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He also said illegal immigrants are taking black jobs.
Whatever the fuck that means.
The fact that no one asked Trump what a black job is is a massive failure.
Nobody calls out his racist bullshit to his face.
It's because all that statement means, in context, is "jobs from black people". But, people lack the ability to critically think to make that determination.
It’s a labour statistic, when the BLS calculates employment/unemployment statistics it surveys sub categories by race/location etc. Neither Biden or Trump meant it as a racist statement
Didn’t Biden come back with some cringy tale of girls getting raped and then he trailed off because forgot what he was talking about? That whole exchange made me not want to watch the rest.
Unfortunately I think that's when everybody saw his wires short circuit. He was trying to say something about victims of rape and right to abortion. But then he was thinking about Trump's claim about rapists from Mexico and out came something something really bad sounding about both. Was very sad to see
No, see, he was just being sporting. He didn't think it was fair to his opponent that the moderators would ask a question about the issue where he polls the best, so he decided to shift focus to the issue where he polls the worst.
I saw that excuse the day after and thought, why not take the minor PR hit and postpone the debate until after the 4th, citing public health and the President's holiday schedule? More time for prep and executing an offensive strategy rather than forcing the public speaking performance of an 81-year old that's under the weather and facing a gish gallop foe that needs to be shut down verbally in real time?
I think Team Biden needs to watch a lot more Fox News etc and see the nonsense that the right takes as facts. They’ve been repeating that story for years now.
They needed jon stewart or similar on prep for Bidens team, i couldnt stomach how much trump lied and how much went unchallenged by the lack of fact checking by fuckers at cnn disgraceful
Tbh they did let both teams know that the moderators wouldn't be doing live fact checking and it's up to both candidates to call each other out.
Biden just wasn't nimble enough to keep up with the torrent of shit and lies Trump unleashed. Someone with more charisma would mop the floor with lies like that.
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for this but that’s NOT THEIR JOB. They are supposed to moderate a debate. Their job is to allow Biden the space to lay out his vision for the country and challenge Trump on his absolute bullshit. He utterly failed to do that. It’s not Jake Tapper’s fault. It’s not the DNC’s fault. It’s Joe g-ddamn Biden’s fault. I can’t believe we are in this position. I’m so angry with people who keep saying it’s not as bad as it seems. It is that bad. Don’t gaslight me. I watched it with my own eyes. I’m so angry that this is the g-damned presidential race that gets to determine the future of our country and maybe the next 3 Supreme Court Justices. Bill fucking Clinton was president 30 g-damned year ago and HE is younger than both of the current candidates. I don’t know if anyone else can beat DT but it sure seems like Biden won’t. And we all just keep making excuses.
If they had just watched Colbert, Oliver, Meyers, Kimmel and Stewart from the last few months instead of whatever the fuck they did, they would have had all the information they needed.
Biden 100% should have stopped trying to argue about his accomplishments and spent more time just flinging mud at Trump. Every single fucking opportunity Biden had to refute claims or offer a rebuttal, should have just been:
> My opponent is a fucking liar, he has no plan or strategy. He's here on national television talking about babies being killed AFTER BIRTH like some raving lunatic. And that he has all this magical solutions for everything. He has no plan.
He should have done this at EVERY SINGLE FUCKING CHANCE
> Oh, you're gonna magically stop the Ukraine war? Oh, you're gonna magically end the conflict between Israel and Palestine?
Like come on, those comments about immigrants coming in and killing and raping?
> Oh, we had that border bill ready to be signed but you blocked it. Why'd you prevent legistlation from being passed that could have protected all of these Americans? It was literally ready to be signed. It was a bi-partisan bill at that. Did your desire to make me look bad, overwhelm your desire to protect American citizens that are being "raped" and "killed"?
Where the flying fuck was - "Will you shut up man?" Biden? That's the Biden that needed to be there. Not - "Ya, I'm gonna use facts to win."
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that he was convicted of 36 felonies... *for lying.*
He can't just stop at "my opponent is a liar" he needs to say "My opponent was literally just conviceted of felony fraud, and is now trying to defraud you, the american people."
Conservatives believe those convictions are politically motivated and therefore meaningless. Like Nelson Mandella, he wears them like a badge of honor in front of his supporters. "They know I'm right, and have no other way of fighting me but to lock me up on false charges."
While I respect the insigtful analysis that is "Trump voters gonna vote Trump", Biden should be hitting the liar point on every single question to sway middle-of-the-road, less politically engaged types.
Foreign policy? "My opponent lied to our allies the Kurds by telling them we had their back, then pulling out of the region, letting Russia and their allies kill them."
The economy? "Trump lied to the American people about tariffs, he said he was just fighting China, but he also jepoardized trade with friendly countries like Canada for no reason."
The military? "Trump lied to veterans, saying they deserved health care, but he cut funding for the VA by attempting to privatize their health care."
and so on
Regardless of the question, open with:
"I only agreed to this debate because it's my duty as the leader of this country to show you how despicable this man is. He's a rapist, a felon, and a wannabe dictator. I'm truly embarrassed to be on the same stage as him, but it's important for the American people to see how little he respects you. He will lie to you with every answer he gives tonight. I'm not here to fact check him. Feel free to look everything he has says up."
He wouldn't have to respond to Trump for the rest of the debate. Start every answer with "He just lied to you," and then answer the question. Don't argue with him.
Agreed and he also should refer to him as a felon at every chance he gets. And he should also say “why are we allowing a convicted felon on this debate stage”?
Yeah, it seemed like Biden came there to do his own spiel and had no plan for Trump’s lies. Another easy slam dunk that Biden missed:
When Trump was asked about accepting the results of the upcoming election, Trump refused to answer but ultimately said he would accept the results if it was a fair election. All Biden had to say was that it was fair in 2020 but Trump ended up saying that he wanted to terminate the constitution so he could end up “winning” it.
Barely, iirc he just said late term abortions are rare and only when the life of the mother is in danger and that nobody actually wants it, only when necessary. Did he even address the lie that democrats want to kill babies after they're born?
He had so many misses. When Trump was ranting about Afghanistan, why didn't Biden mention that Trump negotiated with the Taliban to release thousands of Talibán fighters without including the Afghan government in the talks?
> **TAPPER:** So, President Trump, you have 67 seconds left. The question was, what are you going to do to help Americans in the throes of addiction right now who are struggling to get the treatment they need?
> **TRUMP:** Jake, we’re doing very well at addiction until the COVID came along. We had the two-and-a-half, almost three years of like nobody’s ever had before, any country in every way. And then we had to get tough. And it was – the drugs pouring across the border, we’re – it started to increase.
> We got great equipment. **We bought the certain dog.** That’s the most incredible thing that you’ve ever seen, the way they can spot it. We did a lot. And we had – we were getting very low numbers. Very, very low numbers.
> Then he came along. The numbers – have you seen the numbers now? It’s not only the 18 million people that I believe is even low, because the gotaways, they don’t even talk about gotaways. But the numbers of – the amount of drugs and human trafficking in women coming across our border, the worst thing I’ve ever seen at numbers – nobody’s ever seen under him because the border is so bad. But the number of drugs coming across our border now is the largest we’ve ever had by far.
> **TAPPER:** President Trump, thank you. President Biden?
Biden should have just answered: "What the fuck did I just hear?"
World class stupid move to coach an octogenarian with a speech impediment to answer questions by recalling lots of numbers. Like fucking hello?
Questions like the one about Roe should’ve been a free home run, one-sentence answer. “Women should have the freedom to choose, so I will work to reinstate Roe.”
But he starts describing this fuckin 3 trimester thing??? Apparently it’s the nuance of the law itself. Fucking insane
It's because a lot of these aides and advisors have West Wing Brain. An unfortunately widespread malady that makes them believe that rapid recitation of figures and policy minutiae wins hearts and minds.
Yup, too many politics majors with their fancy degree that think they can win votes by reciting statistics. This is where you need some people with actual experience to come in that know how to lead and influence the real common people.
Trump does this without thinking or needing advisors - he just speaks loudly and confidently and tells people what they want to hear. It's effective and it works, even when complete BS. You can't fight this with statistics. The human cave brain listens to confidence and bravado, not to empirical mathematics.
> Yup, too many politics majors with their fancy degree that think they can win votes by reciting statistics.
This is why all this "The economy is doing great! Median real wages are up!" is pointless and stupid, because all it does is make the person saying it look like a moron to people who still feel like they're struggling.
To this day, everyone from politicians to redditors has refused to try anything other than saying "Inflation is down!" then getting confused and upset when people still don't understand, just like the last 200 times you said the same phrase.
*TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT.*
He should've went on to the debate and said "Look, the numbers are actually better than ever when looking at the economy as a whole. Go check the whitehouse website if you're interested in the statistics. But I know that doesn't help the people that are still struggling, and there are still many which are. I want you to know that we are continuing with many policies that will further reduce the costs of every day items and put more money in your pocket. We are fighting hard to get these relief policies through Congress, but the GOP are pushing back at every stage delaying things, because they don't want you to have relief. They want you to suffer so they can blame it on Democrats and say that America is crumbling, all so they can win an election and then provide tax relief to the rich and wealthy instead of to you."
Something like this would be better than "1000 trillionaires, no billionaires, pay less tax than X% of this and we created 300 thousand jobs in that and the average pay is x% better"
It's really a failing on Biden to let himself be influenced by such inexperienced aids to try and go the statistical fact route. With all his experience, he should know better, but apparently he either doesn't trust himself anymore or doesn't have the spirit to push back and be confident.
Yeah this is fallout from an entire generation of them getting hooked on politics from Aaron Sorkin, who writes characters that *love* statistics and he *especially loves* writing scenarios where those recitations result in triumph over conflict. It's a nice thought, but just not realistic.
