I don’t know what was wrong with Joe Biden. It’s hard to imagine that they ever would have asked for a debate if this was the way he is normally. We’ve seen him recently holding press conferences and giving speeches and he seemed to be fine. They said he had a cold so maybe he really was on drugs — Nyquil or Mucinex or something that made him seem so shaky and frail. Whatever it was, it was a terrible debate for him and if he does stay in the race (which is almost certain in my opinion) the campaign is going to have a lot of work to do to dig out of the hole that was dug last night. The media smells blood and they are circling like a bunch of starved piranhas.
. . . For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn’t need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room.
After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. And it’s a doozy:
It sure would have been good if even some of that epic litany of lies could have been checked while people were still watching. The decision to have the moderators sit like a couple of potted plants woodenly asking questions about child care while Trump responded with irrelevant lies was inexplicable. Why did they even bother to ask questions at all? They could have just run the timer and let the candidates talk for two minutes each about anything they wanted. It probably would have been more enlightening.
It is always worth remembering. During one of (their last?) debates in 2020, trump made a comment that Biden took as an attack on Beau (it was actually Hunter). Biden went fucking ballistic and trump visibly cowered. That basically destroyed the strong man routine instantly and shut everyone up about “Biden is weak”. Another moment like that would have almost guaranteed a win.
But also? Biden is a traditional politician who believes that there should be a debate so that people can make informed decisions. So the usual Democrat bullshit of trying to play by the rules.
But ALSO: If Biden had refused then the news cycle would be nothing but “Biden is a coward” and “Biden is weak”.
There was no winning. But if there had been fact checking and the rules were even kind of adhered to and Biden hadn’t drank a bottle of Nyquil or whatever the fuck happened there? It would have been good. Hell, even just one of those would have probably led to a decisive win.