The question after watching Thursday night’s Trump-Biden presidential debate is not “Who won?” It is “Who will be replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee?” Indeed, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace is saying Biden’s circle is already talking about that possibility.  

Jack Posobiec of Human Events similarly reports, “Senior advisors are having open discussions about it as we speak, and I do mean open, right outside the Oval.”

Yes, it was that bad. Indeed, that sad for America.

Is That What Seven Days of Prep Gets Us?

Joe Biden did make it the full 90 minutes without falling over. But he was awful. Halfway through, a desperate White House spread word that Biden had a cold. Why wouldn’t they have said that beforehand, so people would be prepared for the raspy, gasping, calamity? I do not know.  

But a case of the sniffles does not account for Biden’s undecipherable answers, his heads-scratching claims and accusations, his repeated replay of debunked hoaxes, his losing words in mid-sentence, his hostility, his blank, broken stares when Trump was talking. The creepy lack of blinking. He was the perfect embodiment of frailty and diminished mental faculty .

A cold does not account for an immediate, collective sense from across the political spectrum that Joe Biden is done.

At one point, Joe Biden completely lost his train of thought, went blank and froze. Just like those freezes the White House insisted were “cheap fakes.”  

It’s no wonder Joy Reid reported on what she was hearing from campaign staffers and the like: “The universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic.”

It is a wonder that, given what we’ve seen of Biden, CNN’s Chris Cillizza was shocked by how bad Biden was.

Look. This debate was a total and complete disaster for Biden. He looked old. His answers trailed off repeatedly. He was hard to understand. He would stop in mid sentence and move on to something else.

I NEVER thought he would be this bad. Stunning. Truly.

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) June 28, 2024

Maria Shriver, a child of the Kennedy Democratic dynasty and longtime liberal news media figure, was heartbroken.

I love Joe Biden. I know he’s a good man. I know his heart is good. I know he’s dedicated to our country and is surrounded by good people. Tonight was heartbreaking in many ways. This is a big political moment. There’s panic in the Democratic party. It’s going to be a long night.

— Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) June 28, 2024

Another CNN commentator asked a question that needs to be answered: “If you love the guy how do you put him in a situation like that?”

Put your partisanship aside. On a human level, Biden’s state on that stage is sad and angering. And when we consider the national security implications of having a president this incapacitated, we have to ask why was it allowed to happen? What kind of ghouls and power goblins are his handlers? His wife? Was the early debate strategy designed to kneecap the stubborn Biden so he’d have to be replaced at the convention? Did they think they could bamboozle the American people for 90 minutes? Are they counting on the media to contort this into a Biden victory?

Who knows? The same people on MSNBC and CNN weeping and gnashing their teeth all night may well be comparing Biden to Lincoln come morning, assuring people who turned away because Biden was too painful to watch that he got stronger as the debate went on. By the end, Biden was a lion, a GOAT, Russell Crowe in Gladiator.

But right now, after much of America witnessed what we witnessed, it seems clear Democrats are calling down the bullpen and trying to figure a way to send Biden to the showers.

Donald Trump Did What He Needed to Do

Mark this day. It might be the only time Donald Trump is not focus of a story involving Donald Trump. But that’s not to say Trump didn’t have as good a night as could be.

The former president remained focused and effective … and on his best behavior. Exactly what he needed to do. Even his best one liner of the night was delivered with a slight touch of remorse rather than with a relish.

“Mr. Trump, what is your response to what President Biden just said?”

“I honestly don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

In a moment toward the end of the debate the two began jousting over golf. Trump laughed off Biden’s claim of being a 6 handicap, saying he couldn’t hit the ball 50 yards. Biden responded by fat-shaming the former president. Trump was in mid retort when he stopped and said, “Let’s stop acting like children.” Donald Trump said that?!

