- US Presidential Debate: Biden’s Halting Performance, Affirming Fears
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
The Biden-Trump Debate
After Thursday night’s presidential debate, there is no doubt that many, if not, most Democrats have panicked!
They had hoped that President Biden, 81, could convince voters and above all doubters that his age was nothing to worry about.
That he could counter challenger Donald Trump’s wild accusations and relentless falsehoods with confidence. Unfortunately, by no stretch of the imagination could he at all convince (NYT/The New York Times/The Morning/German Lopez, June 28).
Biden’s voice was hoarse and halting. His answers were often unclear, and he struggled to finish his thoughts. “Rather than dispel concerns about his age,” wrote NYT-columnist Peter Baker, Biden “made it the central issue.”
Some prominent Democrats are now pushing for him to drop out of the race.
“Biden is about to face a crescendo of calls to step aside,” (for a far better candidate) a Democratic strategist told Baker. “Joe had a deep well of affection among Democrats. It has run dry.”
Donald Trump, on the other hand, 78, delivered his false statements with conviction, affirming many voters’ concerns about his thoroughly unscrupulous character and the profound threat he poses for US domestic democracy and the stability of the wider world.
Among many, many whopping lies, Trump falsely claimed that immigrants had driven crime; actually rates of crime and murder have dropped.
Trump erroneously asserted that Iran was “broke” when he was in office; it was not.
He fabricated that Biden would allow abortions even at the birth of a child; Biden doesn’t support that.
The debate at times turned ugly. Clearly, both detested each other.
Trump and Biden questioned each other’s competence.
Each suggested that the other would start World War III.
They even argued about their golfing skills.
For 90 minutes in Atlanta, Georgia, Biden and Trump “debated inflation and immigration, abortion and addiction,” wrote NYT-columnist Lisa Lerer, who covers US national politics.
“Yet the extraordinary rematch between two presidents – two men who are the oldest candidates to ever seek the White House and who did nothing to conceal their hatred for each other – put on stark display the reasons the contest has repelled swaths of Americans.”
The World also thought Biden failed completely!
Joe Biden’s debate performance looked terrible around the world, according to the world’s press.
“Biden misses his first campaign debate against Trump,” declared a headline in the conservative French daily Le Figaro.
“Voice raspy, blinking his eyes, Biden stayed on the defensive, seeming sometimes disoriented and sputtering,” writes correspondent Adrien Jaulmes.
“ Confused and with a hoarse voice,” is how Italy’s Corriere della Sera describes Biden in the debate.
The Spanish daily El Pais pronounces in its headline: “Biden failes in debate with Trump in his attempt to clear up concerns about his age.”
The centre-left British paper The Guardian notes: “calls for Biden to stand aside as surrogates reiterate support after debate.”
Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo calls it “an event that could be decisive” in the U.S. election.
Chinese state mouthpiece The Global Times stated blandly that “global viewers were more focused on candidates’ physical condition.”
The debate was “marred by falsehoods and incoherent remarks,” writes the UAE newspaper The National.
Major French Opinion
Trump’s falsehoods and misleading statements were not highlighted, though international headlines made some mention of them.
Le Monde Washington correspondent Piotr Smolar writes that Trump “was able to tell without contradiction, lies about America’s economic situation at the end of his term, about the January 6 assault on the Capitol by his supporters and about the migration issue.”
The paper’s English-language headline laments Biden’s “failure to call out” Trump’s “lies”.
The French headline calls Biden’s performance a “shipwreck.”
German Standpoint
From the German weekly Der Spiegel we learn that “German politicians suggest Biden withdraw.”
And that may be the main result: If Biden had a cold, as he himself claimed, the Western world order seems to have caught it.
US Reactions
The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser writes: “The question now is not so much about what bounce Trump might get from Thursday’s debate but an even bigger one that what we can’t quite answer yet: Was this the beginning of the end of the Biden Presidency?
NYT star columnist Thomas Friedman put a point on the utterly dispirited reaction among Biden allies, writing: “It made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American Presidential campaign politics in my lifetime, precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president has no business running for re-election…If he insists on running and he loses to Trump, Biden and his family – and his staff and party members who enabled him – will not be able to show their faces. They deserve better, America needs better. The world needs better.”