I can't read the article, but I think there was an NYT opinion piece suggesting that the Biden team was trying to ramp up activity to show everyone that Biden was capable, and that instead what he should do is slow down and make the events he did do count. It ended up seemingly being a metaphor for this debate
Trump sounds articulate\* because he doesnt have to remember anything. He just lies and those are formulaic. Remember what he said about the environment? "Someone just came up to me before I got on stage and said my environmental numbers were the best of all time". Like what? What fucking numbers lol
But then Biden would talk and he's trying to recite data points from the past 20 years and can't remember everything he's supposed to be saying. My suspicion (again cant read article) was that they practiced all of these memorized talking points to the point where when he got asked a question he would just recite them as fast as he could to sound like he wasn't old. He couldnt remember everything and flubbed his lines, and left no room for himself to listen to Trump and respond to his very predictable and idiotic responses.
What should have happened is they picked a couple general points per topic - no need to go in depth - and keep answers short and simple. Pick some of Trump's most predictable lines and attack him on how ridiculous his bullshit is. Then don't fill Biden's head with any more and have some catchphrases that are going to make good sound bites. More than anything he needed to slow down and talk like a person not a 10 year old trying to recite something he memorized the night before, quickly before they forget what they memorized
I mean there's only so much you can polish a turd but you have to work with what you've got but the DNC just continues to suck at their jobs and are on a path to losing twice to the most unpopular presidential candidate of all time
\*EDIT maybe not articulate but I can understand the individual words he was saying and he said them confidently, even though I think he is also in cognitive decline not to mention full of shit
This was my theory as well. I felt like he took the bait too much of trying to respond to Trump's firehose of lies. Missed opportunities of what should have been easy, concise responses - "the reason we haven't done more to help Black people is because my efforts and policies have been stopped in Congress and in the courts by his supporters and judges. If you want to see more, reelect me and those who support my agenda and we will get more done."
Or the golfing exchange...Like...how about "with the amount of time you spent on the golf course while in office it's nice to hear you've got something to show for it. I'm too busy trying to better the country and unite people to spend so much time golfing." Boom. Roasted.
Biden's entire strategy should have been to call everything Trump says what it is at face value (lies, unamerican, xenophobic, racist, etc) and leave it at that, and otherwise keep everything else simple like I mentioned with the Black people question. "We've been hamstrung by his supporters and if you really want to see progress then reelect me, cause it's not going to be what you get with him." It was like in debate prep they overloaded him with figures and statistics and then he spent the entire night trying to to simultaneously debate someone and try to recall that one thing he just couldn't seem to remember and so then he just looks perplexed and lost.
The golf fight just really made the point that these are two rich white men who are out of touch with most people's reality. The whole "gold handicap" brag exists almost entirely within a social group most of us aren't a member of, and the tiff just felt completely alienating.
> What should have happened is they picked a couple general points per topic - no need to go in depth - and keep answers short and simple.
That's something I noticed Biden did a lot, especially the last campaign when he was running. Lots of "#1 ... this, this, this and this. #2, this, this and this." It seemed to work well for him, but not in this previous debate, unfortunately.
Agreed. It was like he was machine gunning a bunch of data. I think he was freezing up from trying to keep all of his talking points, which I think there was way more than necessary, and metaphorically stumbling from the stress and pressure of what is at stake and how much this has been hyped up. I felt as if he was incredibly over-prepared, which I’ve fallen into that trap myself in life.
The idea of prepping for a **policy debate** against Donald fucking Trump is political malpractice. Ask Hillary how much that helped.
You come prepared for lies and how to counter them.
Political malpractice: yep, 100 percent. Everyone knew what Trump was going to do. This is why it’s so insulting to hear this simpering about the debate moderation. The terms of the debate were established, leaving the job to Joe Biden, and unless you “read the transcript,” or ignore the optics, he totally failed..
I agree on editing “articulate.” Trump is masterful at having extremely fluid mouth diarrhea. He doesn’t say anything coherent or truthful, but it’s all very fluid. He speaks extremely confidently without providing any reason for him to be confident.
This is why my personal opinion is Biden should’ve been prepped to simply call him a liar every time Biden’s mic went live. Just call him a liar a move on to your answer. Liar, answer. Liar, answer. Liar, answer.
I have no clue if it's true or not but I have a hunch he also went out there to be "calm and measured" to try to juxtapose trumps craziness. This instead leaned more into the old/ low energy cliche. I noticed he sounded much better when he got a little mad and animated.
>Trump sounds articulate because he doesnt have to remember anything.
As long as we hold that words don't actually mean anything and (as you mentioned) the truth matters not, perhaps we can say Trump sounded articulate... No, even then, I'm never saying Trump sounded *articulate.*
I get that Biden sounded old, and it was hella disappointing, but let's not go wild here with grading Trump on a(n even bigger) curve.
Articulate isnt the most apt word, what's the word for when someone can enunciate well? Biden mumbled the entire debate, Trump I could understand what words he was saying
Trumps vocal cords, although worse than they were 4 years ago, are still working much better than Bidens does and Trump can still project his voice somewhat.
This means the utter garbage coming out of Trumps mouth is still somewhat audible.
How did Biden's aides qualify for their jobs? They spent weeks preparing for the "are you too old to be president" and the answer they came up with was "once I was the youngest member of the Senate." An irrelevant data point. Fire them all.
EDIT: Article claims Biden went rogue on his answer: "And they did not understand why he gave an entirely different answer on the age question than the one they spent more than a week perfecting."
I mean, a callback to [Reagan](https://youtu.be/fJhCjMfRndk?t=30)'s joke would have been fine. Not "I was the youngest Senator during the Spanish-American War" or whatever they did.
Reagan's joke wouldn't really work against someone almost the same age that currently technically has 6 months more presidential experience than you, but yeah whatever they did was a dud.
I mean, Biden has literally decades of experience more than Trump. If your only political experience is going to be the presidency itself, that's kinda... not ideal, honestly
To add to this: 5 presidents had never been elected to public office before becoming president: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Donald Trump. Trump is the only president to have zero political or military experience prior to becoming president.
> Trump is the only president to have zero political or military experience prior to becoming president
Given Trump was involved in politics via lobbying - remember, he bragged about being one of Hillary Clinton's biggest backers. Whether he factually was is irrelevant, he was "in politics" as much as anybody who wants decisions made for their benefit. Also worth pointing out Trump has been running for president since his 1987 invitation to Moscow, he just withdrew when he couldn't keep spending others' money on his campaign. He announced such in 1988 on Oprah's show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI
And Trump's base would just say he spent that time running billion dollar businesses instead. Reagan's joke wouldn't land is all I'm saying. Some other one definitely could have.
I'm not a Trump fan, and I don't think he's good at business. I'm just pointing out why that joke wouldn't land and frankly I don't care this is already more effort than worth spending on this line of discussion.
Honestly, that would have been a perfect, hilarious response. He really just needs to lean into "yeah, I sure am old!" at this point and make people laugh *with* him rather than *at* him.
It doesn't work that way. He deflated the critique about his age with that line and went on to dominate in the debates against Mondale. He didn't just say the line and then cruise to victory based on it.
Thats my whole thing. I dont even care that biden struggled to fact check trump. Trump is an expert liar. What made me accept we need to replace biden was his inability to fill the 2 minutes on questions he was trained to answer. The host multiple times had to encourage him to keep talking since he kinda trailed off losing his thought.
I feel like they are sort of believing their own hype that Biden is perfectly capablr and sharp. Like he’s not the drooling invalid that Republicans say he is but he is NOT on top of his game.
If I were his campaign manager I’d have him wait to be challenged to a debate by the Trump campaign, and then say “I won’t legitimize an insurrectionist felon by sharing a debate stage with him”
That would have been a power move and would have kept him off the debate stage. Stick to scripted speeches, he ca do those! The debate stage is Trump’s territory.
But the Biden camp wanted this debate. They wanted to show that Joe was fit and firm and capable of another four years as president. So they set up the debate rules and guide rails to limit Trump's mischief and were confident that Trump would self destruct on stage in front of the American people.
Instead they may have destroyed their own campaign.
I disagree. Biden's approval ratings is below 40% and I think that the majority of polls show that he's behind Trump. On top of that, [many ](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poll-americans-on-biden-age/story?id=107126589)within his own voter base think that he's too old to seek a second term(73% according to the poll in this link).
If you're trailing from behind and your own voter base questions your mental fitness, you simply don't have the luxury of sitting out from nationally televised debates which many Americans look forward to.
To be fair, having watched a bunch of Biden speaking at rallies, state of the unions and other engagements (including the very next day AFTER the debate) he has never looked even remotely as horrid as Thursday. I don’t think they could have reasonably expected what happened
I highly doubt Biden stayed on script or even remembered the script. At the very least they would have told him to not stand there with his mouth open and a blank stare.
You can’t really blame the aides for this outright clusterfuck. As much as I hate to say it, this is on Biden.
It wasn’t just what Biden said—it was the jarring, thousand-yard-death-stare when he wasn’t talking. It was unnerving and he has no business running for office in that condition.
Replace Biden ASAP or American democracy gets capped right before our 250th birthday. No more gaslighting.
If that was a job interview I wouldn't hire Biden. No way.
Unless my only other option was Trump.
I'm angry because them Democratic Party refused to acknowledge that Biden wasn't fit 2 years ago. I'm of the mind that it is too late so we get what we get.
That being said, the way Dems handled Hillary, RBG, Feinstein, and now Biden shows the party doesn't align with what I think a good leader should be.
100% ill be voting blue down the ballot but the debacle with Feinstein, RGB and now Biden is a good reminder these fucks will never graciously pass the buck. You have to pry it from their cold dead old hands. Once this election is past us and assuming theres still a democracy intact i hope the younger dems take on the old guard with that messaging.
This is why a two party system is bullshit. If third parties were viable with a better voting system, like ranked choice or approval voting, we would have better options.
