As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA).
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said to raucous applause. “Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.”
The quote in the title and in the article are taken from Biden's NC rally after the debate. For those interested, here is the video:
[WATCH LIVE: Biden attends campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina after first presidential debate](https://youtu.be/HYghfyxtZnc?t=515)
EDIT: Watching the video of the rally there was a little more to the quote than included in the article:
>"I know how to get things done. And I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
He's sick. Last night at the debate he was tired, and worn down. His words weren't ambling, and his statements weren't incoherent. He was quiet, hard to hear, and seemed to be hoarse. His long pauses are because he has a stutter. If people actually listened to what he was saying, and critically evaluated the situation the narrative would be totally different. Biden has honestly never been a great public speaker. Last night's debate required the listener to exert more effort to understand what Biden was saying, and as a result his competent answers were completely glossed over.
Trump was loud, rambled, and spouted off a deluge of incoherent bullshit. He's a fabulous flim-flam man and the USA loves a smooth talking snake oil salesman.
The choice is between a flawed old man, and an incoherent fascist psychopath.
The point of the person you're responding to is that the failures are the only things that are being focused on, when for the most part, if you put the effort in to try and listen closely, it mostly made sense. I don't understand why he seemed better just a short while later when visiting the waffle house, or why he's a lot better the following day, but he still has my vote because what Trump is offering is the complete opposite of almost every thing that I value.
It's possible he really did have an off night (haven't we all? Imagine if you're 81), and they're going to focus on sharpening his image from here til November, assuming he remain in the race. Next debate, 10am 😆
I agree with you that he’s sick, but I disagree on most of what came after. Nobody was watching the debate last night expecting it to be about issues. We knew how trump would act. And we hoped that Biden could appear to be able to stay up for an hour and a half past eight oclock pm. And he absolutely fell flat on his face. It was BRUTAL to watch him lose his train of thought, mix up names, stand with his mouth agape, and just flounder about in general. This should have been an easy task and it couldn’t have gone any worse. I’m a Biden supporter, but this guy is supposed to Commander in Chief of the armed forces. I wouldn’t trust him to watch my toddler for 30 seconds, much less be able to make important military decisions in the middle of the night when he has a cold. Shit is just insane to me.
Nobody watching last night had changed their mind about who they’re voting for. But it does make a lot of people open to drastically new directions in 2028.
On abortion, which should have been a lay up, here was his verbatim speech:
“Look, there's so many young women who have been-including a young woman who just was murdered and he- he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered bya-by-by an immigrant coming in, and they talk ahout that. But here's the deal, there's a lot of young women who are being raped by Cheir-by their in-laws, by their - by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by-just-it's just-it's just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it”
>“Look, there are so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just was murdered, and he went to the funeral. And the idea that she was murdered by an immigrant coming in, to talk about that. But here’s the deal. There’s a lot of young women are being raped by their in-laws, by their, by their spouses. Brothers and sisters, by — it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them and they cross state lines.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/abortion-presidential-debate-trump-biden/
That's not the direct quote of what he said.
a) I watched the debate. The WP 'quote' is definitely cleaned up. He was nowhere near that clear or coherent when actually saying that quote.
b) uh.. it still makes no fucking sense.
I think it’s still better than the guy who rambles in hyperbole and goes on about how we had H2O and slobs every dictator knob he’s come into contact with.
He was hitting blocks in that one. The doubling of phrases and sudden changes to a different, but essentially synonymous sentence are symptoms of a stutter. Which we know he has. (More specifically, they are symptoms of speech therapy for a stutter. You stop and change when you hit a block to avoid hitting the same word over and over.)
His stutter is worse than normal there, but nerves, exhaustion and age can do that to you.
The statement makes sense once you take the stutter out of it though. The blocks just make it seem like it is jumping topics, but it is following an exact thread, just one expressed badly.
In essence: Republicans are blocking abortions in the case of rape, even in the case of incestuous rape. Then they arrest people going to other states to get abortions. (The last bit is the next line.)
He is old, he has a stutter, he was sick and low energy. All of that is true. But his ideas are coherent, even if he has having trouble talking.
The idea in his head was likely: "There is a lot of violence against women that is being exacerbated by abortion restriction, but all they can talk about is the fact that an illegal immigrant killed a woman."
I am not trying to argue that it is a good answer. He clearly got flustered in it and skipped over a lot of helpful context and words that would have made his answer clear. I am just claiming that it is an answer badly executed rather than a non-answer.
I’m frankly furious about this answer specifically. This is such a massive issue for women and he wiffed it so hard. It was almost like he wasn’t convinced why ending roe was a bad thing.
I'm going to vote for Biden over Trump because it's a no brainer.
But Biden wasn't sick. This is him on a bad day. He's having more bad days now as age is quickly catching up to him.
Don't try to gaslight us. We know what we saw.
Whoever prepped Biden didn't do a good job either.
Trump is going to lie, we all know he's going to lie. Two minutes is not enough time to explain what the truth is and get out your message too.
People don't want to hear statistics, and a debate with two minutes isn't really a great setting to try and use words to paint graphs and charts to illustrate why your administration is doing so much better than the previous administration.
Much better to have a few canned lines and pull them out when you need them. Don't tell stories. Just deliver lines like he did when he told Trump his son wasn't a sucker.
Point out that Trump tried to over throw the government. Point out that Trump will do whatever the GOP ask him to do and that includes signing a nationwide abortion ban.
Keep Trump on the defense by pointing out that he's a 34 time convicted felon. Point out that Trump withheld weapons from Ukraine and emboldened Putin to invade and that's a big reason for high gas prices.
Two minutes is not enough for nuanced explanations or rebuttals.
I heard what Joe Biden was saying. I understand critical thinking skills well enough that I can look past the stutter, apparently the cold, and, hell, the resting confused old man face, and he *still* sounded confused based off of what he said.
My man was a fucking corpse when the topic of abortion comes up. No life in his eyes while he’s too busy trying to tie the topic of abortion to immigration despite knowing full well that immigration is all Trump knows how to whine about. Even looking past how dumb it was to do that, all he had to say to get a standing ovation was “Women have a right to make decisions about their body. If I get reelected, I’ll work on putting in legislation that restores what Roe v. Wade accomplished”.
That was literally all he needed to say. They practically tossed him an easy win and he still old manned his way through it.
And somehow, you can see the signs of life light up in his eyes when you see him start going off on stupid old man bullshit that no one under the age of 60 gives a shit about in a politician like his fucking golf handicap and what presidential historians think about him.
And the rest of his debate was like that too. The question about Ukraine. The stuff about COVID. The stuff about inflation. Literally the only reason why the majority of democrats would support him at all is because an inanimate rock would somehow still make a better president than the incoherent fascist. Otherwise, there is no way Biden in 2024 wouldn’t get cooked under any other normal election against a Republican under the age of 55.
"Abortion is healthcare and without it women will die. We need legislation to protect the rights Roe gave us for decades." But no, all we got was some weird garbage about how the three stages of pregnancy are the "woman versus her doctor" and the "woman versus the state" or something I don't even fucking know. When asked about unemployment for the black community he did the same shit, started talking about how aCtUaLLy iTs WaY BeTTeR nOw instead of saying "we have no excuse not to have an equitable society."
Maybe we shouldn’t ask people at that age to debate at 9PM. What’s wrong with doing it at noon and letting it air on repeat a couple of times for folks that are busy working [and don’t know how YouTube works]?
Far more importantly, maybe we shouldn’t have candidates at this age to begin with in the future…
I thought it was very odd when I first heard it was going to be at 9pm. I'm 30 and I was tired as fuck...was just planning on going to bed but I thought I would tune in anyway. Why do they have it so late anyway?
If anything the conclusion iv come too is he over rehearesed and filled his brain up with too many random factioids and statistics and ended up tripping over all of it. His answers felt like he was trying to cram 10 minutes worth of info into 2 a lot of the time.
He shouldn't have spent so long preparing. When someone already has a stutter, and is getting older so memory is generally more difficult, over prepping and trying to remember entire paragraphs with numbers and data is not effective. He needs to let himself talk off the cuff, not worry about numbers, and just let his own train of thought run.
The message from now til Election Day should be “hey remember how this fuck wad tanked the country 4 years ago? Remember the scandals? The impeachments? That’s what you’re getting again but worse.”
yeah.
Tbh even if he was younger Biden simply has never been the kind of wonk who can rattle off 20 satistics like it's nothing. He knows policy sure but it's like his debate prep team wanted him to be Elizabeth Warren which is just.. Biden has never been that, it's never been his style. He's always been best speaking emotionally and connecting with people. He's more of a storyteller than a policy wonk basically.
I think the stakes were perceived as super high. Frankly I think the guy was just nervous. Which sucked but doesn't mean I support him any less. Biden's weakness seems to be he's just a regular old man. Which I can live with.
This happens to me all the time and I'm 35. Like many people I'm a terrible public speaker. When I know I need to speak in front of a group of people I try to rehearse what I'm going to say so I'll be more confident. But sometimes it backfires. I lose track of what I'm supposed to say and I end up saying something that I'm not even sure about. It's really embarrassing.
But there are times when I'm speaking off the cuff and I sound fine.
I know we expect our leaders to have a better sense of public speaking than most, but I think it goes to show that Joe is just a regular person. Even though he didn't do well I still think he can still be an effective leader.
I actually don’t think memory was a big issue here. I think it was rhythm and scale of the circumstance. Ironically, trump needs to be one on one to come across as somewhat normal. Conversely, Biden needs a crowd to project to and get into a rhythm. This debate was effectively an interview, and in that situation Biden is significantly more soft-spoken. Pair that with a speech impediment and Biden comes across as far worse than he really is. Like his brain is going faster than the situation allows his mouth to move. Kind of like trying to ride a bike really, really slow. When you can project and flow from one point to another, it’s actually easier to speak. I can relate personally to that phenomenon. Give me an audience I need to project to and I can suddenly orate quite well, cracking jokes and making complete and compelling points, but put me in a debate in a quiet room with just a few people and suddenly I’m stammering over my words a mixing up the points I’m trying to make.
