My bet, for one reason or another, is that this is inaccurate, but a friend of mine told me that he spoke with a major Democratic Party insider after the debate who told him that what they “heard is that Biden intentionally stumbled tonight, in order to give him a face-saving way of not running, and the Democrats an opportunity to nominate someone else— they say that's the whole reason the White House wanted to have the debate before the convention. And they'll run Newsom.” It’s plausible, I guess. But what’s the mechanism to put Newsom in and take Harris out?
In his instant analysis, Peter Baker noted that the White House had hoped to build fresh momentum for Biden’s re-election bid by “agreeing to debate nearly two months before he is to be formally nominated. Instead, his halting and disjointed performance on Thursday night prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all. Over the course of 90 minutes, a raspy-voiced Biden [battling a cold] struggled to deliver his lines and counter a sharp though deeply dishonest Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president’s ability to wage a vigorous and competitive campaign four months before the election. Rather than dispel concerns about his age, Biden, 81, made it the central issue.”
Democrats who have defended the president for months against his doubters— including members of his own administration— traded frenzied phone calls and text messages within minutes of the start of the debate as it became clear that Biden was not at his sharpest. Practically in despair, some took to social media to express shock, while others privately discussed among themselves whether it was too late to persuade the president to step aside in favor of a younger candidate.
“Biden is about to face a crescendo of calls to step aside,” said a veteran Democratic strategist who has staunchly backed Biden publicly. “Joe had a deep well of affection among Democrats. It has run dry.”
“Parties exist to win,” this Democrat continued. “The man on the stage with Trump cannot win. The fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now that same fear is going to fuel calls for him to step down.”
A group of House Democrats said they were watching the debate together, and one, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that it was a “disaster” for Biden. The person said the group was discussing the need for a new presidential nominee.
Mark Buell, a prominent donor for Biden and the Democratic Party, said after the debate that the president had to strongly consider whether he is the best person to be the nominee. “Do we have time to put somebody else in there?” Buell said.
He added that he was not yet calling for Biden to withdraw but that “Democratic leadership has a responsibility to go to the White House and clearly show what America’s thinking, because democracy is at stake here and we’re all nervous.”
Biden’s goal in accepting a general election debate earlier than ever held in presidential history was to recalibrate the contest as a choice between himself and a felon who tried to overturn an election and would in his view destroy American democracy if given the power of the presidency again. Biden left the CNN studio in Atlanta instead facing a referendum on himself and his capacity that will reverberate for days if not longer.
Trump, 78, [on Adderall] appeared to coast through the debate with little trouble, rattling off one falsehood after another without being effectively challenged. He appeared confident while avoiding the excessively overbearing demeanor that had damaged him during his first debate with Biden in 2020, seemingly content to let his opponent stew in his own difficulties.
While Trump at times rambled and offered statements that were convoluted, hard to follow and flatly untrue, he did so with energy and volume that covered up his misstatements, managing to stay on offense even on issues of vulnerability for him like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and abortion.
Biden appeared on defense much of the time and either did not use lines teed up for him by his campaign’s predebate advertising or mumbled them in passing in such a way that they barely registered.
Joe Klein and other centrists who helped Biden steal 2020 from Bernie are looking on in horror now, but not blaming themselves: “It was worse than disastrous. It was sad, it was humiliating. Biden looked like a hospice patient who got lost on his way to the bathroom. That was probably the biggest thing: He looked and sounded awful. In past debates, Biden maintained eye contact with the camera when Trump spoke; he seemed focused and strong. This time, he rarely made eye contact; he looked down, mouth slack. He gave the impression of a very old man. His voice was weak, his answers garbled and incomprehensible— certainly to anyone who doesn’t spend their life following politics. If he had effective moments, and there might have been a few, they were lost in the overall horror. Trump was Trump. A lying, petulant charlatan. But that won’t make much difference. He didn’t even need to point out how frail Biden seemed— although at one point, he said, ‘I don’t understand what he just said.’ Neither did I, neither did anyone. Trump understood that he didn’t need to ridicule the geezer— indeed, it would have seemed cruel, even for Trump. He just stuck to calling Biden a terrible President; Biden was on the ropes from the first minute, unable to defend himself. Someone should have stopped the fight… Biden has had an honorable career and, I believe, he’s been a very good President. It’s tragic to see it end this way. But end it must. He can not win this election. On the evidence of last night, he would be unable to function as President for the next four years. He needs to stand down, as soon as possible. He needs to release his convention delegates and allow the Democrats to pick a successor— and it should be a real competition, involving debates. If the Democrats choose to defend the disaster that everyone saw last night, they will only make themselves seem foolish and unworthy of governing.”