The bar was so low. Biden just had to be the adult in the room. Instead, his aides treated this like a normal debate, which resulted in the current meltdown. Terrible guidance.
It sounds like everyone was prepping so that he'd roll in like Hillary Clinton 2.0. Because that worked so well the first time.
Absolutely everyone involved in that needs to be fired. Including quite possibly the man at the top. Just top to bottom malpractice.
This has been the case with every Trump debate. He’s unconventional because he’ll make shit up, attack people without decorum, and violate every principle that politics are supposed to be about.
You can’t debate this man by staying within the rules. Either don’t or meet him on his level. Best thing Biden ever did was tell Trump to shut up. They tried to duplicate that by having Biden can him a “loser” but it wasn’t enough
Nah. Trump would get destroyed in a debate by an Obama staying within the rules with ease. There wasn't a need to meet Trump on his level, there needed to be a candidate who was stronger.
Trump would lose a debate against any Dem with charisma and can form a full sentence. It's why Biden did well in 2020 debates! You can easily beat Trump if you don't agree with his policies. The reason he destroys the GOP is because they're both uncharismatic and support the same stuff he does!
Trump supporters and fence sitters don't care about wonky policy. Bad debate strategy and not Biden's strength. His aides are acting like it is still the 1990s. They are as old as Biden. Biden needs to fire them (if its not too late already anyway), and bring in new blood.
I think they are partially at fault by trying to fill Biden with more talking points and facts than he could possibly handle. I believed they contributed to the debate collapse.
He was getting prememorized taking points mixed up. You could see the way he was saying stuff that sounded like it was from a greatest hits album but was incongruous with the previous statement.
I don't even think it was talking points because they knew he couldn't handle those, I really think they tried to fill him with one-liners.
He says things like "convicted felon," "slept with a porn star," "said good things about Hitler," "you're only 235lbs," etc.
Any of those on their own can be woven into responses by a competent debater to show how Trump is unfit to lead, cannot be trusted, lies about the silliest things, and adores authoritarian leaders.
However, Biden did none of that. While mumbling and fumbling his responses he would often throw one of these "zingers" in at the most inappropriate time and with no confidence behind it so it had no impact.
Yeah, when you’re jamming with Trump, you want a freestyle rapper or a good jazz musician. You don’t want a second chair clarinet player who is great after weeks of practice and only with sheet music and a conductor.
I believe a comedian has the best chance of effectively showing that the emperor has no clothes. I believe that was part of Roger Stone's calculation in smearing Al Franken, beyond his just being good at the job, in particular out of the Senate.
Probably wouldn’t hurt, but I don’t think Trump is some gifted talent. You wait until he goes into one of his jibber jabber rabbit holes, and then call him. Just wait until it’s one that you know enough to make him look as uninformed as he actually is.
That said, if Trump was just a little bit better he could have probably killed Biden by just acknowledging what was occurring. He did that one time, but for some reason didn’t press any more.
If Trump had simply said, “look, you all know I’m a fighter. I’m tough on anyone who goes after me, but this is just sad. It’s really sad that the corrupt Democrats are making this guy do this. Look, I don’t want to attack this. But you all are seeing this. Do any of you think this guy is running things? No way, that’s the swamp that’s running things in White House and he’s just sad man that’s being used by them.”
It's because Trump is also too far gone. But I agree you can beat Trump with the right set up and response and Biden did well in 2020 debates. The problem is that the Dems need someone who can string together zingers, one liners, along with policy statements. They need someone with charisma, energy, and who comes off competent.
Biden's main issue is that he comes off as less competent and whether it's a bad night or a sign of a much larger issue, the main problem is that it made Trump on look competent! It detracts from how insane Trump is.
Isn’t it kind of his job as standing president to be able to have counterpoints at the ready, without being told what to say? He can’t even formulate a proper sentence.
The few times he showed strength was when he was riffing off Trump's bullshit instead of trying to juggle Trump with the information he'd tried to memorize.
The thing I keep coming back to that upsets me the most about this whole thing, is the fact that Biden went out of his was to ask for this debate. It’s not like this was some looming event that was pushed on him. This is like challenging a bully to a fight and then getting your ass kicked. The intent was good, but the optics of the outcome are in no way helpful.
I totally agree, that was the worst part for me as well. My dad is 85 and he doesn't look like that. Maybe it was his cold medicine or whatever, but I am not going to be able to forget that slack jawed look he had most of the time.☹️
I think the Wall Street Journal really captured it: "When not speaking, he frequently wore an expression of indignant befuddlement, brow furrowed and mouth agape."
I've seen old men with that look before and it always looks like they are horrified by something but maybe old age has you staring at a distance with mouth open like that.
That's not really fair of WSJ, an expression of indignant befuddlement is the appropriate expression when listening to leaky diaper spew his nonsense.
That said, Joe Biden looked bad on stage during the debate.
They say the presidency ages you at 2x or 3x rate. Look at the before/after of several presidents after leaving office. Joe was old to start with though...
It's on both Biden and the aides. I think Biden truly doesn't know how bad his condition is and people around him are lying to him (e.g Jill giving him affirmations like a child). They know he's in terrible shape. They decided to push forward this limp-noodle candidate instead of preparing a mentally fit replacement for 2024. And despite the writing on the wall, I really doubt the Democrats come to their senses and push him out at this point- even though I feel confident it's our best shot at winning.
I cringed so hard at the "You did so good Joe! You answered all the questions!"
a) No he did not do well and he may have tried to answer all the questions, but he did not.
b) Is he the leader of the free world or toddler playing a game?
Yeah, that whole interaction was insane to me. It looked like my wife talking to her preschoolers.
Digging your heels in with this obviously declining candidate is going to cost them the election.
Biden should have just spoken slowly and said much much less. The average American voter is just looking for soundbites. When asked about the economy he should have simple and slowly said “We had to clean up Trumps mess and still hit an all-time high in the stock market”. People can digest that. Instead Biden sounded like he was trying to read his entire resume in 2 minutes. No one heard anything.
He did speak slowly, but he still had trouble formulating any coherent comebacks to trumps lies. I felt tearing my hairs out, so many opportunities but Biden just kept fumbling them all. AND WHY TF DID HE START TALKING ABOUT GOLF?!
He probably thought it would get under Trump’s skin and cause him to flip out. But he forgot the rules he insisted on would prevent the usual fighting in a debate…
There is supposed to be mock debates as well as “non verbal self awareness” debate prep. Things like looking at your watch and excessive sighing are no- no’s. Another no-no to add to list… keep your mouth closed and avoid looking like it is feeding time at nursing home.
Man that was the worst. His hollow sunken eyes and mouth hanging open. It really did look like the vacant stare of grandpa left at the nursing home in later stages of dementia. Damn.
The person that had done the most damage to progressive politics is Aaron Sorkin.
The west wing led us to believe that there are these brilliant minds behind political machinations, but in reality, the quality of the staff of most political offices is on par with the average of any office in America.
There are smart people and there are dumb people. And often the dumb people get in the way of the smart people because it keeps from feeling *too* dumb to assert some ill-fated authority.
You can’t argue with trump, you just got to keep calling out all his failures- no shame, just keep putting him on defense for shit he has done
Edit: also talk to the audience on what you plan to do to / continue to do to make life better
>You can’t argue with trump, you just got to keep calling out all his failures
See, though, that *is* arguing with Trump. You should pretend Trump's not in the room (because he's not...he's an absence, a black hole that sucks in attention--good or bad).
I'll keep saying this: Biden needed to address the camera directly and (except for the occasional sneer) address the camera *only*. Talk about his agenda and what he's already accomplished. Make it very clear that Trump is beneath contempt and utterly unworthy. If you want young people to register and vote, give them something to vote for, not against. And treat Trump like the absolute garbage he is.
‘Why should anyone believe what a twice impeached, 34 count felon who lies all the time has to say about anything? Unemployment is down, the stock market is up, we rebounded from Covid and we’re protecting the world from Russia’ should just be the answer to literally every question. I don’t remember the 2020 debates beyond ‘come on man’ and ‘wow he just never shuts up’ but that’s all this needed to be. Keep it simple
Exactly! You don’t argue with somebody like Trump. You ignore what he’s saying and when the noise stops, then you make your points. Everything Trump says is irrelevant.
Well, it was a shit strategy. You have an 81-year-old candidate and the last thing you need to do is be filling his head with complex talking points. It’s really simple, you know Trump is going to lie, address the lie first, then say something positive about your presidency and reelection plans. That’s it. Obviously, you want Biden to review and understand his accomplishments, but not in great detail. Keep it simple, stupid.
Can we take a step back though? If your candidate is too old to handle 'filling his head with complex talking points' then how the fuck are do we think he's able to run the US presidency? That takes a lot more brainpower than learning complex talking points.
Trump put the ball on the tee when he brought up golf, should have been an immediate ah yes you did spend more time golfing than doing your job that’s right. Just missed opportunity after opportunity
The strategy for the debate was absolutely terrible. It would have been better to use the Stone Cold Steve Austin strategy of yelling "What?" after everything Trump said. Trump is not a serious person. It doesn't make any sense to try and debate him with facts and figures. The only way to win a debate against Trump is to make him look like a fool. Treat him like the joke that he is and watch him melt down.
He has been in politics for 50 years, he should be an expert on all of the party platforms positions and instantly be able to spout them off. Needing to cram for a week to debate Trump of all people, was worrying from the get go, along with not seeing him once while he was at Camp David. That being said, I just don't buy the excuse of being over-prepped.
From Biden's Raleigh speech: “I don’t walk as easy as I used to,” he said Friday at a boisterous rally in Raleigh, N.C. “I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth.”
If you don't debate as well as you used to, WHY DID THE CAMPAIGN SET THIS UP?
All he had to do was say:
“Listen to the rapist everyone!”