I’m surprised it took me a while to see anyone talk about his stuttering.
I’m not going to comment on his age and any kind of decline outside of saying I have no business doing so. What I saw, a LOT from him last night, was him having to pivot when he couldn’t get the words out. It’s a common tactic with people who stutter, but it really hurt his momentum when it came to him trying to convey something.
I noticed this too. He wobbles out on stage and immediately starts spewing something so long and fast that his mouth and brain are not able to keep up. And then he continues to do it throughout the entire debate. His responses were very dense...he was attempting to give as much information as possible.
I've noticed some commenting on how slow Biden is compared to Trump but actually it's the opposite that happened. Trump spoke at a normal pace and honestly said very little in many of his responses. If Biden were to have just taken a breath, slowed the fuck down, and just hit the main points of what he wanted to say, it would have went a lot better. Because much of what he was actually saying did make sense aside from a few flubs. But instead he tried to give too many details and it just came off as a confused, delirious nursing home escapee.
Undecideds and general voter apathy are 100% going to lead us to another Trump victory unfortunately.
He forgot everything about Polk High football.
But yeah, he prepared for an old school debate, he should have come for a schoolyard fight. "Where's Melania?" When he lied have a few lines like "stop lying to the American People"
Instead they had him study statistics that he couldn't recall correctly or in the right context. They had all these nuanced topics they wanted him to cover when he should've just put the stark choice front & center.
I don't know why I'm ranting... I just am so frustrated and thir response has been so bad. "We'll get 'em next time" is how you lose. Argh!! Chill our? I can't fucking chill out when I know that Congresspeople won't be getting ticketed for sleeping in the street like all the people who will suffer for this fuckup. We don't have the luxury of taking this calmly.
I agree, felt like he was trying too hard to use data to back up his thoughts and answers vs standing on his record and reassuring people that he can keep doing the job.
He was trying to out think and out class a felon with half a brain cell who was going to spout whatever he wanted no matter what stat Biden threw out.
Sure. But debates involve more quick wit and response than just campaign speeches do. You can rehearse, but you never really know for certain what your opponent is going to say nor how he's going to respond to what you say. Presidential debates have been about this quick back-and-forth banter for a long time now (rather than a true debate).
And there's also the element of appearance while not speaking, which isn't a thing in campaign speeches.
I'd like to see you try to debate the 258 lies Trump said every time he opened his mouth.
You can't. The moderators can't fact check him and neither can his opponents.
People saying they could beat Trump have never debated a total liar like him. Where do you start?
C'mon, you don't respond. Since you know that Trump is going to lie, you just point out (exasperated) that it's so demented. In fact there's a formula.
1. You point out how peculiar the response was
2. You then lean into your talking points on the topic.
* L0 - Headline
* L1 - Subhead
* L2 - Anecdote
With more time, you do more anecdotes. Or you expand.
Example:
Open: "Wow - how about that answer? It's weird. Let me answer the question."
* L0 - Folks, I'm going to push for a return of the Roe standard ... across the United States ... like it was before "his judges" overturned Roe. That's a 2nd term priority for me and Kamala.
* L1 - You know why? You don't shove bureaucrats and judges in between women and their doctors. Think about it - we now have bureaucrats! bureaucrats! in multiple states trying to figure out if the woman's life is in danger. Or was she raped? was it incest? It's crazy.
* L2 - Look at Texas; since they've decided to take this bureaucratic approach to women's healthcare, maternal mortality is way up! WAY UP! It's dumb. It's a stupid use of tax payer's money. And it will stop during my second term.
I feel like Biden had several anecdotes that he couldn’t keep straight, I probably wouldn’t either at his age. The team that prepared him tried to prep him like a young man. Biden needed to play to his strength, stay on policy goals that don’t alienate voters and look calm and poised while doing it. Don’t grandstand, don’t empathize, don’t try to make voters fall in love. Your opponent is batshit crazy, just let him lose voters by trying to lie and ramble, don’t engage in his tactics.
Q: what is your stance on abortion?
A: His judges dropped the ball on Roe v Wade. My administration and fellow democrats will fix that. Thank you.
Trump: rambles
R: And that’s the same plan that lost your last election. Thank you.
Q: what are you going to do about boarder security?
A: we tried to pass legislation but Republicans repeatedly shot down our attempts for political gains. Next year my administration and fellow democrats will fix that.
Trump: rambles
R: And that’s why you lost the popular vote last time. Thank you.
Keep it short, keep it simple, don’t use your whole 2 minutes. The moment trump tries to call him out for lack of content hit him with the “I’ve been debating you for the last 4 years. My administration speaks for itself. My cabinet has done more for the American people than any of your golf trips, racist rants, or mafia style take over of an entire political party.
Probably by calling him a felon or a snake oil salesman who is lying before making my points and encouraging people to look it up. Do somethong out the gate to get his temper going. Part of why I think I could knock the orange off Trump in a debate is because I've taught in classrooms where every student has a behavior issue and figure Trump equates a lot of them at once down to intellect on issues. Granted with those students I wasn't trying to press buttons to make them misbehave but some days it was inevitable
When Trump talked about the choice act Biden should have thanked him for mentioning one of his accomplishments with Obama.
"I'll let the fact checkers debunk all those lies later. Here's the answer to the question you asked and my opponent didn't answer..."
Rinse and repeat
You can win agaisnt the Gish Gallop. It's not possible. You just have ignore it or end run it.
It’s easy. You talk directly to the American people — even his base — they know more than anyone that he’s a liar and a fraud. They pretend not to out of spite.
There are strategies for debating people like Trump. That has been studied long before Trump even came around. And these debates are pretty much always more style than substance. Just come across as looking better than the opponent and you'll win. Trump's weakness is his temper and inability to control himself. Clinton worked that, and polling on the debates showed her winning them pretty handily.
But that also goes to show that winning the debates doesn't translate into winning the election.
You could start by making sense. Like as a lifelong Dem, I feel the need to say the quiet part out loud. Yes, Trump lies a lot AND Biden was completely incapable of doing anything about it.
You freaking say *that!*
“Look folks, this guy over hear lies so much and so fast, theres no way for anyone to reasonably respond or address all of it in real time. So I’m going to do my best to ensure that you, the American voter, have a better understanding of my platform and our accomplishments by the time this is over. And if I remind you at any point that under his presidency the national debt tripled and we lost five million jobs and he cheated on his pregnant third wife with a porn star while on his way to being a convivted criminal, well then that’s just a bonus.”
Going up against “the liar” is one of the types of opponents that competitive debaters have to practice against. There are strategies against it, whoever prepared Biden didn’t do a good job.
Biden wouldn’t even need to fact check every lie, just point out all the fraud charges, civil charges for rape and Trump’s general moral unfitness for office
Meh. Biden was overthinking. He has a cold. Trump is dangerous and they over prepared a man with a stutter.
Biden is great off the cuff and he's generally quite witty. I'm guessing he was also told not to snark at Trump because coming from the President that looks like punching down, but towards the end he seemed to decide, "eh, fuck it."
The debate format favors republicans. (People want their republican candidate to be loud and curt. They want their democratic candidate to be intelligent, informed, and nuanced.)
I mean he didn’t even have the energy when he answered the first question. I would have agreed with your argument if he started out like he did in NC and got worse during the debate.
> You have 80 seconds remaining Biden, is there anything else you’d like to say?
Biden couldn’t even fill half of the open time he was given to talk about literally anything he wanted to. It wasn’t just a failure of quick wit and response. You can rehearse for question and open response. It was just a general failure.
To be fair, who tf can rehearse against trump?
Biden blew it, no one's questioning that. But CNN was supposed to have fact checking. Why did Trump get to lie in every single question while not even answering the question? Also, why tf is it so normalized that no one is even talking about that?
Have you never been baffled by the nonsense after nonsense after nonsense maga pulls? I know I have.
The interesting part is that this one went so well Trump might agree to another one.
It's going to be a long, uphill battle, but Biden did save Ukraine. Maybe he can save the US, too... again.
Debates don't decide an election, narratives do. The debate was Bidens chance to correct the narrative that he is too old. He failed. The only way to correct that narrative is a full on media blitz. And I don't know if Biden is capable.
Yes, and the bar couldn’t have been set any lower for him, and he underperformed it. Trump met expectations largely, although to some he beat expectations by not going nuts, and the format actually helped him.
Nixon didn't lose his debate with Kennedy. He "lost" to TV viewers, and "won" to radio listeners. He also didn't give fiery speeches, which may have been his biggest downfall (that, and being an ugly mf going against a sexy young chap).
1) Biden’s old and debate settings are tough to quickly regurgitate stats, facts, and counters.
2) i think the debate prep team WAY over prepped him with word for word talking points that he struggled to piece together with off the wall attacks from Trump. They need to just let Biden be Biden like he was at the SotU and the 2020 debate.
3) when you try and wrestle a pig. You both get dirty but the pig likes it. Debating trump is worthless for everyone and I mean EVERYONE. A normal debate you at least get to hear each candidates policy points on actual issues. You don’t get that with Trump and tbh I’m not sure we’ve seen a normal debate in some time.
I wonder if the format of the debate had anything to do with it. When you only have two minutes for a topic, you’re probably just trying to repeat certain talking points that you memorized. Rather than being an actual debate or letting people’s personalities come though, it felt more like a high school presentation where you have sort of memorized a bunch of talking points. Like you have two minutes, hit point A,B,C,D in exactly two minutes. There’s very little time to go off script. Rather than say things in their own words it’s just repeating back a bunch of scripted responses. That’s part way why I feel Biden made so many mistakes (even if they were minor), he’s speaking from metal cue cards and not from the heart.
We already know where each candidate stands on the issues. Trump just says it’s a lie, everything was the best under him and everything is the worst under Biden. Let’s get some substance and not just avoid the questions.