Trump repeatedly touted his record while hitting Biden’s hard. He was particularly effective in repeatedly returning to the number of illegals coming into the border and their devastating effect on crime, jobs, wages, drugs and how the 18 million or so illegals brought in under Biden’s watch are bankrupting our social services.

CNN asked Trump several times if he would accept the results of the election. “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “I wish he was a great president because I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be at one of my many places enjoying myself. I wouldn’t be under indictment because I wouldn’t be his political opponent.”

No surprise, in the same segment of the debate, CNN asked Biden about concerns about his age. He gave an answer that had nothing to do with his age. And CNN did not press him on it. (No surprise.)

Which returns us to our main point: Trump really is not the story from the debate. It is Joe Biden.

Some Biden Moments That No Dayquil Could Cure

Biden made the astonishing false claim that no military members have lost their lives during his term. His actual quote was, “I’m the only president this decade that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world … .” This completely forgets the 13 heroes killed in a suicide bombing during Biden’s blown withdrawal from Afghanistan. Or the two Navy Seals lost at sea during a mission off the coast of Somalia.

Biden said, ‘We finally beat Medicare.” To which Trump replied, “He’s right. He beat Medicaid. He beat it to death.”  

He gave an answer on abortion that would need a supercomputer and Navajo code talkers to decipher.

BIDEN: "He went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by an immigrant. But here's the deal, a lot of young women are being raped by their inlaws. By their spouses. By their brothers and sisters. It's just ridiculous."

What is Joe Biden trying to say? pic.twitter.com/3eklYUglr8

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) June 28, 2024

Did the Commander-in-Chief say women are getting raped by their sisters?

Know how he’s been saying inflation was at 9% when he took office? He changed that tune. “There was no inflation when I became President. You know why? The economy was flat on its back!”

He also lied about being endorsed by the Border Agents Union.

OMG pic.twitter.com/H0Fmt6U2iE https://t.co/mLuqfAuTop

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 28, 2024

As predicted Biden could not resist bringing up the Charlottesville Hoax that Trump referred to Nazis and White Supremacists as “very fine people.” Even Snopes finally admitted this week Trump never said that. Quite the opposite in fact. He also repeated the hoax that Trump called lost soldiers “suckers and losers,” which has been debunked on the record by 19 people who were actually there, including some who at this point detest Trump. Biden also repeated twice how his son Beau died from his service in Iraq. “My son was not a sucker and a loser,” he bellowed. ‘You’re the sucker and loser.”  

He also kept calling Trump a “whiner.” You are trying to explain why you deserve four more years in the job and that’s what you come up with? 

And yes, he declared Trump is “the only person on this stage who is a convicted felon,” before blasting Trump over his assorted lawfare cases. Trump’s reply, beyond pointing out that Hunter’s a convicted felon? “It’s a guy who is going after his political opponent because he can’t win fair and square.”

The Aftermath

We’ll see over the next few days how much Biden’s performance will hurt him in the polls. Pollster Frank Luntz had some ominous news for Team Biden during the debate.

After the first commercial break, I asked my focus group of undecided voters how many of them are more convinced to vote for Joe Biden.

Zero raised their hands.

Half of them say they voted for Biden in 2020.

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 28, 2024

It’s also a bad sign when CNN’s Anderson Cooper starts grilling Kamala Harris over whether Biden should step aside.

We will also see if the phrase “25^th Amendment” starts trending, because this debate not only put into question Joe Biden’s viability as a candidate in 2024, but whether he is fit enough to continue to serve as president another day. (“Replacing Biden” is trending on X.)

When the Hur Report came out, Biden and the White House gave the excuse that Biden’s mental lapses in the interview came from the enormous stress of dealing with the terrorist attack on Israel. Well, Joe Biden spent seven full days holed up at Camp David doing nothing but resting and prepping for last night’s debate.

We got the best Joe Biden has to give last night. He can only get worse.

We do not just have a campaign in trouble. We have a country in crisis.

Renewed prayer for our nation is in order. 

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.