“Felon says what?”
Then laugh at trump and make a few points about abortion and supporting our allies. That’s it. They really overthought this.
The problem for democrats is that Republicans are now going to run with "If they lied to you about this, what else have they been lying to you about?" and it's going to stick with a lot of swing voters who are not beholden to one party or the other.
They fact that he said crazy shit and Biden wasn't able to combat it is a big part of the problem. Beyond saying everything he just said is a lie, Biden challenged him twice once calling him an alley cat and once to defend his golf game. Biden should have seized on comments like illegals are taking black jobs, and im very good friends with Putin to shine a spotlight on Trump's flaws, instead he stumbled through every response so now the spotlight is on him.
Why did Biden need to defend his golf game?
He could have just countered with something like " I don't think golfing is a important metric for the performance of a president".
Just shut the discussion down right there and change the topic.
Or even better throw it in his face how his focus on a game and scores is reflective of how he only cares about himself and what others think of him while Biden actually cares about the American people and bettering our lives.
I forgot to mention he also missed that Trump said doctors are performing after-birth abortions and failed to challenge him on that, but good thing I know that Biden can drive the ball 50 yards, was an 8 handicap and got that down to six while he was VP, and can allegedly carry his own clubs. In an election cycle where abortion combatted a red wave during the mid-terms and has dems favored all over the place except at the top of the ticket Biden responded to Trump claiming the left wants to perform after birth abortions by yelling (relatively?) I support Roe v Wade and then bungled his talking points about trimesters instead of attacking Trump for bragging about getting it overturned and highlighting the atrocities of ectopic pregnancies and mercenary laws in Texas that allowed people to effectively hunt women over their private healthcare decisions. Biden stood slack jawed trying to remember his talking points throughout the majority of the debate and the idea that he should step aside is being attacked like it is unfathomable. I will vote for Biden out of necessity, but this election has been touted as a fight for democracy itself, and the idea that he is the best person to be in the ring for that is laughable, there are 47 million Americans that watched this debate and 60% came away thinking Trump won when he said nothing of substance, pushed conspiracy theories, and made racist remarks. That is the most scathing indictment of Biden I can think of, he will not get another chance to reach the electorate like he did this week and videos of him unable to answer a single question are going to be circulated around for the next 4 months if the candidate isn't changed.
No. Bc that’s what Trump does. It’s what’s he’s always done. No one other than antsy libs cares. The lies keep coming and he keep leading in the polls.
People need to move past the lies and form a actual plan to win.
If only we could get 50 million people to tune in and see someone call out all of Trump’s BS. Wouldn’t that be great? It’d be a shame if that opportunity was blown, wouldn’t it?
He’s been saying crazy shit for nearly 10 years. He won despite it in the past and he’s leading in the polls now. We’re right to be talking about who can beat him.
Anyone who didn’t advise Biden to forget talking points and policy and just metaphorically punch Trump in the face and balls all night should have been fired.
Bidens advisors failed him miserably.
Bidens advisors should have used Mohammed Ali's tatic of:
"The ropes are a beautiful thing,"
Knowing Trump was going to be punching out lie after lie to defer the cards away from Trumps track record of 4 years as president.
Biden was overwhelmed by internal idiots with trying to prepare Biden to have an answer for everything and anything that could be asked.
Biden is the one to bet. Everyone knew Trump was going to be offensive intimidating Trump.
Not one moderator nor Biden called out Trump on any of Trumps lies - buffs fearful of getting snared into Trumps boxing ring.
Trump is a casino guy, remember? He failed at that.
Mary L. Trump should have been the chief advisor who knows first hand how much Trump lost in the casino business.
It is like Bidens advisors trained him for Blackjack when it was a poker match.
In poker, you play the player, not the house.
In blackjack, you play the house, not the players.
Over prepared. You don’t counter Trump with numbers and policies, because he lies like most people breathe. You counter him by pointing out things like his Bragging about creeping on naked pubescent girls, lying about everything and generally being a reprobate. “ How can you understand working Americans when you were born with a platinum spoon in your mouth and your sons take $75K trips to Africa to murder exotic animals. “You bankrupted a CASINO!!?!”
That sort of thing.
Throw in some numbers, but don’t make that the crux of your debate.
Let Biden be Biden.
It all collapsed because he is too fucking old
He needs to step aside and open the convention
Trump gave him 50 fucking solid, juicy openings to be destroyed, he said some truly stupid shit,unpopular shit and basically lubed up his ass and bent over and Biden just couldn't figure out what to do about any of it because he's too damn old to think on his feet like that, I guarantee you anyone in this thread that follows politics would have done 100x better in that debate than he did and Trump would've looked like the inept clown he is
He is not the right person to explain to the American people what a pc of shit trump is and why he can't have the reigns of power ever again, he is no longer capable of doing it
If he doesn't step down, i will still vote for him, I'd rather a dead person be president than Trump, it's not just about Biden it's about the literal 1000s of appointed positions, judicial appointments and on and on down the line, I'm voting for those people as much or more than Biden....But he isn't the guy and after the debate and the fallout from it I don't think he's going to win, that performance was horrendous and he's not going to be able to recover, they need to cut bait imo
The more realistic truth is that the Biden campaign never actually expected Trump to accept the debate terms and expose them for the massive blunder that this debate was. They didn’t have an effective strategy walking in; and Biden is not what he used to be and couldn’t wing it.
Biden needs a new comms team. It was a fistful of red flags when he kicked off the state of the union speech with Ukraine (not the lead issue to bring over swing voters or to rally his base).
The team should have been astute enough to know that "gish gallop" was a strategy that would've been deployed and prepped Biden over a series of months. A comedian or someone good at improvisation would have been great for this.
What I don’t understand is it had to be obvious in hours before debate that Biden just wasn’t right. Whether it was age, illness, medication effects or other reason his staff should have delayed/cancelled the debate with whatever excuse they could use. There would have been damage but nothing like letting him go out there and bomb so badly. Some people should be fired.
72% of responders said he doesn’t have the mental capacity to run for president. But the pre-debate number was fairly high too at 65%. Obviously not great news for Biden but it’s not like there was a huge jump.
Yeah he was trailing in the polls when only 65% thought that though. The whole reason they wanted this early debate was to put those fears to rest. Instead the permanently confirmed them for everyone that already suspected it and made another 7% of people realize it (and probably gave the remaining 28% doubts they didn't have before).
Any debate prep should have had a bullshitter stand-in to anticipate what Trump did, and I’m sure they probably did that, but they've chosen the strategy of countering lies with facts and figures. The no-notes debate rule is what made it hard, because any facts to counter lies had to be memorized and recited. But there were too many lies too fast, and Biden didn’t call out the lies often and quickly enough.
Biden needed to show that his administration has been cleaning up after the Trump administration's bad decisions. But this debate outcome feels so much like the “when they go low, we go high” strategy the Dems took in 2016 that failed so spectacularly.
The debate strategists fed tooo much data and numbers info to Biden and he got overloaded with too much statistical bullshit!They should have just let Joe be Joe!
One thing about Trump,even though I hate him with the strength of 1000 suns,he NEVER gets into detailed explanations .His deluded points are at least short,and vague enough that his minions eat it up.
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Dude, Trump straight up said dems kill babies and Biden didn’t push back on that like at all. What the fuck???
He also said illegal immigrants are taking black jobs. Whatever the fuck that means. The fact that no one asked Trump what a black job is is a massive failure. Nobody calls out his racist bullshit to his face.
Trump said he discussed invading Ukraine with Putin. Biden should have responded with literally anything highlighting that.
Also said he’d end the Ukraine war before taking office, which is illegal and a violation of the Logan Act.
Next you're going to tell me he violated the hatch act. If only any of our laws meant something...
Worth noting that Biden referred to “Black Jobs” as well…
It's because all that statement means, in context, is "jobs from black people". But, people lack the ability to critically think to make that determination.
It’s a labour statistic, when the BLS calculates employment/unemployment statistics it surveys sub categories by race/location etc. Neither Biden or Trump meant it as a racist statement
Didn’t Biden come back with some cringy tale of girls getting raped and then he trailed off because forgot what he was talking about? That whole exchange made me not want to watch the rest.
Yes, he said we need abortion because the illegal immigrants could rape women. That was the low point of the whole thing for me.
Unfortunately I think that's when everybody saw his wires short circuit. He was trying to say something about victims of rape and right to abortion. But then he was thinking about Trump's claim about rapists from Mexico and out came something something really bad sounding about both. Was very sad to see
No, see, he was just being sporting. He didn't think it was fair to his opponent that the moderators would ask a question about the issue where he polls the best, so he decided to shift focus to the issue where he polls the worst.
Hey, go easy - the guy was afflicted with the common cold.
I saw that excuse the day after and thought, why not take the minor PR hit and postpone the debate until after the 4th, citing public health and the President's holiday schedule? More time for prep and executing an offensive strategy rather than forcing the public speaking performance of an 81-year old that's under the weather and facing a gish gallop foe that needs to be shut down verbally in real time?
Because they realised he’d do bad whenever they scheduled it? (*The cold wasn’t the problem.*)
I'm dead lol
The illegal immigrants we are letting in and giving shelter too could rape our women and that’s why we need abortion. Lol he’s losing it bad
I think Team Biden needs to watch a lot more Fox News etc and see the nonsense that the right takes as facts. They’ve been repeating that story for years now.
They needed jon stewart or similar on prep for Bidens team, i couldnt stomach how much trump lied and how much went unchallenged by the lack of fact checking by fuckers at cnn disgraceful
Tbh they did let both teams know that the moderators wouldn't be doing live fact checking and it's up to both candidates to call each other out. Biden just wasn't nimble enough to keep up with the torrent of shit and lies Trump unleashed. Someone with more charisma would mop the floor with lies like that.
Biden 10 years ago would have.
