The bar was low and Joe Biden tripped over it. That is the verdict of a BBC analysis of Thursday’s debate with Donald Trump, which described the president as flat, rambling and unclear for most of 90 minutes.
The campaign said midway through that Biden had a cold, which would account for the raspy voice. The BBC found the explanation plausible and also noted that it “sounded like an excuse.”
Some early answers made little sense. After losing his thread on one, Biden finished with the line “We finally beat Medicare,” a puzzling reference to the government health programme for the elderly.
His own former communications director did not soften it. Kate Bedingfield, speaking on CNN right after the debate, said: “There’s no two ways about it, that was not a good debate for Joe Biden.” His central task was to show he had energy and stamina, she said, and he had not.
Trump stays on script
Trump, by contrast, kept his head. He skipped the interruptions and belligerence that hurt him in his first debate in 2020 and steered back to Biden’s record whenever he could. The BBC also counted repeated assertions unsupported by facts, plus outright falsehoods, among them the incorrect claim that Democrats support abortions after babies are born. Biden mostly failed to pin him down.
The opening topics from CNN’s moderators were the economy and immigration, where polls show voters trust Trump more. That did Biden no favours.
Midway through, Biden started swinging, and a few punches landed. He cited Trump’s conviction in the Stormy Daniels case and said his opponent had “the morals of an alley cat.” Trump snapped back: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.” On January 6, Biden refused to let a question about responsibility for the Capitol attack slide into a debate about his own record. “He didn’t do a damn thing,” he said of Trump’s three hours of inaction. Trump also dodged on whether he would accept the 2024 result.
Trump’s own line may have said it best. After one muddled Biden reply he remarked: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he did, either.”
The party’s reaction
Vice-President Kamala Harris conceded a “slow start” but said Biden finished strong. The BBC called that overly optimistic, while allowing that he steadied as the night went on.
No prominent Democratic official had publicly broken ranks, though some were reported to be raising alarms in anonymous conversations with journalists. Asked by the BBC about opening the August convention to other candidates, deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said they were “not going to dignify that with a response.” He added that Biden would be the nominee and would win in November.
Biden has almost two months to calm things down. He won enough primary delegates comfortably, and dropping him would take what the BBC called an open revolt. A second debate is set for September.