“The first step,” he wrote, “should be Biden’s… but if he doesn’t choose to stand down, there needs to be an intervention. Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Steny Hoyer, Chuck Schumer [what about Colburn, the worst of them all?] have to go to the White House and tell him that he must do this. I suspect that candidates will emerge very quickly— Kamala Harris, obviously; Gavin Newsom, probably; Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, any other plausible Democratic governor [What about Buttigieg, again, the worst of them all, although this is a pretty hideous list already.]. I suppose some lefties like Elizabeth Warren— who disgraced herself by endorsing Jamaal Bowman— will give it a shot. (Warren certainly would shred Trump in a debate.) It will be chaotic for a time. Then, if someone catches fire, it may become exciting. There will be a chance for someone fresh, new and clean— someone who can actually stand up to Donald Trump.”
I agree with David Frum that Trump should never have had this platform. Treating failed coup leader as a legitimate opponent has been a bad move from the beginning. Trump belongs in prison, not on the debate stage. “Everything about the event,” he wrote, “was designed to blur the choice before Americans. Both candidates— the serving president and the convicted felon— were addressed as ‘President.’ The questions treated an attempted coup d’état as one issue out of many. The candidates were left to police or fail to police the truth of each other’s statements.”
Frum notes that “Against the threat of Trump, Americans must save themselves. The job of doing so cannot be delegated to some charismatic savior— and anyway, that charismatic savior has yet to present himself or herself. Television always wants to reduce active human beings to passive viewers. The presidential-debate format has especially served this purpose: ‘Do I prefer the candidate in the red tie or the blue one?’ This most recent debate has taught the danger of spectatorship. The job of saving democracy from Trump will be done not by an old man on a gaudy stage, but by those who care that their democracy be saved. Biden’s evident frailties have aggravated that job and made it more difficult, but they have also clarified whose job it is. Not his. Yours.”
Walter Shapiro urged Biden to “spend the weekend facing up to the biggest decision of his political career… [I]t is time for Biden to face up to the reality of his 81 years. The president, away from his aides and enablers, should ask himself the blunt question: ‘Can I save American democracy by beating Trump?’… He is, to put it bluntly, a terrible candidate— and there is no possibility that he will age well over the next four months… It is on his conscience that Trump is likely to be the Once and Future President. Only Biden, by withdrawing next week, can change that frightening equation. It would be the ultimate self-sacrifice and it would run against every I’m-a-fighter instinct in Biden’s body. But it is a self-sacrifice that is needed to save the nation from four more years of Trump terror.”
Former Obama comms director Dan Pfeiffer wrote that “Biden didn’t deliver. He looked and sounded old. He mixed up his words and misstated his own policies. The split screen was very hard for Biden, who often seemed like he was staring off into space as opposed to looking at the camera. President Biden could not clearly defend his record or prosecute the very obvious case against Trump. Yes, Trump lied incessantly with little to no pushback. Debating a shameless liar is a difficult feat, but Biden didn’t meet the very low expectations set by Trump and the Right Wing media… Biden’s main task was to convince the 70% of voters who think he is too old to be President. And he missed his biggest and best opportunity to assuage those concerns. In fact, he almost certainly exacerbated them.”
“Losing the White House to Donald Trump,” wrote Harold Meyerson this morning, “isn’t like losing it to Mitt Romney or John McCain or George W. Bush. It means losing a crucial share of American democracy. The party must nominate somebody else for president, or else it has no raison d’être.” He hopes Schumer, Pelosi, Jeffries, Obama and Bill Clinton “need to converge on the White House to tell Biden that his time is up, too, unless he wants to go down in history not as a president who enacted landmark legislation with the slimmest of congressional majorities, but as the man who handed America over to its first genuinely autocratic (not to mention vindictive and deranged) president.” Those people brought us Biden— to keep the nomination out of Bernie’s hands— so:
They owe it to us
They probably won’t
Some of them are also elderly and losing it (Pelosi is 84; Schumer is 74; Clinton is 77)
They’re aware of what will happen when unelectable Kamala is passed over