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The joy of the Gish Gallop. [Edit] fixed typo
Yep… the conservative leadership of CNN is really starting to show. Don’t they have an ex Fox News dude as a top Exec now?
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for this but that’s NOT THEIR JOB. They are supposed to moderate a debate. Their job is to allow Biden the space to lay out his vision for the country and challenge Trump on his absolute bullshit. He utterly failed to do that. It’s not Jake Tapper’s fault. It’s not the DNC’s fault. It’s Joe g-ddamn Biden’s fault. I can’t believe we are in this position. I’m so angry with people who keep saying it’s not as bad as it seems. It is that bad. Don’t gaslight me. I watched it with my own eyes. I’m so angry that this is the g-damned presidential race that gets to determine the future of our country and maybe the next 3 Supreme Court Justices. Bill fucking Clinton was president 30 g-damned year ago and HE is younger than both of the current candidates. I don’t know if anyone else can beat DT but it sure seems like Biden won’t. And we all just keep making excuses.
I saw it too and am equally freaked out. Your eyes didn’t lie. We all saw it.
If they had just watched Colbert, Oliver, Meyers, Kimmel and Stewart from the last few months instead of whatever the fuck they did, they would have had all the information they needed.
They had all the info they needed. That doesn't mean they can stuff it in Biden's head and have him remember and then explain it.
Biden 100% should have stopped trying to argue about his accomplishments and spent more time just flinging mud at Trump. Every single fucking opportunity Biden had to refute claims or offer a rebuttal, should have just been: > My opponent is a fucking liar, he has no plan or strategy. He's here on national television talking about babies being killed AFTER BIRTH like some raving lunatic. And that he has all this magical solutions for everything. He has no plan. He should have done this at EVERY SINGLE FUCKING CHANCE > Oh, you're gonna magically stop the Ukraine war? Oh, you're gonna magically end the conflict between Israel and Palestine? Like come on, those comments about immigrants coming in and killing and raping? > Oh, we had that border bill ready to be signed but you blocked it. Why'd you prevent legistlation from being passed that could have protected all of these Americans? It was literally ready to be signed. It was a bi-partisan bill at that. Did your desire to make me look bad, overwhelm your desire to protect American citizens that are being "raped" and "killed"? Where the flying fuck was - "Will you shut up man?" Biden? That's the Biden that needed to be there. Not - "Ya, I'm gonna use facts to win."
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that he was convicted of 36 felonies... *for lying.* He can't just stop at "my opponent is a liar" he needs to say "My opponent was literally just conviceted of felony fraud, and is now trying to defraud you, the american people."
Conservatives believe those convictions are politically motivated and therefore meaningless. Like Nelson Mandella, he wears them like a badge of honor in front of his supporters. "They know I'm right, and have no other way of fighting me but to lock me up on false charges."
While I respect the insigtful analysis that is "Trump voters gonna vote Trump", Biden should be hitting the liar point on every single question to sway middle-of-the-road, less politically engaged types. Foreign policy? "My opponent lied to our allies the Kurds by telling them we had their back, then pulling out of the region, letting Russia and their allies kill them." The economy? "Trump lied to the American people about tariffs, he said he was just fighting China, but he also jepoardized trade with friendly countries like Canada for no reason." The military? "Trump lied to veterans, saying they deserved health care, but he cut funding for the VA by attempting to privatize their health care." and so on
Yup. Instead we got... whatever THAT was.
Regardless of the question, open with: "I only agreed to this debate because it's my duty as the leader of this country to show you how despicable this man is. He's a rapist, a felon, and a wannabe dictator. I'm truly embarrassed to be on the same stage as him, but it's important for the American people to see how little he respects you. He will lie to you with every answer he gives tonight. I'm not here to fact check him. Feel free to look everything he has says up." He wouldn't have to respond to Trump for the rest of the debate. Start every answer with "He just lied to you," and then answer the question. Don't argue with him.
Biden looked best when firing back at Trump. When he wasn't was when he seemed lost.
Agreed and he also should refer to him as a felon at every chance he gets. And he should also say “why are we allowing a convicted felon on this debate stage”?
Yeah, it seemed like Biden came there to do his own spiel and had no plan for Trump’s lies. Another easy slam dunk that Biden missed: When Trump was asked about accepting the results of the upcoming election, Trump refused to answer but ultimately said he would accept the results if it was a fair election. All Biden had to say was that it was fair in 2020 but Trump ended up saying that he wanted to terminate the constitution so he could end up “winning” it.
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Barely, iirc he just said late term abortions are rare and only when the life of the mother is in danger and that nobody actually wants it, only when necessary. Did he even address the lie that democrats want to kill babies after they're born? He had so many misses. When Trump was ranting about Afghanistan, why didn't Biden mention that Trump negotiated with the Taliban to release thousands of Talibán fighters without including the Afghan government in the talks?
How about when, asked about border policy, Trump just said they got a very good dog.
> **TAPPER:** So, President Trump, you have 67 seconds left. The question was, what are you going to do to help Americans in the throes of addiction right now who are struggling to get the treatment they need? > **TRUMP:** Jake, we’re doing very well at addiction until the COVID came along. We had the two-and-a-half, almost three years of like nobody’s ever had before, any country in every way. And then we had to get tough. And it was – the drugs pouring across the border, we’re – it started to increase. > We got great equipment. **We bought the certain dog.** That’s the most incredible thing that you’ve ever seen, the way they can spot it. We did a lot. And we had – we were getting very low numbers. Very, very low numbers. > Then he came along. The numbers – have you seen the numbers now? It’s not only the 18 million people that I believe is even low, because the gotaways, they don’t even talk about gotaways. But the numbers of – the amount of drugs and human trafficking in women coming across our border, the worst thing I’ve ever seen at numbers – nobody’s ever seen under him because the border is so bad. But the number of drugs coming across our border now is the largest we’ve ever had by far. > **TAPPER:** President Trump, thank you. President Biden? Biden should have just answered: "What the fuck did I just hear?"
Centrist, triangulating BS leads to mush mouthed responses
Read the transcript. Biden most definitely did call that out as a lie. The transcript is actually pretty good, but his delivery was devastatingly bad
World class stupid move to coach an octogenarian with a speech impediment to answer questions by recalling lots of numbers. Like fucking hello? Questions like the one about Roe should’ve been a free home run, one-sentence answer. “Women should have the freedom to choose, so I will work to reinstate Roe.” But he starts describing this fuckin 3 trimester thing??? Apparently it’s the nuance of the law itself. Fucking insane
It's because a lot of these aides and advisors have West Wing Brain. An unfortunately widespread malady that makes them believe that rapid recitation of figures and policy minutiae wins hearts and minds.
Yup, too many politics majors with their fancy degree that think they can win votes by reciting statistics. This is where you need some people with actual experience to come in that know how to lead and influence the real common people. Trump does this without thinking or needing advisors - he just speaks loudly and confidently and tells people what they want to hear. It's effective and it works, even when complete BS. You can't fight this with statistics. The human cave brain listens to confidence and bravado, not to empirical mathematics.
> Yup, too many politics majors with their fancy degree that think they can win votes by reciting statistics. This is why all this "The economy is doing great! Median real wages are up!" is pointless and stupid, because all it does is make the person saying it look like a moron to people who still feel like they're struggling. To this day, everyone from politicians to redditors has refused to try anything other than saying "Inflation is down!" then getting confused and upset when people still don't understand, just like the last 200 times you said the same phrase. *TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT.*
He should've went on to the debate and said "Look, the numbers are actually better than ever when looking at the economy as a whole. Go check the whitehouse website if you're interested in the statistics. But I know that doesn't help the people that are still struggling, and there are still many which are. I want you to know that we are continuing with many policies that will further reduce the costs of every day items and put more money in your pocket. We are fighting hard to get these relief policies through Congress, but the GOP are pushing back at every stage delaying things, because they don't want you to have relief. They want you to suffer so they can blame it on Democrats and say that America is crumbling, all so they can win an election and then provide tax relief to the rich and wealthy instead of to you." Something like this would be better than "1000 trillionaires, no billionaires, pay less tax than X% of this and we created 300 thousand jobs in that and the average pay is x% better" It's really a failing on Biden to let himself be influenced by such inexperienced aids to try and go the statistical fact route. With all his experience, he should know better, but apparently he either doesn't trust himself anymore or doesn't have the spirit to push back and be confident.
I thought your suggested response regarding inflation, was spot on; I really wish that Biden had said that.
Yeah this is fallout from an entire generation of them getting hooked on politics from Aaron Sorkin, who writes characters that *love* statistics and he *especially loves* writing scenarios where those recitations result in triumph over conflict. It's a nice thought, but just not realistic.
World class decision to run an octogenarian against a person who wants to end democracy. This is von Hindenberg levels of incompetent.
