Known quantities: First presidential debate a low-energy trainwreck
It took a while to ramp up, but after an hour of debating, Biden and Trump showed they still got it -- which is exactly why they're struggling with voters
It took a while before the first showdown of the 2024 campaign got up to speed. And once it did, it sounded a lot like the mess that has dominated American politics for years now and which has turned off a large portion of the country.
At the outset of the first — and potentially only — debate between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump of this election, the incumbent Democratic president struggled mightily, stuttering and appearing dazed at times. Trump, by contrast was almost sedate as he delivered calculated rebuttals which hinted at the deep level of prep work which went into his appearance onstage.
Biden, in a potentially fatal gaffe, said “we finally beat Medicare.” (As a major supporter of expanded government healthcare, it seems highly unlikely he meant that.) And Trump jumped right in with an easy dunk, “Well he’s right, he did beat Medicare” — but then devolved into broadsweeping attack on immigrants.
“We give them everything they want, and they think we’re stupid,” Trump said.
Each president was incoherent routinely throughout the debate, though for very different reasons.
The two people in the studio who came out looking the best were veteran CNN anchors Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, who pressed both men repeatedly and calmly for answers and explanations on the most sensitive topics — and followed routinely with the same question when they ducked answering. Their measured and deliberate performance let the candidates shine, most likely in ways neither candidate wanted.
The tangled, traumatic history of the two — one former president, one incumbent — was on full display and impossible to avoid, particularly the violence of the last election, which resulted in Trump’s supporters conducting an insurrection spurred by his lies about his 2020 election loss.
Where Biden got tripped up on softball questions like fighting for abortion access, Trump got tripped up trying to duck questions of the January 6th insurrection and his promises to seek vengeance if he returned to office.
The first debate of the 2024 election was mired in the 2020 election. And that was entirely unavoidable.
In one of the tersest exchanges directly between the two, Biden hit Trump for his felony conviction on hiding porn-star payments in an effort to win the 2016 election and attempted to shoot down Trump’s false claims that the January 6th rioters were victims.
“Will you denounce the people we’re talking about now? Will you denounce the people who attacked the Capitol?” Biden asked Trump directly. But Tapper interjected as time ran out and turned back to Trump with a tough question: the former president said he will attack his political opponents and wants them in jail, “Can you clarify exactly what it means about you feeling you have every right to go after your political opponents?”
Then Trump, in a standard non-sequitur, opened by backtracking from his threats.
“Well, I said my retribution is going to be success,” he said.
And then he turned it into an attack on Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted of buying a gun while addicted to crack.
And he closed with a standard-issue vague threat that Biden could end up in jail, though he didn’t say how or why that would happen.
Tapper’s flat response was, “Thank you, President Trump.”
“Trump, like Biden, articulated no path to the future. And he also committed age-related gaffs. No new ground was plowed, both men embarrassed themselves and their parties,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Indiana Republican, after the debate.
“The saddest thing is that we collectively deserve what we have wrought,” Murphy continued. “The implications of having two semi-senile politicians unable to land a single effective blow, or describe a coherent philosophy or justification for deserving your vote, has long-range implications for our futures.”
The immediate takeaway after the debate was that Biden came across so old and frail that he could get replaced as the Democratic nominee. And a similar sentiment was issued on Trump, he simply couldn’t tell the truth. And both men stayed at each other’s throats, though without nearly the vigor they showed four years ago.
When confronted with reports from his former top aides that he called veterans “suckers” and “losers”, Trump falsely claimed it was “made up”. Biden retorted by verbally slapping Trump in the face, “You’re the sucker, you’re the loser.”
After the break halfway through the debate, Biden returned to the stage more energized — which kicked up renewed claims that he must be using speed — and Trump appeared more riled up, redder in the face and angrier.
And they both looked closer to the same men who savaged each other on the debate stage in September 2020, mired in the past.
Good analysis.