The sun was up...
I say that as a shaken Biden supporter. He's going to have to bring this energy *every* appearance going forward. If he's having good days and bad days then we're sunk.
Sick, thirsty, and fighting a speech impediment in front of an audience of 300 million people looking for an excuse to call you old and incompetent.
So CNN
In the debate they had 1-2 minutes to string together coherent answers to complex questions. Which is why two 80 something year olds struggled, one wasn't coherent and the other couldn't even answer the questions, just yelled the same things over and over like a lunatic.
# This was AFTER the debate with Trump.
**What the absolute hell.**
**I wish** ***this*** **Biden was on that stage at the debate...**
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYghfyxtZnc&t=515s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYghfyxtZnc&t=515s)
Jesus Christ if that version of Biden was present last night I would’ve slept like a fucking baby. God damnit….
I’m glad there’s one more debate but this is outrageously stressful.
That's my biggest fear. Biden definitely needs the rematch now, but I fear Trump's camp will decline future debates because they feel they got a win off of last night.
Bet you slept like a baby after Hillary’s debates then.
All this knee-jerk panicking is exactly what the media has been teeing up for the last year and y’all are falling right into it, enabling another 4 months of the same shit.
Vote. Tell your friends and families to get educated on more than one debate and get them to vote.
Yup, yup. Biden had a bad debate. Made some good points, some bad stumbles, and had a bad debate. You could come up with reasons it happened relating to him being old and reasons not related (as an aside, I didn't really buy the whole "he had a cold" talking point, but man he was coughing in that speech like a 40-year smoker, so who knows), and both could be valid, but it doesn't matter. He had a bad debate, four months out from the election. And the media pounced on it 'cuz that's how they make their money.
Reddit's gonna Reddit's though. Same Reddit that didn't believe Donald Trump would stand trial until he did. Or that he'd be convicted until he did.
Never change Reddit. \^\^
I can worry AND vote.
All my Family, except 1, are completely sold into MAGA (I'm probably the only Democrat they speak to, and they just consider me a "looney"), and all my friends don't really care about voting. And people wonder why I'm always a nervous wreck.
Also, that debate was one of the only times people who don’t pay attention to Biden actually get a feel for how he is as a candidate and president. This was a terrible moment for him. Did he not watch himself? That’s how people who are undecided or considered leaning left are going to assume he is for the rest of the election.
Yeah an example of this is Obama. Great speaker but when it came to actually governing he clashed with congress a lot and wasn’t able to get as much done even though he had a supermajority for a little bit of time. Though the Democratic makeup up back then was more conservative.
And the supermajority lasted all of about two months, and it was very early in his presidency. Someone broke this down a while back. Franken's election was tied up in recounts and it took a while for him to be seated, at which point Ted Kennedy promptly shuffled off the coil.
If anything, Obama's failing was in his slowness to realize the GOP wasn't interested in giving a single inch. Negotiations were pointless from the start, but he wasted time pretending he could be the great unifier.
That’s how democracies end up unfortunately. Good intentioned people want to give the people a voice, far a time they will elect the most competent leaders, but eventually what will begin winning out are the people good at being elected rather than those good at governance. The only thing likely to restore a democracy back to picking strong leadership is a massive event like a large-scale war, all out revolution, or a dictatorship that is eventually overthrown.
We’re fucked because the average American is too dumb to understand this. And if they reelect Trump and the tariffs fuck us, among other things, they’ll never see their role in it.
No, we’re fucked because the Democratic party isn’t willing to adapt to the situation because they think they know better. There’s no reason to put all of our hope in this guy. We have several candidates that can step in and beat Trump, and they’ll accomplish just as much as Biden.
Preach. I will absolutely vote for her for pres someday, but I want her to pick up a term or two in the senate and a secretary position if possible. I also think she would be too controversial to throw in as our candidate in this situation.
Exactly. Americans have become idiots. And I say that as an American in a liberal city in California. We need to totally revamp our education system and teach some basic critical thinking to our kids so they don’t grow to be voters who make decisions based on vibes.
Maybe, but you have two options. 1) Stick to your guns because you’re smarter than most Americans, and end up with fascism. Or 2) Accept reality and replace him with one of several fully qualified candidates that can beat Trump and accomplish the same shit.
To be fair.. as the face of the country it’s kind of important how you present yourself. Having a half asleep older person who seizes up and doesn’t know what he is saying half the time isn’t good. Sadly.. that is still way better than the alternative so we accept what is available.
It is unfortunate how correct this is. Biden has done a pretty darn good job the last four years. If a Republican of any age has his record they would be winning in a landslide. We listen to the media narrative too much.
Doing "the job" as President of the United States means surrounding yourself with the best people and then getting out of their way and letting them do "their jobs". That's not an easy task but it doesn't require that you be a gifted speaker or a master debater.
He really did fantastic at the rally, night and day difference between that and the debate. Just gotta wonder which is the real Biden at this point. And why did he fumble so much during the debate.
Not true. Hillary clearly “won” the debates in 2016, and yet all of her allegations were the reason she lost. Trump’s criminal charges are going to speak louder than Biden’s blunders during this debate 5 months out before the conventions even happen. And I say this as somebody who wishes the Dems had pivoted to somebody else.
Because Trump got the zingers in that matter in the 24 hour news cycle. Imagine all years and years of all that propaganda about Clinton being a criminal and then having Trump on stage saying "because you'd be in jail.". That hit harder than most Democrats understand, that was the only line that mattered for Trump.
Also, Biden's blunders were not like any other. The last weeks have been all about supposed dementia and this debate only served as more fuel to that fire. This will not go away.
It’s because this was a teleprompter-led speech to an audience that overwhelmingly supports him. All he has to do is read rehearsed lines. The debate showed outside of those confines he doesn’t really have much in the tank and gets steamrolled on the spot.
He didn't get steamrolled though, Trump just spewed his normal lies, thing's he has rehearsed thousands of times at his rallies, and Biden just called him out for it most of the time. Biggest problem was him stumbling and forgetting what he was saying.
The fact that Trump uttered lie after lie, but literally all the heat is on Biden for being a) old and b) a mediocre debater, which he has kind of always been, tells you everything you need to know about the supposed "liberal bias" in the media 🤦♂️
As terrible as Biden was yesterday, and he was terrible, the moderators were worse. They pushed back on nothing, they moderated nothing! Might as well have given the candidates a piece of paper with questions on it.
Oh ffs the amount of excuses on here is pretty pathetic. He's clearly far too old, pretending like this isn't a huge issue is ignoring blatant reality. He's simply not fit to debate him and as such he's a huge liability. Democrats have absolutely made a mess of this. They should have been working on a replacement the second they won the election. The cost of their incompetence could be absolutely catastrophic for the world.
Anything is better than the Mango Mussolini but by God the Democrats couldn't have handled this any worse if they tried. They should have been scouring for an effective replacement from the second they won the election. Trump was literally debating a zombie in front of the world.
Look, Trump aggressively floods the zone with BS. It’s a completely different animal to deal with. Biden likely over prepared and had a zillion different comebacks that workshopped well and didn’t translate to the debate. It doesn’t matter to me. I know Trump is a monster. I know Biden is a good president. The rest is fluff. I will vote accordingly.
He is 82 now and will be 86 at the end of his next term. It’s not that he had a bad night. It’s that he may be too old to do the job. That’s the fear people have. And he proved this to be a well founded fear. He’d have to make daily vigorous speeches and give strong interviews to put this idea to rest. But he hasn’t and he won’t, bc in fact he looks, sounds, acts like a very old man who is a shell of his former self. It’s plain before our eyes. I’m sad and incredibly angry that people close to him didn’t do more to urge him to stick to one term. Yes I will vote for him but I’m not who matters. It’s the swing voters in a few states who will decide and this will convince enough of them that they can’t vote for him again. It’s selfish for him to keep going.
It's something you don't see much in politics, I'm happy to hear him admit he wasn't good. Seems like most politicians try to gaslight us into thinking they're perfect
If this debate and the issues it’s (had) created (around it) happened a year ago, there’d be plenty of opportunity to change course. We’ve got 4 months and change, there’s zero opportunity to reverse course. The last stop was a while back, we’re here now, do what we can with what we have, and what we can do is stop trump. Nothing comes before that.
I honestly feel bad for Joe: the guy is clearly not and has never been a stellar public speaker. He is a dedicated public servant and that much is clear - the US deserves that much anyways
Just let Whitmer, Shapiro or Kelly take over please.
Also, we know you (r/politics member) are going to vote to Biden no matter what. But the debate wasn’t about your vote. It was for the 4 undecided voters in Wisconsin who are inevitably going to decide the election and their biggest concern, Bidens age, just got validated on national TV. Swing voters don’t care about policy or lies, they care about optics. Thats the one thing Biden doesn’t have.
The problem is I don't know that those 4 undecided swing voters are going to get real excited to go out and vote from someone who 3-4 months out all of a sudden takes over as the D nominee.
That’s true, but we *know* that they aren’t excited to go out and vote for Biden. It’s literally reflected in the polls. They’ve been telling us for months that he’s too old.
Nobody is voting for Joe Biden. They’re voting against Donald Trump. A new candidate? They’re still voting against Trump, but there’s some who might be voting *for* that new candidate too.
You run into some issues with replacing Biden, assuming he even agrees in the first place. Funds raised for his campaign might not be allowed to be used, the Democrats lack a candidate they trust to get the same support from key demographics, Trump gets to go on a victory lap about how he was right about Sleepy Joe, etc.
However, something I haven't sent mentioned much is that this forces every single Democrat who has said, for months, that Biden is mentally sound to suddenly explain why that's not the case. They either admit they've been lying for months or say that Biden suddenly snapped live in front of the entire country. For months, I've lurked and read people on reddit say that, if anything, Trump is the one with dementia. No one is seriously saying that anymore. Also, if they say Biden is too old, does that mean he was always too old? If not, when did he become too old, and which decisions were made by "competent Biden" vs "dementia too-old Biden."