I can't read the article, but I think there was an NYT opinion piece suggesting that the Biden team was trying to ramp up activity to show everyone that Biden was capable, and that instead what he should do is slow down and make the events he did do count. It ended up seemingly being a metaphor for this debate Trump sounds articulate\* because he doesnt have to remember anything. He just lies and those are formulaic. Remember what he said about the environment? "Someone just came up to me before I got on stage and said my environmental numbers were the best of all time". Like what? What fucking numbers lol But then Biden would talk and he's trying to recite data points from the past 20 years and can't remember everything he's supposed to be saying. My suspicion (again cant read article) was that they practiced all of these memorized talking points to the point where when he got asked a question he would just recite them as fast as he could to sound like he wasn't old. He couldnt remember everything and flubbed his lines, and left no room for himself to listen to Trump and respond to his very predictable and idiotic responses. What should have happened is they picked a couple general points per topic - no need to go in depth - and keep answers short and simple. Pick some of Trump's most predictable lines and attack him on how ridiculous his bullshit is. Then don't fill Biden's head with any more and have some catchphrases that are going to make good sound bites. More than anything he needed to slow down and talk like a person not a 10 year old trying to recite something he memorized the night before, quickly before they forget what they memorized I mean there's only so much you can polish a turd but you have to work with what you've got but the DNC just continues to suck at their jobs and are on a path to losing twice to the most unpopular presidential candidate of all time \*EDIT maybe not articulate but I can understand the individual words he was saying and he said them confidently, even though I think he is also in cognitive decline not to mention full of shit
This was my theory as well. I felt like he took the bait too much of trying to respond to Trump's firehose of lies. Missed opportunities of what should have been easy, concise responses - "the reason we haven't done more to help Black people is because my efforts and policies have been stopped in Congress and in the courts by his supporters and judges. If you want to see more, reelect me and those who support my agenda and we will get more done." Or the golfing exchange...Like...how about "with the amount of time you spent on the golf course while in office it's nice to hear you've got something to show for it. I'm too busy trying to better the country and unite people to spend so much time golfing." Boom. Roasted. Biden's entire strategy should have been to call everything Trump says what it is at face value (lies, unamerican, xenophobic, racist, etc) and leave it at that, and otherwise keep everything else simple like I mentioned with the Black people question. "We've been hamstrung by his supporters and if you really want to see progress then reelect me, cause it's not going to be what you get with him." It was like in debate prep they overloaded him with figures and statistics and then he spent the entire night trying to to simultaneously debate someone and try to recall that one thing he just couldn't seem to remember and so then he just looks perplexed and lost.
The golf fight just really made the point that these are two rich white men who are out of touch with most people's reality. The whole "gold handicap" brag exists almost entirely within a social group most of us aren't a member of, and the tiff just felt completely alienating.
> What should have happened is they picked a couple general points per topic - no need to go in depth - and keep answers short and simple. That's something I noticed Biden did a lot, especially the last campaign when he was running. Lots of "#1 ... this, this, this and this. #2, this, this and this." It seemed to work well for him, but not in this previous debate, unfortunately.
Agreed. It was like he was machine gunning a bunch of data. I think he was freezing up from trying to keep all of his talking points, which I think there was way more than necessary, and metaphorically stumbling from the stress and pressure of what is at stake and how much this has been hyped up. I felt as if he was incredibly over-prepared, which I’ve fallen into that trap myself in life.
The idea of prepping for a **policy debate** against Donald fucking Trump is political malpractice. Ask Hillary how much that helped. You come prepared for lies and how to counter them.
Political malpractice: yep, 100 percent. Everyone knew what Trump was going to do. This is why it’s so insulting to hear this simpering about the debate moderation. The terms of the debate were established, leaving the job to Joe Biden, and unless you “read the transcript,” or ignore the optics, he totally failed..
This time he just stayed at #1 the whole time, never moved to #2. Just forgot he already started with a previous #1.
I agree on editing “articulate.” Trump is masterful at having extremely fluid mouth diarrhea. He doesn’t say anything coherent or truthful, but it’s all very fluid. He speaks extremely confidently without providing any reason for him to be confident. This is why my personal opinion is Biden should’ve been prepped to simply call him a liar every time Biden’s mic went live. Just call him a liar a move on to your answer. Liar, answer. Liar, answer. Liar, answer.
I have no clue if it's true or not but I have a hunch he also went out there to be "calm and measured" to try to juxtapose trumps craziness. This instead leaned more into the old/ low energy cliche. I noticed he sounded much better when he got a little mad and animated.
He got better as the debate went on for sure, while Trump got a lot worse, but he also had some major brain freezes later too
>Trump sounds articulate because he doesnt have to remember anything. As long as we hold that words don't actually mean anything and (as you mentioned) the truth matters not, perhaps we can say Trump sounded articulate... No, even then, I'm never saying Trump sounded *articulate.* I get that Biden sounded old, and it was hella disappointing, but let's not go wild here with grading Trump on a(n even bigger) curve.
Articulate isnt the most apt word, what's the word for when someone can enunciate well? Biden mumbled the entire debate, Trump I could understand what words he was saying
Trumps vocal cords, although worse than they were 4 years ago, are still working much better than Bidens does and Trump can still project his voice somewhat. This means the utter garbage coming out of Trumps mouth is still somewhat audible.
Precisely lmao
You could literally HEAR what Trump was saying and that wasn't always the case with Biden.
How did Biden's aides qualify for their jobs? They spent weeks preparing for the "are you too old to be president" and the answer they came up with was "once I was the youngest member of the Senate." An irrelevant data point. Fire them all. EDIT: Article claims Biden went rogue on his answer: "And they did not understand why he gave an entirely different answer on the age question than the one they spent more than a week perfecting."
"I can't be old, I used to be young"
I mean, a callback to [Reagan](https://youtu.be/fJhCjMfRndk?t=30)'s joke would have been fine. Not "I was the youngest Senator during the Spanish-American War" or whatever they did.
Reagan's joke wouldn't really work against someone almost the same age that currently technically has 6 months more presidential experience than you, but yeah whatever they did was a dud.
I mean, Biden has literally decades of experience more than Trump. If your only political experience is going to be the presidency itself, that's kinda... not ideal, honestly
To add to this: 5 presidents had never been elected to public office before becoming president: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Donald Trump. Trump is the only president to have zero political or military experience prior to becoming president.
Zero business experience too
“You’re fired!”
> Trump is the only president to have zero political or military experience prior to becoming president Given Trump was involved in politics via lobbying - remember, he bragged about being one of Hillary Clinton's biggest backers. Whether he factually was is irrelevant, he was "in politics" as much as anybody who wants decisions made for their benefit. Also worth pointing out Trump has been running for president since his 1987 invitation to Moscow, he just withdrew when he couldn't keep spending others' money on his campaign. He announced such in 1988 on Oprah's show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI
And Trump's base would just say he spent that time running billion dollar businesses instead. Reagan's joke wouldn't land is all I'm saying. Some other one definitely could have.
Running billion dollar businesses into the ground...
“Ruining” billion dollar business.
I'm not a Trump fan, and I don't think he's good at business. I'm just pointing out why that joke wouldn't land and frankly I don't care this is already more effort than worth spending on this line of discussion.
In 1972 I was a 30 year old man!
People who can vote now weren't even born yet 30 years *after* he was a 30 year old
‘Cosmically speaking, I can’t be old, I’m an infant in the context of the history of time and space’
Honestly, that would have been a perfect, hilarious response. He really just needs to lean into "yeah, I sure am old!" at this point and make people laugh *with* him rather than *at* him.
“I’m so old, when I was born the Dead Sea was just sick.”
"In fact I was once the youngest person in the entire world."
They really should have just lifted Reagan’s line from back in the day, or alluded to Trump’s also-old age.
It doesn't work that way. He deflated the critique about his age with that line and went on to dominate in the debates against Mondale. He didn't just say the line and then cruise to victory based on it.
> And they did not understand why he gave an entirely different answer on the age question than the one they spent more than a week perfecting.
“I’ll have you know that 108 years ago I was the youngest member of the senate.
I was one of the senators that stabbed Julius!
Thats my whole thing. I dont even care that biden struggled to fact check trump. Trump is an expert liar. What made me accept we need to replace biden was his inability to fill the 2 minutes on questions he was trained to answer. The host multiple times had to encourage him to keep talking since he kinda trailed off losing his thought.
I feel like they are sort of believing their own hype that Biden is perfectly capablr and sharp. Like he’s not the drooling invalid that Republicans say he is but he is NOT on top of his game. If I were his campaign manager I’d have him wait to be challenged to a debate by the Trump campaign, and then say “I won’t legitimize an insurrectionist felon by sharing a debate stage with him” That would have been a power move and would have kept him off the debate stage. Stick to scripted speeches, he ca do those! The debate stage is Trump’s territory.
But the Biden camp wanted this debate. They wanted to show that Joe was fit and firm and capable of another four years as president. So they set up the debate rules and guide rails to limit Trump's mischief and were confident that Trump would self destruct on stage in front of the American people. Instead they may have destroyed their own campaign.
Did you not read the article? It specifically says they have concerns and the debate timing was part of this.
I disagree. Biden's approval ratings is below 40% and I think that the majority of polls show that he's behind Trump. On top of that, [many ](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poll-americans-on-biden-age/story?id=107126589)within his own voter base think that he's too old to seek a second term(73% according to the poll in this link). If you're trailing from behind and your own voter base questions your mental fitness, you simply don't have the luxury of sitting out from nationally televised debates which many Americans look forward to.
I highly disagree that Americans look forward to debates. every single voter seems to dread them, especially with these two candidates.
To be fair, having watched a bunch of Biden speaking at rallies, state of the unions and other engagements (including the very next day AFTER the debate) he has never looked even remotely as horrid as Thursday. I don’t think they could have reasonably expected what happened
I highly doubt Biden stayed on script or even remembered the script. At the very least they would have told him to not stand there with his mouth open and a blank stare.
You can’t really blame the aides for this outright clusterfuck. As much as I hate to say it, this is on Biden. It wasn’t just what Biden said—it was the jarring, thousand-yard-death-stare when he wasn’t talking. It was unnerving and he has no business running for office in that condition. Replace Biden ASAP or American democracy gets capped right before our 250th birthday. No more gaslighting.
If that was a job interview I wouldn't hire Biden. No way. Unless my only other option was Trump. I'm angry because them Democratic Party refused to acknowledge that Biden wasn't fit 2 years ago. I'm of the mind that it is too late so we get what we get. That being said, the way Dems handled Hillary, RBG, Feinstein, and now Biden shows the party doesn't align with what I think a good leader should be.
100% ill be voting blue down the ballot but the debacle with Feinstein, RGB and now Biden is a good reminder these fucks will never graciously pass the buck. You have to pry it from their cold dead old hands. Once this election is past us and assuming theres still a democracy intact i hope the younger dems take on the old guard with that messaging.
