Joe Biden Lays Down All The Rules In The 2024 Presidential Debate—And Still Gets Defeated By Donald Trump
It was a terrible night.
Donald Trump was an ambitious dictator, a liar, a bigot, a criminal—not to mention a fool. His presidency was an unmitigated disaster. But most people know that diving in Thursday night debate. The question of the evening was whether President Joe Biden be able to overcome the nagging concerns that have clouded his bid: unfavorable poll numbers, divisions within the party, and of course age and health issues. your.
The finale, unfortunately, was the story of Thursday night. Biden struggled. His voice was hoarse. He struggled to make an impression. Trump lied and lied and lied, spewed bullshit and bullshit and more bullshit—but Biden couldn’t seem to block the blows, let alone land any of his own. What did he come closest to doing? “You have the morals of a wildcat,” Biden said as he pointed out some of Trump’s civil and legal problems, including the 34 felonies for which he was recently convicted.
But by that point, the damage had already been done. Trump is as deceitful and scary as ever — and looks like he’s 78 years old, under the heavy makeup and strangely braided hair. But he came out of the gate with more energy than Biden, and that energy overwhelmed the 81-year-old president’s efforts to bring him back to reality. “I really don’t know what he said,” Trump said after an attack on Biden. “I don’t think he even knew what he said.”
Biden was able to fend off such criticism when the two met on the debate stage four years ago. “Will you shut up, buddy?” Biden asked angrily that period of timeon track to win in 2020, ending four chaotic years of Trump in office and bringing about significant policy changes on multiple fronts.
But this time, the president has difficulty taking that positive stance for his presidency, and one can imagine many people representing him – from the Vice President. Kamala Harris down—can do better. Biden as reported caught a cold during the hearing, which might explain the hoarseness. But plenty of Democrats would have made mincemeat of Trump if the former president had, for example, declared that “we have the best H20 ever” in a typically inane answer to a question about climate change. Biden found himself arguing about Trump’s height and being interrupted with a “by the way…” after violating the rules his own campaign had put in place.
The mic cut and no crowd are said to allow Biden to focus on the content, to prevent Trump from dominating him, as is the former president’s preferred debate style. But Mr still let Trump crush him, distracted by the debate over the number of presidential historians who ranked his predecessor as the worst of all time. “Look it up, go online,” Biden said. “159, 158—I don’t know the exact number—presidential historians, they got together and voted. ‘Who was the worst president in the history of the United States?’ From best to worst. They said he was the worst in the entire history of the United States.”
