Tonight’s debate was painful to watch. There is little point in dwelling on details. The salient fact is that there were two men on stage, and only one of them wasn’t senile. Everything else is an asterisk.
That said, a few observations:
* I think the format helped Trump. There was no audience for him to play to, and no opportunity to interrupt Biden. The format helped Trump stay on mission.
* Trump is not great in a debate context. There were many places where he could have done better. But he did plenty well enough, given Biden’s sad performance. The details are not very important; half the time you can’t figure out what Biden is even trying to say.
* I don’t know how many people watched more than the first half-hour. I am sure that many found it too painful to continue. So it was good for Trump that there was a lot of emphasis on illegal immigration, early on.
* I think the CNN hosts have been pretty good, better than one could have expected.
* Many on Twitter are saying the Democrats now have no choice but to dump Biden. I don’t agree: he has been this bad for a long time. As long as he stays upright, I think the Dems are stuck with him.
Here are a few comments from others:
The visuals of this debate are just horrendous. The audience might well finish watching with little memory of what was said — and total recall of what it looked like.
— Byron York (@ByronYork) June 28, 2024
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 28, 2024
Democrats need to get Jamaal Bowman in there to pull the fucking fire alarm
— HARLAN Z. HILL 🇺🇸 (@Harlan) June 28, 2024
This one is funny: Biden claimed the border patrol guards have endorsed him:
To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden.
— Border Patrol Union – NBPC (@BPUnion) June 28, 2024
Biden: "A young woman who just was murdered and he went to the funeral and the idea that she was murdered by an immigrant coming into, they talk about that. But here‘s the deal: There‘s a lot of young women to be raped by their, by their in-laws, by their, by their spouses,… pic.twitter.com/9wufnLZt4s
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 28, 2024
Far-left Chris Cillizza:
Biden would have been better off just refusing to debate Trump.
He would have taken some flak for it sure. But it would have been way better than this.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) June 28, 2024
Near the end, Biden was asked about his age and whether he can serve another four years as president. His answer was utterly incoherent. QED.
Bottom line: Trump wasn’t great, but he didn’t need to be. I will say this, however: if the Republican on the stage had been, say, Marco Rubio, we could be looking at a Reagan style-wipeout.
OMG: I was about to hit “publish,” and they started arguing about golf! More humiliation for Biden.
Biden barely got through an incoherent closing statement; Trump was, at least, better.
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