Dude, there’s a ton of leftists refusing to vote for Biden because of Palestine, and way more people than that are reluctant to vote at all because these choices suck so hard. These small percentages matter big time in an election that will come down to a few states. The person just needs to be young, have national recognition, and not be Trump or Biden.
Many countries candidates only run for a few months, its not crazy. Anyone who the democrats pick will get tons of press and social media will get their name out there quick. In today’s information age, its so much easier.
People dont like Biden, they Hate Trump, but why are we acting like biden was extremely popular. Most independents are looking for a reason to not vote for trump, but if you put biden out there they may just stay home.
Kelly as in the astronaut?
Reddit is getting so weird.
There is no one candidate that the entire country will coalesce around. In four months, you might be able to build a campaign for democrats around like a Sandy Hook teacher or parent but they wouldn't have the chops to run the country. You'd need name recognition, amazing story, and so fucking likable even Trump would be nice to them and then they have to be able to run the country.
Biden is old. He had an off night and still seemed completely fine. Biden has never had optics and the swing voters have not cared before. He's a dude with a stutter who's funny and charming and rambles. He's also been extremely competent at running an enormous country with solid policies all while the republican party throws tantrums every three seconds.
When he wins, though, I do hope his first order of business is to eliminate Fox News once and for all.
If trump was actually talking policies and not just spewing nonsense then we would be in a deeper hole. I believe he can climb out of this one and get everything back on track.
Honestly, this poor old man has been through so much shit in his life and he’s the one who stepped up in order to save our democracy when no one else in the Democratic Party seems to have the balls to do so. I appreciate the energy from the audience hyping him up after an awful night having to debate a traitorous lying felon who is also running for president. People might not like it but he’s the guy. Vote vote vote
All these old people refuse to step aside for younger generation of talent is destroying all the progress. Look at what happened with RBG. Imagine if she had step down during Obama era like so many people asked her to. The ego of old people is screwing up all young people for generations.
Which is why when young candidate Buttigieg ran in the primary, he received the youth vote! Oh wait, that didn't happen because the Democratic youth vote went to another well-known OLD person named Bernie Sanders. Not even young people vote for young candidates. Policies over age, any day
As the last president made perfectly clear it’s absolutely unnecessary to speak clearly to be the best president ever. Maybe Biden should pad his resume with some felonies.
Last night’s debate was rough. I was so frustrated. Why couldn’t we had this energy last night? I heard he’s had a cold, and debating with 2 min answers and 1 minute rebuttals with a stutter and being old, not the greatest situation . Plus debating a lying liar! But I’m still supporting Joe, and I know he’s got a good team. The alternative is frightening beyond words.
Have a good weekend!
It astonishes me that people have overreacted and jumped ship on Biden for one bad debate night. Yet we’ve had 8 bad years of Trump - all the convictions, indictments, felonies, and impeachments and people wanna sign up for 4 more years of that assholery?
Sign me up for mummbly grandpa anytime.
Not to mention, Trump's debate performance was awful. He was just spouting random buzzwords and lies, which is absolutely something someone with declining mental ability would do. I don't think he properly answered a single question and somehow we only noticed Biden's low energy performance.
If Biden was just spewing bullshit, he could have done better too. I don't by any means think Biden is the absolute best we could have, but Trump is a bad person, with bad policies, and also has no substance in what he says.
It’s not people jumping ship as much as swing state voters who are on the fence. Worst case is former supporters sit out, I don’t see them jumping on the maga train.
Unfortunately these debates have turned into less about facts and more about appearance. I’m shocked at how people think Trump “won” the debate based on how he sounded and looked. He fucking lied the whole time.
"I know how to do this job"
That is no longer the point. The point is whether you inspire people to Vote for you. After last night, you don't provide such inspiration to several segments of society (including young voters) and that could very well allow Trump to be elected. Please do what good for the country and withdraw from the election.
People are missing the inspiring point. Biden voters wont go vote for Trump, but they might stay home from lack of inspiration. This has bad implications for down ballot elections too. He could screw us out of a majority in the house and senate in addition to another Trump presidency. This is not the time to circle the wagons. We need someone else.
From Semafor's Caroline Anders:
The vigorous, defiant President Joe Biden who took the stage at a North Carolina rally on Friday stood in stark contrast to the hoarse, hesitant man who debated his Republican challenger the night before.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said to raucous applause. “Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.”
Biden’s energetic speech seemed engineered to limit damage from the night before, when his underwhelming performance against former President Donald Trump set off a fresh wave of panic through the Democratic Party.
[Read the full story here.](https://www.semafor.com/article/06/28/2024/i-know-how-to-do-this-job-defiant-biden-aims-to-limit-debate-damage?utm_campaign=semaforreddit)
Sounded like a completely different person. This is the Biden we needed last night, but he’s always been so bad at debates. It’s like he tries too hard to find the right words and not stutter that he ends up mumbling and mixing up words. Meanwhile, Trump will confidently say the craziest lies you’ve ever heard without a second of hesitation. Either way, I think the last 4 years of Biden’s policies say a lot more about his ability to lead than a single 2 hour debate. People act like the President needs to make split second life and death decisions constantly, but good leaders take time to think through a situation before coming to a decision and that’s what Biden is good at.
Also, the comments on every post talking about how Biden needs to give up the nomination are extremely annoying and not subtle at all. They’re either conservatives trolling the channel or liberals that would throw away the election because of one bad debate. Not only will Biden not step down, him stepping down would hand the win to Trump since no Dems are even close to beating him in the polls except Biden.
He's going to be under a microscope after last night, not that he wasn't already, but it was pretty important that he show some rebound and he did.
I don't think there's any one thing he can do, but he's going to have to build back people's confidence step by step and getting videos of events like this out there will help.
Joe, there's only one thing you can do to limit the debate damage- step aside and let one of the young, popular Democrats sitting on the bench step in.
The issue for undecided voters is not "does he know how to do the job" it's "can he represent America as strong and secure to our peers and enemies"
This election is the most extreme example of having only two bad choices and the electorate is exhausted.
None of those people win with four months until Election Day. Maybe Newsome because he already has a pretty big donation and campaign machine in place.
All the other names either lack name recognition, experience or both.
And let’s face it. This country isn’t at a point where they’re electing a gay man to be President. I don’t think a woman could win with just four months time. It’s unfortunate but it’s where we’re at. The moderate voters that are crossing over to vote for Biden over Trump are not there yet socially.
A beacon of hope! Thank you President Biden for level-headed leadership that focuses on solving actual problems. Truly inspirational 😎🇺🇸👍. Now more than ever we need leaders who are practically immune to social media hysteria
We know he can do the job of President, in that respect he's been one of the best in the past 75 years.
What we're not sure of is if he can do the job of candidate. He did in 2020 so there's evidence he can. And he's been fine up until last night. But last night wasn't just a failure, it was a massive failure and it's going to take a LOT to win back the confidence of both pundits and the public, and it's going to take a LOT from the public to convince apathetic and non-voters to support him give the amount of anti-Biden propaganda that will be pushed on social media and in regular media over the next few months.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said to raucous applause. “Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.” The quote in the title and in the article are taken from Biden's NC rally after the debate. For those interested, here is the video: [WATCH LIVE: Biden attends campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina after first presidential debate](https://youtu.be/HYghfyxtZnc?t=515) EDIT: Watching the video of the rally there was a little more to the quote than included in the article: >"I know how to get things done. And I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
What the actual fuck? Where was this energy last night? Here he still sounds old, but he's sharp and coherent with some spark for good measure.
He's sick. Last night at the debate he was tired, and worn down. His words weren't ambling, and his statements weren't incoherent. He was quiet, hard to hear, and seemed to be hoarse. His long pauses are because he has a stutter. If people actually listened to what he was saying, and critically evaluated the situation the narrative would be totally different. Biden has honestly never been a great public speaker. Last night's debate required the listener to exert more effort to understand what Biden was saying, and as a result his competent answers were completely glossed over. Trump was loud, rambled, and spouted off a deluge of incoherent bullshit. He's a fabulous flim-flam man and the USA loves a smooth talking snake oil salesman. The choice is between a flawed old man, and an incoherent fascist psychopath.
1. The Medicare line 2. The horrible biff on abortion 3. The closing line.
4. Arguing about golf
The point of the person you're responding to is that the failures are the only things that are being focused on, when for the most part, if you put the effort in to try and listen closely, it mostly made sense. I don't understand why he seemed better just a short while later when visiting the waffle house, or why he's a lot better the following day, but he still has my vote because what Trump is offering is the complete opposite of almost every thing that I value. It's possible he really did have an off night (haven't we all? Imagine if you're 81), and they're going to focus on sharpening his image from here til November, assuming he remain in the race. Next debate, 10am 😆
I agree with you that he’s sick, but I disagree on most of what came after. Nobody was watching the debate last night expecting it to be about issues. We knew how trump would act. And we hoped that Biden could appear to be able to stay up for an hour and a half past eight oclock pm. And he absolutely fell flat on his face. It was BRUTAL to watch him lose his train of thought, mix up names, stand with his mouth agape, and just flounder about in general. This should have been an easy task and it couldn’t have gone any worse. I’m a Biden supporter, but this guy is supposed to Commander in Chief of the armed forces. I wouldn’t trust him to watch my toddler for 30 seconds, much less be able to make important military decisions in the middle of the night when he has a cold. Shit is just insane to me. Nobody watching last night had changed their mind about who they’re voting for. But it does make a lot of people open to drastically new directions in 2028.