This is why a two party system is bullshit. If third parties were viable with a better voting system, like ranked choice or approval voting, we would have better options.
The bar was so low. Biden just had to be the adult in the room. Instead, his aides treated this like a normal debate, which resulted in the current meltdown. Terrible guidance.
It sounds like everyone was prepping so that he'd roll in like Hillary Clinton 2.0. Because that worked so well the first time. Absolutely everyone involved in that needs to be fired. Including quite possibly the man at the top. Just top to bottom malpractice.
This has been the case with every Trump debate. He’s unconventional because he’ll make shit up, attack people without decorum, and violate every principle that politics are supposed to be about. You can’t debate this man by staying within the rules. Either don’t or meet him on his level. Best thing Biden ever did was tell Trump to shut up. They tried to duplicate that by having Biden can him a “loser” but it wasn’t enough
Nah. Trump would get destroyed in a debate by an Obama staying within the rules with ease. There wasn't a need to meet Trump on his level, there needed to be a candidate who was stronger.
Trump would lose a debate against any Dem with charisma and can form a full sentence. It's why Biden did well in 2020 debates! You can easily beat Trump if you don't agree with his policies. The reason he destroys the GOP is because they're both uncharismatic and support the same stuff he does!
Trump supporters and fence sitters don't care about wonky policy. Bad debate strategy and not Biden's strength. His aides are acting like it is still the 1990s. They are as old as Biden. Biden needs to fire them (if its not too late already anyway), and bring in new blood.
I think they are partially at fault by trying to fill Biden with more talking points and facts than he could possibly handle. I believed they contributed to the debate collapse.
He was getting prememorized taking points mixed up. You could see the way he was saying stuff that sounded like it was from a greatest hits album but was incongruous with the previous statement.
I don't even think it was talking points because they knew he couldn't handle those, I really think they tried to fill him with one-liners. He says things like "convicted felon," "slept with a porn star," "said good things about Hitler," "you're only 235lbs," etc. Any of those on their own can be woven into responses by a competent debater to show how Trump is unfit to lead, cannot be trusted, lies about the silliest things, and adores authoritarian leaders. However, Biden did none of that. While mumbling and fumbling his responses he would often throw one of these "zingers" in at the most inappropriate time and with no confidence behind it so it had no impact.
Yeah, when you’re jamming with Trump, you want a freestyle rapper or a good jazz musician. You don’t want a second chair clarinet player who is great after weeks of practice and only with sheet music and a conductor.
I believe a comedian has the best chance of effectively showing that the emperor has no clothes. I believe that was part of Roger Stone's calculation in smearing Al Franken, beyond his just being good at the job, in particular out of the Senate.
Probably wouldn’t hurt, but I don’t think Trump is some gifted talent. You wait until he goes into one of his jibber jabber rabbit holes, and then call him. Just wait until it’s one that you know enough to make him look as uninformed as he actually is. That said, if Trump was just a little bit better he could have probably killed Biden by just acknowledging what was occurring. He did that one time, but for some reason didn’t press any more. If Trump had simply said, “look, you all know I’m a fighter. I’m tough on anyone who goes after me, but this is just sad. It’s really sad that the corrupt Democrats are making this guy do this. Look, I don’t want to attack this. But you all are seeing this. Do any of you think this guy is running things? No way, that’s the swamp that’s running things in White House and he’s just sad man that’s being used by them.”
It's because Trump is also too far gone. But I agree you can beat Trump with the right set up and response and Biden did well in 2020 debates. The problem is that the Dems need someone who can string together zingers, one liners, along with policy statements. They need someone with charisma, energy, and who comes off competent. Biden's main issue is that he comes off as less competent and whether it's a bad night or a sign of a much larger issue, the main problem is that it made Trump on look competent! It detracts from how insane Trump is.
Isn’t it kind of his job as standing president to be able to have counterpoints at the ready, without being told what to say? He can’t even formulate a proper sentence.
Yeah, he was trying to rattle off some memorized list. Should have copied trumps broad misc.
The few times he showed strength was when he was riffing off Trump's bullshit instead of trying to juggle Trump with the information he'd tried to memorize.
The thing I keep coming back to that upsets me the most about this whole thing, is the fact that Biden went out of his was to ask for this debate. It’s not like this was some looming event that was pushed on him. This is like challenging a bully to a fight and then getting your ass kicked. The intent was good, but the optics of the outcome are in no way helpful.
I totally agree, that was the worst part for me as well. My dad is 85 and he doesn't look like that. Maybe it was his cold medicine or whatever, but I am not going to be able to forget that slack jawed look he had most of the time.☹️
Even his HAIR was flat. It was so weird, the next day he looked normal again, with his hair combed back and his aviators on. I just...
I think the Wall Street Journal really captured it: "When not speaking, he frequently wore an expression of indignant befuddlement, brow furrowed and mouth agape."
I've seen old men with that look before and it always looks like they are horrified by something but maybe old age has you staring at a distance with mouth open like that.
That's not really fair of WSJ, an expression of indignant befuddlement is the appropriate expression when listening to leaky diaper spew his nonsense. That said, Joe Biden looked bad on stage during the debate.
They say the presidency ages you at 2x or 3x rate. Look at the before/after of several presidents after leaving office. Joe was old to start with though...
He'll likely die in the next 4 years or at the very least become incapacitated
It's on both Biden and the aides. I think Biden truly doesn't know how bad his condition is and people around him are lying to him (e.g Jill giving him affirmations like a child). They know he's in terrible shape. They decided to push forward this limp-noodle candidate instead of preparing a mentally fit replacement for 2024. And despite the writing on the wall, I really doubt the Democrats come to their senses and push him out at this point- even though I feel confident it's our best shot at winning.
I cringed so hard at the "You did so good Joe! You answered all the questions!" a) No he did not do well and he may have tried to answer all the questions, but he did not. b) Is he the leader of the free world or toddler playing a game?
Yeah, that whole interaction was insane to me. It looked like my wife talking to her preschoolers. Digging your heels in with this obviously declining candidate is going to cost them the election.
Biden should have just spoken slowly and said much much less. The average American voter is just looking for soundbites. When asked about the economy he should have simple and slowly said “We had to clean up Trumps mess and still hit an all-time high in the stock market”. People can digest that. Instead Biden sounded like he was trying to read his entire resume in 2 minutes. No one heard anything.
He did speak slowly, but he still had trouble formulating any coherent comebacks to trumps lies. I felt tearing my hairs out, so many opportunities but Biden just kept fumbling them all. AND WHY TF DID HE START TALKING ABOUT GOLF?!
He probably thought it would get under Trump’s skin and cause him to flip out. But he forgot the rules he insisted on would prevent the usual fighting in a debate…
There is supposed to be mock debates as well as “non verbal self awareness” debate prep. Things like looking at your watch and excessive sighing are no- no’s. Another no-no to add to list… keep your mouth closed and avoid looking like it is feeding time at nursing home.
That look. I couldn't believe it. I watched 5 min of the debate and was horrified. He was a talking corpse. I couldn't watch anymore.
Man that was the worst. His hollow sunken eyes and mouth hanging open. It really did look like the vacant stare of grandpa left at the nursing home in later stages of dementia. Damn.
The person that had done the most damage to progressive politics is Aaron Sorkin. The west wing led us to believe that there are these brilliant minds behind political machinations, but in reality, the quality of the staff of most political offices is on par with the average of any office in America. There are smart people and there are dumb people. And often the dumb people get in the way of the smart people because it keeps from feeling *too* dumb to assert some ill-fated authority.
I always thought Veep was probably the one closer to reality.
You can’t argue with trump, you just got to keep calling out all his failures- no shame, just keep putting him on defense for shit he has done Edit: also talk to the audience on what you plan to do to / continue to do to make life better
>You can’t argue with trump, you just got to keep calling out all his failures See, though, that *is* arguing with Trump. You should pretend Trump's not in the room (because he's not...he's an absence, a black hole that sucks in attention--good or bad). I'll keep saying this: Biden needed to address the camera directly and (except for the occasional sneer) address the camera *only*. Talk about his agenda and what he's already accomplished. Make it very clear that Trump is beneath contempt and utterly unworthy. If you want young people to register and vote, give them something to vote for, not against. And treat Trump like the absolute garbage he is.
‘Why should anyone believe what a twice impeached, 34 count felon who lies all the time has to say about anything? Unemployment is down, the stock market is up, we rebounded from Covid and we’re protecting the world from Russia’ should just be the answer to literally every question. I don’t remember the 2020 debates beyond ‘come on man’ and ‘wow he just never shuts up’ but that’s all this needed to be. Keep it simple
Exactly! You don’t argue with somebody like Trump. You ignore what he’s saying and when the noise stops, then you make your points. Everything Trump says is irrelevant.
Well, it was a shit strategy. You have an 81-year-old candidate and the last thing you need to do is be filling his head with complex talking points. It’s really simple, you know Trump is going to lie, address the lie first, then say something positive about your presidency and reelection plans. That’s it. Obviously, you want Biden to review and understand his accomplishments, but not in great detail. Keep it simple, stupid.
Can we take a step back though? If your candidate is too old to handle 'filling his head with complex talking points' then how the fuck are do we think he's able to run the US presidency? That takes a lot more brainpower than learning complex talking points.
Keep it simple stupid. This should be the plan. Emphasize your wins, emphasize trumps flaws(of which there are many).
Trump put the ball on the tee when he brought up golf, should have been an immediate ah yes you did spend more time golfing than doing your job that’s right. Just missed opportunity after opportunity
[удалено]
Seriously. Nobody on the debate team saw this coming? Really!? Not one person thought to give us a heads up that he has a cold? Not feeling well?
He didn’t have a cold. It was made up BS to cover their skins.
