Four words that pretty much summed up the situation we’re in. They are far from the full content of the debate, but they signaled a moment that Biden supporters hoped would never come. It was when the fears many of us had about Biden’s ability to complete a second term would be revealed to the world. But, when you look back on the years of Biden’s presidency you can find a trend of a White House and campaign who may have been masking a bigger problem about his ability to continue as leader of free world, a person who has the ability to impact millions with policies and decisions. More importantly, can Biden convince an electorate to give him four more years in the most powerful office in the world?
While many have been trying to play this off as “a bad night,” you only have to look back over the past year or so to see this was not only a bad night, but a bad several months. Biden rarely participates in press conferences and when he does, he’s not at his sharpest. The answers are very brief and sometimes not coherent. The only time you find him energized and fully coherent is when he is at a rally or speech with teleprompter screens on either side of the podium. His last presser was with Zelenskyy where the best part of the conference was his speech at the beginning. In other words, is it really Biden or a good set of speechwriters propping him up?
Most likely, for the past few years the Biden White House has been propping him up, writing his speeches, helping him through the decisions, and covering for him when he screwed up something in public. However, those in the campaign had a hunch that the night might not go well. In an article in the Washington Post, aides shared anonymously about the issues. “In the sessions, the president still spoke haltingly. He sometimes confused facts and figures. He tripped over words and meandered. Debate prep would not fix his stutter or make him appear any younger, aides knew.
While we’re on that topic, Trump isn’t much better. He may be more energized, but he’s actually worse at press conferences or off prompter than Biden is, often wandering off into topics completely unrelated or just downright confusing. Trump has a toolbox of attacks that are often devoid of facts, many fed by his “advisers” such as Steve Bannon as we discovered today on This Week. From the interview with Jonathan Karl, “I don’t want to talk details, but we keep — we keep in pretty good contact. A lot of the things we talk about end up in his speeches. So, we talk frequently enough.” But you’ll never really hear anything of substance in those speeches or rallies.
In fact, David Remnick of The New Yorker put it best in an episode of the The New Yorker Radio Hour (starting at 22:10 minute mark), “I went to the rally in the Bronx and Trump was telling stories about a woman’s skating rink, and various real estate moguls that he knew, and the Yankees in the era of Steinbrenner, and, politics aside, it was like listening to grandpa at Thanksgiving, but without the vile you were used to. It was … odd.” He went on to talk about the crowd reaction to when Trump walks into arenas like UFC matches. They are drawn to the man, not the candidate. They could really care less about the issues and prefer to hear Trump brag about his legal issues or how he’s going to put someone in prison.
Ezra Klein, in an op-ed in the NY Times writing about the need for Biden to drop out, pointed out the numerous gaffes by Biden during the debate such as this set, “For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America — I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised 500 million dollars — billion dollars, I should say — in a 10-year period. We’d be able to wipe out his debt.” Klein makes the same point that I do about Biden on teleprompter and Biden off the crutch.
While those moments were part of the problem for Biden, the real issue was his inability to counter Trump’s repeated lies and misleading statements. Biden’s best response was “you’re wrong” or “you’re lying,” without a follow-up with the facts to counter that. Biden countered only once regarding Trump’s positions on Roe v. Wade and even then, it wasn’t very convincing. Many I read kept asking why the moderators weren’t fact-checking Trump. To be honest, that job was Biden’s job and he wasn’t up to the task and probably never will be without a teleprompter.
In the days post-debate, the Biden team and Democratic leadership has been trying to push this aside as, wait for it, “a bad night,” claiming that Biden will recover from this and continue with a strong campaign. The trouble with that argument was that this debate was supposed to be that moment. Biden asked for it to prove he is fit for the office. The reality is that his team seems to be more concerned about their own jobs and will play this off so they can keep their jobs. The moment Biden drops out, they are out of a job and out on the street.
With regards to the leadership and potential candidates should he drop out, no one wants to counter the boss while he’s in the race. They also don’t want to sound like the ones who pushed him out for fear of voter retribution for being perceived as disloyal to the boss. While Biden remains in the race, they’ll play the party line as flawed as that might be. The only way you’ll see them move off that position is if Biden does drop out which brings up the next point.
For anything to change in this race, it will have to start with Biden. Until he drops out on his own and releases his delegates, he is the nominee of the party according to the rules. Nothing can change that and no amount of speculation can shift that position. But what if he did drop out? The first thing that would happen is he would release his delegates to vote as they choose. The nomination would be thrown to the National Convention with a number of candidates vying for the nomination. Those include Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, Pete Buttigieg, and J.B. Pritzker. Almost all are governors except for Harris and Buttigieg. There are others, but that’s the most talked about list right now.
When you look at how these candidates would fare against Trump according to a poll by Data for Progress, all are within the margin of error of a tie with Trump with Harris having the best advantage of a point over the others. It should be noted that Biden had that same set of numbers as Harris. What that really tells me is that those numbers reflect people voting against the other guy, not for a particular candidate. It means that the undecided voters are the ones who would tip the scale.
That should be enough of a data point for those in the Biden camp to do the right thing and begin to have the talk with Biden about his age and ability to finish this campaign. In every poll I’ve seen, independents have never tilted towards Biden, primarily because of his age. They are the ones saying what most of the Democrats want to say.
Would a chaotic convention be bad for Democrats? Sure, it would be. It would be a period of uncertainty and political fights with all wings of the party trying to get their candidate nominated. You’ll find all the warts of the party exposed in raw form during a week or two of intense floor fights. But when a candidate emerges, that candidate should be the best to take on Trump leading into the general election. That candidate will be one who could go head to head with Trump in a debate and nail him to the wall with his lies exposed.
But it all starts with Biden making the right decision which will probably mean Jill will have to be on board. I seriously doubt Joe will pull the trigger on his own without Jill being in support. The hour is nearing when there will not be enough time to pivot. Everyone knows that and is anxiously watching the family as they contemplate this decision. Let’s hope that pride does not take precedence over the fate of the party and the nation.
Update 6/30/2028 6:00 p.m. – It looks like the family pretty much told Biden to press ahead according to sources who provided information to the Washington Post. Granted, the sources said that a decision of this magnitude probably wouldn’t happen at Camp David due to the number of people around the facility. A better location would be his home in Rehoboth Beach, but with the campaign needing to project stamina, that may not happen in time for the convention in August.