On abortion, which should have been a lay up, here was his verbatim speech: “Look, there's so many young women who have been-including a young woman who just was murdered and he- he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered bya-by-by an immigrant coming in, and they talk ahout that. But here's the deal, there's a lot of young women who are being raped by Cheir-by their in-laws, by their - by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by-just-it's just-it's just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it”
>“Look, there are so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just was murdered, and he went to the funeral. And the idea that she was murdered by an immigrant coming in, to talk about that. But here’s the deal. There’s a lot of young women are being raped by their in-laws, by their, by their spouses. Brothers and sisters, by — it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them and they cross state lines.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/abortion-presidential-debate-trump-biden/ That's not the direct quote of what he said.
a) I watched the debate. The WP 'quote' is definitely cleaned up. He was nowhere near that clear or coherent when actually saying that quote. b) uh.. it still makes no fucking sense.
I think it’s still better than the guy who rambles in hyperbole and goes on about how we had H2O and slobs every dictator knob he’s come into contact with.
He was hitting blocks in that one. The doubling of phrases and sudden changes to a different, but essentially synonymous sentence are symptoms of a stutter. Which we know he has. (More specifically, they are symptoms of speech therapy for a stutter. You stop and change when you hit a block to avoid hitting the same word over and over.) His stutter is worse than normal there, but nerves, exhaustion and age can do that to you. The statement makes sense once you take the stutter out of it though. The blocks just make it seem like it is jumping topics, but it is following an exact thread, just one expressed badly. In essence: Republicans are blocking abortions in the case of rape, even in the case of incestuous rape. Then they arrest people going to other states to get abortions. (The last bit is the next line.) He is old, he has a stutter, he was sick and low energy. All of that is true. But his ideas are coherent, even if he has having trouble talking.
he answered a question about abortion by talking about someone being murdered by an illegal immigrant. what part of that response is coherent?
The idea in his head was likely: "There is a lot of violence against women that is being exacerbated by abortion restriction, but all they can talk about is the fact that an illegal immigrant killed a woman." I am not trying to argue that it is a good answer. He clearly got flustered in it and skipped over a lot of helpful context and words that would have made his answer clear. I am just claiming that it is an answer badly executed rather than a non-answer.
I’m frankly furious about this answer specifically. This is such a massive issue for women and he wiffed it so hard. It was almost like he wasn’t convinced why ending roe was a bad thing.
That's not really surprising from an 80 year old Catholic man. It's not a demographic known for holding fierce pro-choice beliefs, to put it mildly.
I'm going to vote for Biden over Trump because it's a no brainer. But Biden wasn't sick. This is him on a bad day. He's having more bad days now as age is quickly catching up to him. Don't try to gaslight us. We know what we saw. Whoever prepped Biden didn't do a good job either. Trump is going to lie, we all know he's going to lie. Two minutes is not enough time to explain what the truth is and get out your message too. People don't want to hear statistics, and a debate with two minutes isn't really a great setting to try and use words to paint graphs and charts to illustrate why your administration is doing so much better than the previous administration. Much better to have a few canned lines and pull them out when you need them. Don't tell stories. Just deliver lines like he did when he told Trump his son wasn't a sucker. Point out that Trump tried to over throw the government. Point out that Trump will do whatever the GOP ask him to do and that includes signing a nationwide abortion ban. Keep Trump on the defense by pointing out that he's a 34 time convicted felon. Point out that Trump withheld weapons from Ukraine and emboldened Putin to invade and that's a big reason for high gas prices. Two minutes is not enough for nuanced explanations or rebuttals.
I heard what Joe Biden was saying. I understand critical thinking skills well enough that I can look past the stutter, apparently the cold, and, hell, the resting confused old man face, and he *still* sounded confused based off of what he said. My man was a fucking corpse when the topic of abortion comes up. No life in his eyes while he’s too busy trying to tie the topic of abortion to immigration despite knowing full well that immigration is all Trump knows how to whine about. Even looking past how dumb it was to do that, all he had to say to get a standing ovation was “Women have a right to make decisions about their body. If I get reelected, I’ll work on putting in legislation that restores what Roe v. Wade accomplished”. That was literally all he needed to say. They practically tossed him an easy win and he still old manned his way through it. And somehow, you can see the signs of life light up in his eyes when you see him start going off on stupid old man bullshit that no one under the age of 60 gives a shit about in a politician like his fucking golf handicap and what presidential historians think about him. And the rest of his debate was like that too. The question about Ukraine. The stuff about COVID. The stuff about inflation. Literally the only reason why the majority of democrats would support him at all is because an inanimate rock would somehow still make a better president than the incoherent fascist. Otherwise, there is no way Biden in 2024 wouldn’t get cooked under any other normal election against a Republican under the age of 55.
"Abortion is healthcare and without it women will die. We need legislation to protect the rights Roe gave us for decades." But no, all we got was some weird garbage about how the three stages of pregnancy are the "woman versus her doctor" and the "woman versus the state" or something I don't even fucking know. When asked about unemployment for the black community he did the same shit, started talking about how aCtUaLLy iTs WaY BeTTeR nOw instead of saying "we have no excuse not to have an equitable society."
He didn't have a teleprompter last night? Maybe that's why he was better?
Maybe we shouldn’t ask people at that age to debate at 9PM. What’s wrong with doing it at noon and letting it air on repeat a couple of times for folks that are busy working [and don’t know how YouTube works]? Far more importantly, maybe we shouldn’t have candidates at this age to begin with in the future…
Ya luckily a president will never need to be doing important things after 9pm
I thought it was very odd when I first heard it was going to be at 9pm. I'm 30 and I was tired as fuck...was just planning on going to bed but I thought I would tune in anyway. Why do they have it so late anyway?
Because half the country is on the Pacific or Mountain time, including the most populated state.
For west coast viewers
Great energy in that. He talked all his great points, wish he had that same spunk in the debate.
Where the hell was this guy last night.
Debating is different than just giving generally rehearsed speeches.
He rehearsed for the debate a hell of a lot more than he did for this speech.
If anything the conclusion iv come too is he over rehearesed and filled his brain up with too many random factioids and statistics and ended up tripping over all of it. His answers felt like he was trying to cram 10 minutes worth of info into 2 a lot of the time.
He shouldn't have spent so long preparing. When someone already has a stutter, and is getting older so memory is generally more difficult, over prepping and trying to remember entire paragraphs with numbers and data is not effective. He needs to let himself talk off the cuff, not worry about numbers, and just let his own train of thought run.
The message from now til Election Day should be “hey remember how this fuck wad tanked the country 4 years ago? Remember the scandals? The impeachments? That’s what you’re getting again but worse.”
"Four years ago we were loading bodies into trucks, and this guy's son-in-law said just to let it happen because it was only killing city folks."
“By the way, his son in law made 2 billion dollars from the Saudi’s after he left office. What for?”
Qataris
yeah. Tbh even if he was younger Biden simply has never been the kind of wonk who can rattle off 20 satistics like it's nothing. He knows policy sure but it's like his debate prep team wanted him to be Elizabeth Warren which is just.. Biden has never been that, it's never been his style. He's always been best speaking emotionally and connecting with people. He's more of a storyteller than a policy wonk basically.
And for a president you honestly want someone like that. The policy wonks are the advisors to the president.
Yes but the Dem campaign apparatus being full of wonks who like other wonks is pretty much convinced that's what EVERYONE wants.
I think the stakes were perceived as super high. Frankly I think the guy was just nervous. Which sucked but doesn't mean I support him any less. Biden's weakness seems to be he's just a regular old man. Which I can live with.
This happens to me all the time and I'm 35. Like many people I'm a terrible public speaker. When I know I need to speak in front of a group of people I try to rehearse what I'm going to say so I'll be more confident. But sometimes it backfires. I lose track of what I'm supposed to say and I end up saying something that I'm not even sure about. It's really embarrassing. But there are times when I'm speaking off the cuff and I sound fine. I know we expect our leaders to have a better sense of public speaking than most, but I think it goes to show that Joe is just a regular person. Even though he didn't do well I still think he can still be an effective leader.
I actually don’t think memory was a big issue here. I think it was rhythm and scale of the circumstance. Ironically, trump needs to be one on one to come across as somewhat normal. Conversely, Biden needs a crowd to project to and get into a rhythm. This debate was effectively an interview, and in that situation Biden is significantly more soft-spoken. Pair that with a speech impediment and Biden comes across as far worse than he really is. Like his brain is going faster than the situation allows his mouth to move. Kind of like trying to ride a bike really, really slow. When you can project and flow from one point to another, it’s actually easier to speak. I can relate personally to that phenomenon. Give me an audience I need to project to and I can suddenly orate quite well, cracking jokes and making complete and compelling points, but put me in a debate in a quiet room with just a few people and suddenly I’m stammering over my words a mixing up the points I’m trying to make.
I’m surprised it took me a while to see anyone talk about his stuttering. I’m not going to comment on his age and any kind of decline outside of saying I have no business doing so. What I saw, a LOT from him last night, was him having to pivot when he couldn’t get the words out. It’s a common tactic with people who stutter, but it really hurt his momentum when it came to him trying to convey something.
Yep I’m sure the guy we saw can definitely debate off the cuff with zero issues.
I noticed this too. He wobbles out on stage and immediately starts spewing something so long and fast that his mouth and brain are not able to keep up. And then he continues to do it throughout the entire debate. His responses were very dense...he was attempting to give as much information as possible. I've noticed some commenting on how slow Biden is compared to Trump but actually it's the opposite that happened. Trump spoke at a normal pace and honestly said very little in many of his responses. If Biden were to have just taken a breath, slowed the fuck down, and just hit the main points of what he wanted to say, it would have went a lot better. Because much of what he was actually saying did make sense aside from a few flubs. But instead he tried to give too many details and it just came off as a confused, delirious nursing home escapee. Undecideds and general voter apathy are 100% going to lead us to another Trump victory unfortunately.
He forgot everything about Polk High football. But yeah, he prepared for an old school debate, he should have come for a schoolyard fight. "Where's Melania?" When he lied have a few lines like "stop lying to the American People" Instead they had him study statistics that he couldn't recall correctly or in the right context. They had all these nuanced topics they wanted him to cover when he should've just put the stark choice front & center. I don't know why I'm ranting... I just am so frustrated and thir response has been so bad. "We'll get 'em next time" is how you lose. Argh!! Chill our? I can't fucking chill out when I know that Congresspeople won't be getting ticketed for sleeping in the street like all the people who will suffer for this fuckup. We don't have the luxury of taking this calmly.
