‘ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE’: The reviews of last night’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are in, and they are brutal. To say that Biden was not on his game would be a serious understatement. In a hoarse voice, the president stumbled and stammered through the debate, at times seeming to lose his train of thought, giving disjointed answers that trailed off inconclusively. As Biden struggled to make the point that illegal border crossings were down under his new policy, Trump said, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” The cringe-inducing 90 minutes provided plenty of material for a low-light reel released by the Trump campaign. There was no denying Biden looked feeble and did nothing to reassure voters who questioned whether he was too old for the job. As one observer noted on social media, Biden looked like “he had one foot in the grave.” If Biden loses to Trump in November, many will point to this debate as the moment his campaign went off the rails.
A FACT-FREE PERFORMANCE: There was no real-time fact-checking during the debate, and that gave Trump a free hand to repeat many of his rally-tested talking points that were inaccurate, misleading, and, at times, flat-out untrue. Biden, too, was cited for at least nine times when he made false or misleading claims. After the debate, CNN fact-checkers counted more than 30 times when Trump repeated falsehoods, including claims that the “U.S. has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe, Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency.” Biden falsely claimed that “no U.S. troops have been killed on his watch, baselessly claimed that Trump wants to eliminate Social Security, falsely said that the unemployment rate was 15% when he took office, inaccurately said that the Border Patrol union had endorsed him,” according to CNN.
TRUMP CLEARLY WON: According to the flash polls taken right after the debate, 67% of viewers thought Trump won, while only 33% thought Biden came out on top. Biden’s favorability rating also dropped from 37% to 31%, while Trump’s increased slightly from 40% to 43%. “Yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong finish. And what became very clear through the course of the night is that Joe Biden is fighting on behalf of the American people, on substance, on policy, on performance,” Vice President Kamala Harris said on CNN, a comment that received immediate pushback from CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I’m sorry on substance and policy and performance tonight, I mean, the president’s performance tonight clearly was disappointing for his supporters,” Cooper said.
WHAT WAS ACTUALLY DEBATED: As historian Heather Cox Richardson observed, “Stage performance has trumped substance in political coverage in our era.” However, some issues of substance were discussed, at least superficially, such as Ukraine.
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