The Way Forward
Many Biden sympathizers and supporters of the Democratic Party have pointed to an honourable way to avoid a Titanic-style collision with an iceberg.
Biden’s advisers have long dismissed any speculation about him dropping out, rejecting it as unjustified nervousness even as he trailed Trump in battleground states needed for victory this autumn.
But the debate debacle demands new thinking and a fresh strategy. This is now urgent after Trump delivered the coup de grace – which has completely changed the election equation – which now heavily favours Trump.
Former Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, called it “a crisis”, saying that her phone was “blowing up” with senators, operatives, donors and other distraught Democrats doing “more than hand-wringing” about what happens next (NYT/Peter Baker, June 29-30).
“Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it,” she said on MSNBC.
“He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was to reassure America that he was up to the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight.”
That judgement extended beyond the American political class.
Biden’s perceived odds of winning the nomination plummeted within hours on PredictIt.org, a betting site that takes wagers on political events.
According to a Democratic strategist: “The fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now that same fear is going to fuel calls for him to step down” (NYT/Baker).
However, “Biden is a proud, stubborn man who has long insisted he is the best equipped to defeat Mr. Trump.”
Unfortunately, not any more. The time is now past for political niceties and catering to personal idiosyncrasies. The issue of defeating Trump convincingly is of the utmost national importance.
There is now speculation that party elders like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and influential Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina could intervene with Biden.
Even former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama could weigh in.
It is their solemn duty to do so.
If they succeed, a possible winning team could comprise current Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Gavin Newsom of California. They would more than rise to the challenge.
Verdict from U.S. Asian Allies: A Total Shambles
During the debate, President Biden told former President Donald J. Trump that the United States is the “envy of the world”.
After watching both their performances, many of America’s friends in Asia beg to differ.
“In Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and beyond, the back-and-forth between the blustering Mr. Trump and the halting Mr. Biden set analysts fretting – and not just about who might win,” writes NYT’s Motoko Rich (June 29-30).
“That whole thing was an unmitigated disaster,” wrote Simon Canning, a communications manager in Australia, on X. “A total shambles, from both the candidates . . . America is in very, very deep trouble.”
Chan Heng Chee, who served as Singapore’s ambassador to the United States from 1996 to 2012, said Biden’s disjointed performance and Trump’s repeated attacks and factual inaccuracies unsettled those who rely on the U.S. as a trusted global partner.
In Japan and South Korea, analysts detected a shift in the political winds toward Trump, and it prompted renewed questions about Biden’s age and ability to project strength (NYT/Rich).
“It was clearly a Trump win and a nail in the coffin for the Biden campaign,” said Lee Byong-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo says Japanese policy makers have a false illusion of security thinking that with increased defence spending and military purchases they are in line with Trump’s demands.
Unfortunately, there is no trusting Trump as his approach to international relations is transactional rather than enduring.
Across the region, one of the most pressing concerns is how Trump might exacerbate widening tensions with China or undermine the fragile stability of the region.
Ja-Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, is of the opinion: “In general, policymakers want a clear, committed and steady U.S. presence. One that is wavering, weak and uncommitted is as troubling as one that is mercurial and inconsistent.”
These would be the very hallmarks of a second Trump presidency and ipso facto lead to an extraordinary perilousness in the Asia-Pacific region, if not the world!
“For America, Biden must leave the race” — NYT
The most cogent analysis of the debate, the aftermath and the possible outcomes was from The New York Times – probably the world’s most respected and renowned daily newspaper.
It concurs with Biden that the stakes in November’s presidential election are nothing short of the future of American democracy.
Trump has proved himself to be a significant jeopardy to that very democracy – “an erratic and self-interested figure unworthy of the public trust” (July 1).
Judging Biden by his own yardstick, the NYT-Editorial Board concludes that the greatest public service Biden can now perform is to withdraw from the race.
After all, Trump and his supporters have openly publicized the infamous Agenda 2025 that would give him the power to carry out the most extreme and extensive of his promises and threats.
Trump’s plan is brazenly equivalent to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf!
The NYT-Editorial Board concludes that the unmitigated truth that Biden needs to confront is that he failed his own test and put an end to his reckless gamble.
And there is still time to rally behind a different candidate – one that is better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency.
The burden now rests on enlightened leaders of the Democratic Party to put the interests of the nation above the ambitions of a single man!
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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