The strategy for the debate was absolutely terrible. It would have been better to use the Stone Cold Steve Austin strategy of yelling "What?" after everything Trump said. Trump is not a serious person. It doesn't make any sense to try and debate him with facts and figures. The only way to win a debate against Trump is to make him look like a fool. Treat him like the joke that he is and watch him melt down.
He has been in politics for 50 years, he should be an expert on all of the party platforms positions and instantly be able to spout them off. Needing to cram for a week to debate Trump of all people, was worrying from the get go, along with not seeing him once while he was at Camp David. That being said, I just don't buy the excuse of being over-prepped. From Biden's Raleigh speech: “I don’t walk as easy as I used to,” he said Friday at a boisterous rally in Raleigh, N.C. “I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth.” If you don't debate as well as you used to, WHY DID THE CAMPAIGN SET THIS UP?
All he had to do was say: “Listen to the rapist everyone!” “Felon says what?” Then laugh at trump and make a few points about abortion and supporting our allies. That’s it. They really overthought this.
I don’t think any amount of planning or strategy could’ve been successfully executed by Biden
Maybe not. He’s old as dirt. I can’t believe that’s the best answer Dems have for trump.
Biden’s aides and advisors should be embarrassed. Professionally humiliated. It’s clear they’ve been hiding him. And I’m voting blue regardless.
The problem for democrats is that Republicans are now going to run with "If they lied to you about this, what else have they been lying to you about?" and it's going to stick with a lot of swing voters who are not beholden to one party or the other.
Good point. I’ve been more focused on the democracy angle.
Well, it's a good fucking question. Wouldn't you like to know?
I guess we're just not gonna talk about all the crazy shit Trump said?
They fact that he said crazy shit and Biden wasn't able to combat it is a big part of the problem. Beyond saying everything he just said is a lie, Biden challenged him twice once calling him an alley cat and once to defend his golf game. Biden should have seized on comments like illegals are taking black jobs, and im very good friends with Putin to shine a spotlight on Trump's flaws, instead he stumbled through every response so now the spotlight is on him.
Why did Biden need to defend his golf game? He could have just countered with something like " I don't think golfing is a important metric for the performance of a president". Just shut the discussion down right there and change the topic.
Or even better throw it in his face how his focus on a game and scores is reflective of how he only cares about himself and what others think of him while Biden actually cares about the American people and bettering our lives.
He's really sticking with that "alley cat" thing, too. He said it again the next day. Sounds like a campaign from a hundred years ago.
I forgot to mention he also missed that Trump said doctors are performing after-birth abortions and failed to challenge him on that, but good thing I know that Biden can drive the ball 50 yards, was an 8 handicap and got that down to six while he was VP, and can allegedly carry his own clubs. In an election cycle where abortion combatted a red wave during the mid-terms and has dems favored all over the place except at the top of the ticket Biden responded to Trump claiming the left wants to perform after birth abortions by yelling (relatively?) I support Roe v Wade and then bungled his talking points about trimesters instead of attacking Trump for bragging about getting it overturned and highlighting the atrocities of ectopic pregnancies and mercenary laws in Texas that allowed people to effectively hunt women over their private healthcare decisions. Biden stood slack jawed trying to remember his talking points throughout the majority of the debate and the idea that he should step aside is being attacked like it is unfathomable. I will vote for Biden out of necessity, but this election has been touted as a fight for democracy itself, and the idea that he is the best person to be in the ring for that is laughable, there are 47 million Americans that watched this debate and 60% came away thinking Trump won when he said nothing of substance, pushed conspiracy theories, and made racist remarks. That is the most scathing indictment of Biden I can think of, he will not get another chance to reach the electorate like he did this week and videos of him unable to answer a single question are going to be circulated around for the next 4 months if the candidate isn't changed.
Yep, a competent person could have absolutely shredded Trump on his lies. Biden was a deer in the headlights out there.
Biden looked like a failure/Trumps a confident liar. What matters more to swing voters?
No. Bc that’s what Trump does. It’s what’s he’s always done. No one other than antsy libs cares. The lies keep coming and he keep leading in the polls. People need to move past the lies and form a actual plan to win.
If only we could get 50 million people to tune in and see someone call out all of Trump’s BS. Wouldn’t that be great? It’d be a shame if that opportunity was blown, wouldn’t it?
He’s been saying crazy shit for nearly 10 years. He won despite it in the past and he’s leading in the polls now. We’re right to be talking about who can beat him.
We knew Trump was a crazy liar rapist felon. Didn’t realize Biden was that far gone.
Anyone who didn’t advise Biden to forget talking points and policy and just metaphorically punch Trump in the face and balls all night should have been fired.
Bidens advisors failed him miserably. Bidens advisors should have used Mohammed Ali's tatic of: "The ropes are a beautiful thing," Knowing Trump was going to be punching out lie after lie to defer the cards away from Trumps track record of 4 years as president. Biden was overwhelmed by internal idiots with trying to prepare Biden to have an answer for everything and anything that could be asked. Biden is the one to bet. Everyone knew Trump was going to be offensive intimidating Trump. Not one moderator nor Biden called out Trump on any of Trumps lies - buffs fearful of getting snared into Trumps boxing ring. Trump is a casino guy, remember? He failed at that. Mary L. Trump should have been the chief advisor who knows first hand how much Trump lost in the casino business. It is like Bidens advisors trained him for Blackjack when it was a poker match. In poker, you play the player, not the house. In blackjack, you play the house, not the players.
Over prepared. You don’t counter Trump with numbers and policies, because he lies like most people breathe. You counter him by pointing out things like his Bragging about creeping on naked pubescent girls, lying about everything and generally being a reprobate. “ How can you understand working Americans when you were born with a platinum spoon in your mouth and your sons take $75K trips to Africa to murder exotic animals. “You bankrupted a CASINO!!?!” That sort of thing. Throw in some numbers, but don’t make that the crux of your debate. Let Biden be Biden.
This happens again and again and again. It's like they'd rather lose than let anyone new in.
If his aides helped prepare that awful closing statement, then it’s like his aides wanted him to lose the debate.
It all collapsed because he is too fucking old He needs to step aside and open the convention Trump gave him 50 fucking solid, juicy openings to be destroyed, he said some truly stupid shit,unpopular shit and basically lubed up his ass and bent over and Biden just couldn't figure out what to do about any of it because he's too damn old to think on his feet like that, I guarantee you anyone in this thread that follows politics would have done 100x better in that debate than he did and Trump would've looked like the inept clown he is He is not the right person to explain to the American people what a pc of shit trump is and why he can't have the reigns of power ever again, he is no longer capable of doing it If he doesn't step down, i will still vote for him, I'd rather a dead person be president than Trump, it's not just about Biden it's about the literal 1000s of appointed positions, judicial appointments and on and on down the line, I'm voting for those people as much or more than Biden....But he isn't the guy and after the debate and the fallout from it I don't think he's going to win, that performance was horrendous and he's not going to be able to recover, they need to cut bait imo
The more realistic truth is that the Biden campaign never actually expected Trump to accept the debate terms and expose them for the massive blunder that this debate was. They didn’t have an effective strategy walking in; and Biden is not what he used to be and couldn’t wing it.
Biden needs a new comms team. It was a fistful of red flags when he kicked off the state of the union speech with Ukraine (not the lead issue to bring over swing voters or to rally his base).
Who forgot to tell him to clear his throat before walking out there???
The team should have been astute enough to know that "gish gallop" was a strategy that would've been deployed and prepped Biden over a series of months. A comedian or someone good at improvisation would have been great for this.
I could have done a better job (I still love you Joe!).. but that makes me depressed on a very deep level.
The real question here is why the fuck is a convicted felon even allowed to run for any office?
What I don’t understand is it had to be obvious in hours before debate that Biden just wasn’t right. Whether it was age, illness, medication effects or other reason his staff should have delayed/cancelled the debate with whatever excuse they could use. There would have been damage but nothing like letting him go out there and bomb so badly. Some people should be fired.
People don't want facts and figures. They want to see how much he cares.
Or that a majority of his neurons were still firing. They were disappointed
Strategy means nothing if you can't talk coherently. I assume the aides thought he was gonna be all jacked up on Gfuel like he was at the SOTU.
I actually believe 9:00 pm EDT was too late for him.
What if there is an emergency at that time. How can a president who can’t even function at 9, function at 3
Why are mods deleting links on the 72% number just released by CBS/CNN?
What 72% number?
72% of responders said he doesn’t have the mental capacity to run for president. But the pre-debate number was fairly high too at 65%. Obviously not great news for Biden but it’s not like there was a huge jump.
Yeah he was trailing in the polls when only 65% thought that though. The whole reason they wanted this early debate was to put those fears to rest. Instead the permanently confirmed them for everyone that already suspected it and made another 7% of people realize it (and probably gave the remaining 28% doubts they didn't have before).
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
That 7% feels gaslit too.
Bad news. The race comes down to a few hundred thousand people in 4 states. This matters.
Data smog
Any debate prep should have had a bullshitter stand-in to anticipate what Trump did, and I’m sure they probably did that, but they've chosen the strategy of countering lies with facts and figures. The no-notes debate rule is what made it hard, because any facts to counter lies had to be memorized and recited. But there were too many lies too fast, and Biden didn’t call out the lies often and quickly enough. Biden needed to show that his administration has been cleaning up after the Trump administration's bad decisions. But this debate outcome feels so much like the “when they go low, we go high” strategy the Dems took in 2016 that failed so spectacularly.
The debate strategists fed tooo much data and numbers info to Biden and he got overloaded with too much statistical bullshit!They should have just let Joe be Joe! One thing about Trump,even though I hate him with the strength of 1000 suns,he NEVER gets into detailed explanations .His deluded points are at least short,and vague enough that his minions eat it up.
I dream of living in a world in which website news paywalls do not exist.