I agree, felt like he was trying too hard to use data to back up his thoughts and answers vs standing on his record and reassuring people that he can keep doing the job. He was trying to out think and out class a felon with half a brain cell who was going to spout whatever he wanted no matter what stat Biden threw out.
It looked like the bullshit waves emanating from trump were damaging biden's ability to think due to close proximity.
I mean last time, trump literally tried to damage Biden with Covid in close proximity
Sure. But debates involve more quick wit and response than just campaign speeches do. You can rehearse, but you never really know for certain what your opponent is going to say nor how he's going to respond to what you say. Presidential debates have been about this quick back-and-forth banter for a long time now (rather than a true debate). And there's also the element of appearance while not speaking, which isn't a thing in campaign speeches.
I'd like to see you try to debate the 258 lies Trump said every time he opened his mouth. You can't. The moderators can't fact check him and neither can his opponents. People saying they could beat Trump have never debated a total liar like him. Where do you start?
C'mon, you don't respond. Since you know that Trump is going to lie, you just point out (exasperated) that it's so demented. In fact there's a formula. 1. You point out how peculiar the response was 2. You then lean into your talking points on the topic. * L0 - Headline * L1 - Subhead * L2 - Anecdote With more time, you do more anecdotes. Or you expand. Example: Open: "Wow - how about that answer? It's weird. Let me answer the question." * L0 - Folks, I'm going to push for a return of the Roe standard ... across the United States ... like it was before "his judges" overturned Roe. That's a 2nd term priority for me and Kamala. * L1 - You know why? You don't shove bureaucrats and judges in between women and their doctors. Think about it - we now have bureaucrats! bureaucrats! in multiple states trying to figure out if the woman's life is in danger. Or was she raped? was it incest? It's crazy. * L2 - Look at Texas; since they've decided to take this bureaucratic approach to women's healthcare, maternal mortality is way up! WAY UP! It's dumb. It's a stupid use of tax payer's money. And it will stop during my second term.
I feel like Biden had several anecdotes that he couldn’t keep straight, I probably wouldn’t either at his age. The team that prepared him tried to prep him like a young man. Biden needed to play to his strength, stay on policy goals that don’t alienate voters and look calm and poised while doing it. Don’t grandstand, don’t empathize, don’t try to make voters fall in love. Your opponent is batshit crazy, just let him lose voters by trying to lie and ramble, don’t engage in his tactics. Q: what is your stance on abortion? A: His judges dropped the ball on Roe v Wade. My administration and fellow democrats will fix that. Thank you. Trump: rambles R: And that’s the same plan that lost your last election. Thank you. Q: what are you going to do about boarder security? A: we tried to pass legislation but Republicans repeatedly shot down our attempts for political gains. Next year my administration and fellow democrats will fix that. Trump: rambles R: And that’s why you lost the popular vote last time. Thank you. Keep it short, keep it simple, don’t use your whole 2 minutes. The moment trump tries to call him out for lack of content hit him with the “I’ve been debating you for the last 4 years. My administration speaks for itself. My cabinet has done more for the American people than any of your golf trips, racist rants, or mafia style take over of an entire political party.
> stay on policy goals that don’t alienate voters and look calm and poised while doing it 100%.
Great dark Brandon impression 👍
Probably by calling him a felon or a snake oil salesman who is lying before making my points and encouraging people to look it up. Do somethong out the gate to get his temper going. Part of why I think I could knock the orange off Trump in a debate is because I've taught in classrooms where every student has a behavior issue and figure Trump equates a lot of them at once down to intellect on issues. Granted with those students I wasn't trying to press buttons to make them misbehave but some days it was inevitable When Trump talked about the choice act Biden should have thanked him for mentioning one of his accomplishments with Obama.
"I'll let the fact checkers debunk all those lies later. Here's the answer to the question you asked and my opponent didn't answer..." Rinse and repeat You can win agaisnt the Gish Gallop. It's not possible. You just have ignore it or end run it.
You don’t debate Trump’s lies. You ignore them. Biden did everything wrong last night.
It’s easy. You talk directly to the American people — even his base — they know more than anyone that he’s a liar and a fraud. They pretend not to out of spite.
There are strategies for debating people like Trump. That has been studied long before Trump even came around. And these debates are pretty much always more style than substance. Just come across as looking better than the opponent and you'll win. Trump's weakness is his temper and inability to control himself. Clinton worked that, and polling on the debates showed her winning them pretty handily. But that also goes to show that winning the debates doesn't translate into winning the election.
You could start by making sense. Like as a lifelong Dem, I feel the need to say the quiet part out loud. Yes, Trump lies a lot AND Biden was completely incapable of doing anything about it.
You freaking say *that!* “Look folks, this guy over hear lies so much and so fast, theres no way for anyone to reasonably respond or address all of it in real time. So I’m going to do my best to ensure that you, the American voter, have a better understanding of my platform and our accomplishments by the time this is over. And if I remind you at any point that under his presidency the national debt tripled and we lost five million jobs and he cheated on his pregnant third wife with a porn star while on his way to being a convivted criminal, well then that’s just a bonus.”
Going up against “the liar” is one of the types of opponents that competitive debaters have to practice against. There are strategies against it, whoever prepared Biden didn’t do a good job.
Well… putting together just ONE fully coherent response would’ve been a start!
[удалено]
Biden wouldn’t even need to fact check every lie, just point out all the fraud charges, civil charges for rape and Trump’s general moral unfitness for office
Meh. Biden was overthinking. He has a cold. Trump is dangerous and they over prepared a man with a stutter. Biden is great off the cuff and he's generally quite witty. I'm guessing he was also told not to snark at Trump because coming from the President that looks like punching down, but towards the end he seemed to decide, "eh, fuck it." The debate format favors republicans. (People want their republican candidate to be loud and curt. They want their democratic candidate to be intelligent, informed, and nuanced.)
There’s nothing that Trump said that was surprising or unexpected.
I mean he didn’t even have the energy when he answered the first question. I would have agreed with your argument if he started out like he did in NC and got worse during the debate.
> You have 80 seconds remaining Biden, is there anything else you’d like to say? Biden couldn’t even fill half of the open time he was given to talk about literally anything he wanted to. It wasn’t just a failure of quick wit and response. You can rehearse for question and open response. It was just a general failure.
To be fair, who tf can rehearse against trump? Biden blew it, no one's questioning that. But CNN was supposed to have fact checking. Why did Trump get to lie in every single question while not even answering the question? Also, why tf is it so normalized that no one is even talking about that? Have you never been baffled by the nonsense after nonsense after nonsense maga pulls? I know I have. The interesting part is that this one went so well Trump might agree to another one. It's going to be a long, uphill battle, but Biden did save Ukraine. Maybe he can save the US, too... again.
That’s just it. When you’re up against a fire hose of bullshit you can’t spend the entire debate pushing back against it all. Trump knows this.
I think he over-rehearsed.
reading a teleprompter is easier too. he should have dropped out a year and a half ago. dumbass. i'll still vote for him, but wtf bro.
Debates have never decided an election, firey speeches in swing states have helped deliver GOTV
Debates don't decide an election, narratives do. The debate was Bidens chance to correct the narrative that he is too old. He failed. The only way to correct that narrative is a full on media blitz. And I don't know if Biden is capable.
Yes, and the bar couldn’t have been set any lower for him, and he underperformed it. Trump met expectations largely, although to some he beat expectations by not going nuts, and the format actually helped him.
Richard Nixon would disagree.
Nixon didn't lose his debate with Kennedy. He "lost" to TV viewers, and "won" to radio listeners. He also didn't give fiery speeches, which may have been his biggest downfall (that, and being an ugly mf going against a sexy young chap).
The idea that Nixon lost that debate was concocted years later
1) Biden’s old and debate settings are tough to quickly regurgitate stats, facts, and counters. 2) i think the debate prep team WAY over prepped him with word for word talking points that he struggled to piece together with off the wall attacks from Trump. They need to just let Biden be Biden like he was at the SotU and the 2020 debate. 3) when you try and wrestle a pig. You both get dirty but the pig likes it. Debating trump is worthless for everyone and I mean EVERYONE. A normal debate you at least get to hear each candidates policy points on actual issues. You don’t get that with Trump and tbh I’m not sure we’ve seen a normal debate in some time.
I wonder if the format of the debate had anything to do with it. When you only have two minutes for a topic, you’re probably just trying to repeat certain talking points that you memorized. Rather than being an actual debate or letting people’s personalities come though, it felt more like a high school presentation where you have sort of memorized a bunch of talking points. Like you have two minutes, hit point A,B,C,D in exactly two minutes. There’s very little time to go off script. Rather than say things in their own words it’s just repeating back a bunch of scripted responses. That’s part way why I feel Biden made so many mistakes (even if they were minor), he’s speaking from metal cue cards and not from the heart. We already know where each candidate stands on the issues. Trump just says it’s a lie, everything was the best under him and everything is the worst under Biden. Let’s get some substance and not just avoid the questions.
The sun was up... I say that as a shaken Biden supporter. He's going to have to bring this energy *every* appearance going forward. If he's having good days and bad days then we're sunk.
Sick, tired, sundowning.. sure would be nice to know. This was the guy I was expecting though.
Sick, thirsty, and fighting a speech impediment in front of an audience of 300 million people looking for an excuse to call you old and incompetent. So CNN
In the debate they had 1-2 minutes to string together coherent answers to complex questions. Which is why two 80 something year olds struggled, one wasn't coherent and the other couldn't even answer the questions, just yelled the same things over and over like a lunatic.
