react when Trump mentions abortions… “after birth”
To prepare for this debate, Joe Biden locked himself up for five days at Camp David, the presidential retreat, disappearing from the radar screens. A habit of his: on every big occasion, he takes his time to arrive ready. Usually it works: this was the case during his successful State of the Union speech where he appeared in good shape, on the attack, energetic. Last night, on the contrary, he seemed over-prepared, his head filled with figures and facts in which he seemed to be drowning, with ready-made formulas supposed to hit the mark but which fell flat.
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As a result, he appeared rigid, academic at times, and above all incomprehensible, incapable of pulling his punches on subjects that were easy for him, such as abortion, on which he failed to put Trump in difficulty. The Republican candidate was able to accuse the Democrats of tolerating abortions “after birth”, an enormity that Biden did not even raise. The president promised that he would “reinstate the Roe v. Wade amendment” (which guaranteed abortion throughout the country until its repeal in 2022) when all Americans know that he does not have the power to do so; that is the responsibility of the Supreme Court, currently dominated by a conservative majority.
And even during his debate-closing statement, Joe Biden stumbled. Instead of presenting his vision for the America of tomorrow, he began by announcing a major tax reform in favor of the middle classes, which seemed particularly confusing. Then he praised his measures which made it possible to strengthen Medicare (health coverage for over 65s), a nod to the senior electorate where he was once popular, but he stammered and no one understood anything .
Immediate fall in polls and calls for withdrawal
You had to see the faces of the CNN commentators just after the debate. “He disappointed a lot this evening,” admitted his former spokesperson Kate Bedingfield. “I love Joe Biden, I worked for him, and it was painful,” lamented Van Jones, political commentator and civil rights activist. At the end of the evening, a first CNN poll came out: the president’s popularity collapsed from 37% (before the debate) to 31% while that of Trump went from 40% to 43%.
On the web, calls for withdrawal were multiplying: “Many Democratic Party leaders are panicking,” noted commentator John King. Many are now wondering about a Plan B, an alternative to Biden. But it won’t be easy. He is already the “presumptive” candidate of his party and should in principle be inducted in mid-August at the Democratic convention. For his part, the president seems determined to continue on his path. Around midnight, he appeared, all smiles, accompanied by Jill, the first lady, at a “Watch Party”, a Democratic evening dedicated to watching the debate, to the cheers of the activists. Acting as if nothing had happened: this seems to be the course, which will be very difficult to maintain until the presidential election on November 5.