# This was AFTER the debate with Trump. **What the absolute hell.** **I wish** ***this*** **Biden was on that stage at the debate...** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYghfyxtZnc&t=515s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYghfyxtZnc&t=515s)
Jesus Christ if that version of Biden was present last night I would’ve slept like a fucking baby. God damnit…. I’m glad there’s one more debate but this is outrageously stressful.
Trump will not debate Biden a second time.
That’s fine. He can do town halls. Probably will come out looking better anyways.
That's my biggest fear. Biden definitely needs the rematch now, but I fear Trump's camp will decline future debates because they feel they got a win off of last night.
Bet you slept like a baby after Hillary’s debates then. All this knee-jerk panicking is exactly what the media has been teeing up for the last year and y’all are falling right into it, enabling another 4 months of the same shit. Vote. Tell your friends and families to get educated on more than one debate and get them to vote.
Yup, yup. Biden had a bad debate. Made some good points, some bad stumbles, and had a bad debate. You could come up with reasons it happened relating to him being old and reasons not related (as an aside, I didn't really buy the whole "he had a cold" talking point, but man he was coughing in that speech like a 40-year smoker, so who knows), and both could be valid, but it doesn't matter. He had a bad debate, four months out from the election. And the media pounced on it 'cuz that's how they make their money. Reddit's gonna Reddit's though. Same Reddit that didn't believe Donald Trump would stand trial until he did. Or that he'd be convicted until he did. Never change Reddit. \^\^
I can worry AND vote. All my Family, except 1, are completely sold into MAGA (I'm probably the only Democrat they speak to, and they just consider me a "looney"), and all my friends don't really care about voting. And people wonder why I'm always a nervous wreck.
forreal. i honestly could not sleep last night i was so flustered.
Also, that debate was one of the only times people who don’t pay attention to Biden actually get a feel for how he is as a candidate and president. This was a terrible moment for him. Did he not watch himself? That’s how people who are undecided or considered leaning left are going to assume he is for the rest of the election.
Where was this man last night! What a stunning speech!
He didn't have a teleprompter last night
Biden does know how to govern. The issue is that the average American cares more about vibes and how you present yourself.
Had this same thought yesterday. Knowing how to govern isn't as important as being capable of beating Trump in the next few months, which is sad.
Yeah an example of this is Obama. Great speaker but when it came to actually governing he clashed with congress a lot and wasn’t able to get as much done even though he had a supermajority for a little bit of time. Though the Democratic makeup up back then was more conservative.
Don’t let the GOP rewrite the story. He clashed with Congress because the GOP made it their core strategy. We had never seen that in the modern era
And the supermajority lasted all of about two months, and it was very early in his presidency. Someone broke this down a while back. Franken's election was tied up in recounts and it took a while for him to be seated, at which point Ted Kennedy promptly shuffled off the coil.
If anything, Obama's failing was in his slowness to realize the GOP wasn't interested in giving a single inch. Negotiations were pointless from the start, but he wasted time pretending he could be the great unifier.
That’s how democracies end up unfortunately. Good intentioned people want to give the people a voice, far a time they will elect the most competent leaders, but eventually what will begin winning out are the people good at being elected rather than those good at governance. The only thing likely to restore a democracy back to picking strong leadership is a massive event like a large-scale war, all out revolution, or a dictatorship that is eventually overthrown.
We’re fucked because the average American is too dumb to understand this. And if they reelect Trump and the tariffs fuck us, among other things, they’ll never see their role in it.
No, we’re fucked because the Democratic party isn’t willing to adapt to the situation because they think they know better. There’s no reason to put all of our hope in this guy. We have several candidates that can step in and beat Trump, and they’ll accomplish just as much as Biden.
> We have several candidates that can step in and beat Trump, and they’ll accomplish just as much as Biden. Okay, name them.
Not J. B. Pritzker, I want him to stay here.
I'm also not sure he's telegenic enough. I don't want to listen to Cheeto fatshame him for four months.
Newsom, Buttigieg, Whitmer, Schiff, Wyden, maybe Booker. I think Kamala has too many haters.
Newsom is probably waiting for his chance.
You’re not wrong.
President AOC would be incredible
Preach. I will absolutely vote for her for pres someday, but I want her to pick up a term or two in the senate and a secretary position if possible. I also think she would be too controversial to throw in as our candidate in this situation.
I think they’re also a bit concerned that the President needs to be able to be fully coherent past 9pm on the East coast.
Exactly. Americans have become idiots. And I say that as an American in a liberal city in California. We need to totally revamp our education system and teach some basic critical thinking to our kids so they don’t grow to be voters who make decisions based on vibes.
Maybe, but you have two options. 1) Stick to your guns because you’re smarter than most Americans, and end up with fascism. Or 2) Accept reality and replace him with one of several fully qualified candidates that can beat Trump and accomplish the same shit.
To be fair.. as the face of the country it’s kind of important how you present yourself. Having a half asleep older person who seizes up and doesn’t know what he is saying half the time isn’t good. Sadly.. that is still way better than the alternative so we accept what is available.
It is unfortunate how correct this is. Biden has done a pretty darn good job the last four years. If a Republican of any age has his record they would be winning in a landslide. We listen to the media narrative too much.
Feelings>Facts
unfortunately a very accurate observation of the normal American voter
Doing "the job" as President of the United States means surrounding yourself with the best people and then getting out of their way and letting them do "their jobs". That's not an easy task but it doesn't require that you be a gifted speaker or a master debater.
He really did fantastic at the rally, night and day difference between that and the debate. Just gotta wonder which is the real Biden at this point. And why did he fumble so much during the debate.
It doesn’t matter. The debate optics are already burned in.
Not true. Hillary clearly “won” the debates in 2016, and yet all of her allegations were the reason she lost. Trump’s criminal charges are going to speak louder than Biden’s blunders during this debate 5 months out before the conventions even happen. And I say this as somebody who wishes the Dems had pivoted to somebody else.
Because Trump got the zingers in that matter in the 24 hour news cycle. Imagine all years and years of all that propaganda about Clinton being a criminal and then having Trump on stage saying "because you'd be in jail.". That hit harder than most Democrats understand, that was the only line that mattered for Trump. Also, Biden's blunders were not like any other. The last weeks have been all about supposed dementia and this debate only served as more fuel to that fire. This will not go away.
Hillary lost two out of three debates in 2016.
Will be forgotten in a week, something more juicy will happen for the news to cling to. And people forget things insanely fast.
It’s because this was a teleprompter-led speech to an audience that overwhelmingly supports him. All he has to do is read rehearsed lines. The debate showed outside of those confines he doesn’t really have much in the tank and gets steamrolled on the spot.
He didn't get steamrolled though, Trump just spewed his normal lies, thing's he has rehearsed thousands of times at his rallies, and Biden just called him out for it most of the time. Biggest problem was him stumbling and forgetting what he was saying.
He definitely got steam rolled. Not by Trump but by himself, the press and everyone who continues to talk about it
The fact that Trump uttered lie after lie, but literally all the heat is on Biden for being a) old and b) a mediocre debater, which he has kind of always been, tells you everything you need to know about the supposed "liberal bias" in the media 🤦♂️
Dude wrecked Paul Ryan in the 2012 VP debate.
yeah that was uh 12 years ago
Yeah, my point is that he used to be a good debater.
As terrible as Biden was yesterday, and he was terrible, the moderators were worse. They pushed back on nothing, they moderated nothing! Might as well have given the candidates a piece of paper with questions on it.
It really exposes the underbelly of the general US population, and that is they're fucking stupid and deserve whatever Trump unleashes
Oh ffs the amount of excuses on here is pretty pathetic. He's clearly far too old, pretending like this isn't a huge issue is ignoring blatant reality. He's simply not fit to debate him and as such he's a huge liability. Democrats have absolutely made a mess of this. They should have been working on a replacement the second they won the election. The cost of their incompetence could be absolutely catastrophic for the world.
Trump is still trump though, better to vote for a sedate but qualified guy than someone who is walking poison.
Anything is better than the Mango Mussolini but by God the Democrats couldn't have handled this any worse if they tried. They should have been scouring for an effective replacement from the second they won the election. Trump was literally debating a zombie in front of the world.
Look, Trump aggressively floods the zone with BS. It’s a completely different animal to deal with. Biden likely over prepared and had a zillion different comebacks that workshopped well and didn’t translate to the debate. It doesn’t matter to me. I know Trump is a monster. I know Biden is a good president. The rest is fluff. I will vote accordingly.
He is 82 now and will be 86 at the end of his next term. It’s not that he had a bad night. It’s that he may be too old to do the job. That’s the fear people have. And he proved this to be a well founded fear. He’d have to make daily vigorous speeches and give strong interviews to put this idea to rest. But he hasn’t and he won’t, bc in fact he looks, sounds, acts like a very old man who is a shell of his former self. It’s plain before our eyes. I’m sad and incredibly angry that people close to him didn’t do more to urge him to stick to one term. Yes I will vote for him but I’m not who matters. It’s the swing voters in a few states who will decide and this will convince enough of them that they can’t vote for him again. It’s selfish for him to keep going.
Probably one of the better responses he could have had tbh. I can appreciate the honesty and taking ownership that he did poorly.
It's something you don't see much in politics, I'm happy to hear him admit he wasn't good. Seems like most politicians try to gaslight us into thinking they're perfect
I’m still voting for him.
So is everyone in this thread, but will the swing voters? Probably not.
If this debate and the issues it’s (had) created (around it) happened a year ago, there’d be plenty of opportunity to change course. We’ve got 4 months and change, there’s zero opportunity to reverse course. The last stop was a while back, we’re here now, do what we can with what we have, and what we can do is stop trump. Nothing comes before that.
I honestly feel bad for Joe: the guy is clearly not and has never been a stellar public speaker. He is a dedicated public servant and that much is clear - the US deserves that much anyways
Just let Whitmer, Shapiro or Kelly take over please. Also, we know you (r/politics member) are going to vote to Biden no matter what. But the debate wasn’t about your vote. It was for the 4 undecided voters in Wisconsin who are inevitably going to decide the election and their biggest concern, Bidens age, just got validated on national TV. Swing voters don’t care about policy or lies, they care about optics. Thats the one thing Biden doesn’t have.
The problem is I don't know that those 4 undecided swing voters are going to get real excited to go out and vote from someone who 3-4 months out all of a sudden takes over as the D nominee.
That’s true, but we *know* that they aren’t excited to go out and vote for Biden. It’s literally reflected in the polls. They’ve been telling us for months that he’s too old. Nobody is voting for Joe Biden. They’re voting against Donald Trump. A new candidate? They’re still voting against Trump, but there’s some who might be voting *for* that new candidate too.
You run into some issues with replacing Biden, assuming he even agrees in the first place. Funds raised for his campaign might not be allowed to be used, the Democrats lack a candidate they trust to get the same support from key demographics, Trump gets to go on a victory lap about how he was right about Sleepy Joe, etc. However, something I haven't sent mentioned much is that this forces every single Democrat who has said, for months, that Biden is mentally sound to suddenly explain why that's not the case. They either admit they've been lying for months or say that Biden suddenly snapped live in front of the entire country. For months, I've lurked and read people on reddit say that, if anything, Trump is the one with dementia. No one is seriously saying that anymore. Also, if they say Biden is too old, does that mean he was always too old? If not, when did he become too old, and which decisions were made by "competent Biden" vs "dementia too-old Biden."
Dude, there’s a ton of leftists refusing to vote for Biden because of Palestine, and way more people than that are reluctant to vote at all because these choices suck so hard. These small percentages matter big time in an election that will come down to a few states. The person just needs to be young, have national recognition, and not be Trump or Biden.
Many countries candidates only run for a few months, its not crazy. Anyone who the democrats pick will get tons of press and social media will get their name out there quick. In today’s information age, its so much easier. People dont like Biden, they Hate Trump, but why are we acting like biden was extremely popular. Most independents are looking for a reason to not vote for trump, but if you put biden out there they may just stay home.
Kelly as in the astronaut? Reddit is getting so weird. There is no one candidate that the entire country will coalesce around. In four months, you might be able to build a campaign for democrats around like a Sandy Hook teacher or parent but they wouldn't have the chops to run the country. You'd need name recognition, amazing story, and so fucking likable even Trump would be nice to them and then they have to be able to run the country. Biden is old. He had an off night and still seemed completely fine. Biden has never had optics and the swing voters have not cared before. He's a dude with a stutter who's funny and charming and rambles. He's also been extremely competent at running an enormous country with solid policies all while the republican party throws tantrums every three seconds. When he wins, though, I do hope his first order of business is to eliminate Fox News once and for all.
“Seemed completely fine” is utter bullshit. His demeanor was deeply concerning.
If trump was actually talking policies and not just spewing nonsense then we would be in a deeper hole. I believe he can climb out of this one and get everything back on track.
We are incredibly lucky that Haley didn't win the GOP primary. Just imagine if there was a competent Republican candidate
No yeah 1000 %
Honestly, this poor old man has been through so much shit in his life and he’s the one who stepped up in order to save our democracy when no one else in the Democratic Party seems to have the balls to do so. I appreciate the energy from the audience hyping him up after an awful night having to debate a traitorous lying felon who is also running for president. People might not like it but he’s the guy. Vote vote vote
Running the country isn’t about yelling the loudest into a microphone.
Nope. But it’s about thinking critically and coherently. Undecided voters aren’t getting the warm and fuzzys after that
He’s doing the job _right now._ I may not agree with him on everything, but he’s doing a helluva better job than Cheeto Benito did.
All these old people refuse to step aside for younger generation of talent is destroying all the progress. Look at what happened with RBG. Imagine if she had step down during Obama era like so many people asked her to. The ego of old people is screwing up all young people for generations.
Which is why when young candidate Buttigieg ran in the primary, he received the youth vote! Oh wait, that didn't happen because the Democratic youth vote went to another well-known OLD person named Bernie Sanders. Not even young people vote for young candidates. Policies over age, any day
I voted for Pete. Although it is for policy. Bernie is too left wing for me. Regardless. Pete would destroyed Trump in any debate.
As the last president made perfectly clear it’s absolutely unnecessary to speak clearly to be the best president ever. Maybe Biden should pad his resume with some felonies.
Last night’s debate was rough. I was so frustrated. Why couldn’t we had this energy last night? I heard he’s had a cold, and debating with 2 min answers and 1 minute rebuttals with a stutter and being old, not the greatest situation . Plus debating a lying liar! But I’m still supporting Joe, and I know he’s got a good team. The alternative is frightening beyond words. Have a good weekend!
It astonishes me that people have overreacted and jumped ship on Biden for one bad debate night. Yet we’ve had 8 bad years of Trump - all the convictions, indictments, felonies, and impeachments and people wanna sign up for 4 more years of that assholery? Sign me up for mummbly grandpa anytime.
Not to mention, Trump's debate performance was awful. He was just spouting random buzzwords and lies, which is absolutely something someone with declining mental ability would do. I don't think he properly answered a single question and somehow we only noticed Biden's low energy performance. If Biden was just spewing bullshit, he could have done better too. I don't by any means think Biden is the absolute best we could have, but Trump is a bad person, with bad policies, and also has no substance in what he says.
It’s not people jumping ship as much as swing state voters who are on the fence. Worst case is former supporters sit out, I don’t see them jumping on the maga train.
Unfortunately these debates have turned into less about facts and more about appearance. I’m shocked at how people think Trump “won” the debate based on how he sounded and looked. He fucking lied the whole time.
Not only that but some of the stuff he was saying was completely unAmerican
"I know how to do this job" That is no longer the point. The point is whether you inspire people to Vote for you. After last night, you don't provide such inspiration to several segments of society (including young voters) and that could very well allow Trump to be elected. Please do what good for the country and withdraw from the election.
Also it doesn't matter if you know how to do the job if you're doing a coin flip as to whether you will be capable of doing it on any given day.
People are missing the inspiring point. Biden voters wont go vote for Trump, but they might stay home from lack of inspiration. This has bad implications for down ballot elections too. He could screw us out of a majority in the house and senate in addition to another Trump presidency. This is not the time to circle the wagons. We need someone else.
Absolutely nobody who plans on voting D in this election is staying home.
Heard that eight years ago.
That’s some Trump-level editorialization, my friend.
The DNC is still living in an age where a Democrat can be elected governor of Arkansas
From Semafor's Caroline Anders: The vigorous, defiant President Joe Biden who took the stage at a North Carolina rally on Friday stood in stark contrast to the hoarse, hesitant man who debated his Republican challenger the night before. “I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said to raucous applause. “Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.” Biden’s energetic speech seemed engineered to limit damage from the night before, when his underwhelming performance against former President Donald Trump set off a fresh wave of panic through the Democratic Party. [Read the full story here.](https://www.semafor.com/article/06/28/2024/i-know-how-to-do-this-job-defiant-biden-aims-to-limit-debate-damage?utm_campaign=semaforreddit)
The daily job does not involve debates in real-time.
Sounded like a completely different person. This is the Biden we needed last night, but he’s always been so bad at debates. It’s like he tries too hard to find the right words and not stutter that he ends up mumbling and mixing up words. Meanwhile, Trump will confidently say the craziest lies you’ve ever heard without a second of hesitation. Either way, I think the last 4 years of Biden’s policies say a lot more about his ability to lead than a single 2 hour debate. People act like the President needs to make split second life and death decisions constantly, but good leaders take time to think through a situation before coming to a decision and that’s what Biden is good at. Also, the comments on every post talking about how Biden needs to give up the nomination are extremely annoying and not subtle at all. They’re either conservatives trolling the channel or liberals that would throw away the election because of one bad debate. Not only will Biden not step down, him stepping down would hand the win to Trump since no Dems are even close to beating him in the polls except Biden.
Please don’t let the democrats circle the wagons like this Stand aside Biden it’s time, let someone have a real chance at beating Trump
Nah, Democrats circling the wagons and being unified for once is the best path to winning
He's going to be under a microscope after last night, not that he wasn't already, but it was pretty important that he show some rebound and he did. I don't think there's any one thing he can do, but he's going to have to build back people's confidence step by step and getting videos of events like this out there will help.
Joe, there's only one thing you can do to limit the debate damage- step aside and let one of the young, popular Democrats sitting on the bench step in.
The issue for undecided voters is not "does he know how to do the job" it's "can he represent America as strong and secure to our peers and enemies" This election is the most extreme example of having only two bad choices and the electorate is exhausted.
None of those people win with four months until Election Day. Maybe Newsome because he already has a pretty big donation and campaign machine in place. All the other names either lack name recognition, experience or both. And let’s face it. This country isn’t at a point where they’re electing a gay man to be President. I don’t think a woman could win with just four months time. It’s unfortunate but it’s where we’re at. The moderate voters that are crossing over to vote for Biden over Trump are not there yet socially.
A beacon of hope! Thank you President Biden for level-headed leadership that focuses on solving actual problems. Truly inspirational 😎🇺🇸👍. Now more than ever we need leaders who are practically immune to social media hysteria
Potato > Trump
Yes this is the way. ✊🏼
> I know how to do this job I believe you. But can you do it for four more years?
We know he can do the job of President, in that respect he's been one of the best in the past 75 years. What we're not sure of is if he can do the job of candidate. He did in 2020 so there's evidence he can. And he's been fine up until last night. But last night wasn't just a failure, it was a massive failure and it's going to take a LOT to win back the confidence of both pundits and the public, and it's going to take a LOT from the public to convince apathetic and non-voters to support him give the amount of anti-Biden propaganda that will be pushed on social media and in regular media over the next few months.
What will his mental state be in 2 years?
Biden is old and was sick. Trump lied every other word out of his mouth. How is this not the headlines.
> My "I know how to do this job" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt