Showdown
High noon in a CNN studio.
On Thursday night, June 27, unpopular President Joe Biden faced off for a debate against challenger and former President Donald Trump, whose popularity is surging despite (or in many cases because of) him being labeled a “convicted felon.” The 90-minute showdown took place before heavily biased moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper in the Atlanta studios of CNN, the least trusted name in news.
To keep tight control over the debate process, Team Biden requested there be no live audience – because Trump knows how to work a crowd – and that Trump’s mic be muted when Biden is speaking and vice versa; this, according to the New York Times, is “intended to guard against Mr. Trump’s penchant for interrupting and speaking over debate opponents.”
In other words, Biden’s team and his media collaborators wanted to hamstring Trump’s successful pugilistic style. They couldn’t afford to allow him to fluster his senile opponent with the kind of devastating off-the-cuff remark like the one he used to skewer Hillary Clinton in their 2016 debate. Hillary had said it was a good thing “Trump is not in charge of the law in our country” and he shot back, “Because you would be in jail.” Disappointingly, the debate constraints left no room for that kind of spontaneous kill shot.
Biden’s handlers also refused to allow the aging President to be tested prior to the debate for performance-enhancing drugs, despite widespread speculation that he would need to be “jacked up,” as Trump put it, to maintain mental focus and to prevent Biden from reaching for nonexistent hands to shake or wandering offstage.
As it turned out, if Biden wasn’t on any performance-enhancing drugs for the debate, he should have been, because there was immediate widespread consensus among his fellow Democrat leaders and media supporters that the debate was a colossal failure for the aging President.
The debate kicked off with a question about the economy, a topic that recurred throughout as both candidates blamed each other for soaring inflation, high taxes, and the decimation of the middle class. Biden accused Trump and corporate greed of causing families to struggle with rising prices, and declared that the road to prosperity lies in taxing the rich. Trump blasted Biden for turning us into a third-world country by allowing illegal immigration to cripple the economy.
After the economy, the questioning went to abortion. Bash asked if Trump would block abortion “medication” if elected, and Trump assured her that he is happy to settle for overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the states. He slammed the Democrats for putting no limits on abortion, though, even after birth; Biden falsely claimed that his Party does not support late-term abortion, and said turning abortion back to the states would be like turning civil rights back to the states. He vowed to get Roe v. Wade reinstated if elected, and asserted falsely that a President Trump would support a national abortion ban.
On immigration, Biden mumbled something about his administration creating a bipartisan Congressional agreement. Trump repeatedly blasted his opponent’s “stupid and insane” immigration policies for allowing criminals, the mentally ill, and terrorists to flood the border. We’re an “uncivilized country” now, he said.
On the Ukraine war, Trump promised to have it settled before he takes office in January. He hammered Biden as being the worst Commander-in-Chief ever, and said our troops and veterans “can’t stand” him. Biden claimed Putin would overrun all of NATO if he wasn’t stopped in Ukraine, but Trump correctly noted more than once that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine under a Trump administration. He also correctly observed that Putin neither feared nor respected America under Biden, and blasted him more than once for his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan – a point Biden feebly tried to counter.
On the Middle East conflict, Bash falsely claimed that Israel’s response to the Hamas savagery of October 7th created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. She asked Biden what leverage he would use to end the war. Biden lied again, claiming his administration was the biggest supporter of Israel of anyone in the world. Trump said if he were President he would allow Israel to finish the job against Hamas. But asked if he would support an independent Palestinian state, Trump tossed out a throwaway “I’d have to see” before changing the subject.
On the issue of democracy, Tapper asked about Trump’s “actions and inaction” on January 6th, 2021, a date that the Democrats will ensure lives in infamy. Trump touted what great shape the country was in on January 6th before Biden ruined it. He noted that he had urged his supporters to protest “peacefully and patriotically” and that he had offered security for the Capitol, which Nancy Pelosi recently admitted turning down.
Trump then hit Biden hard for criminally prosecuting the January 6th protesters, saying he had “destroyed the lives of so many innocent people.” Biden insisted that all the convicted protesters belonged in jail. He also seized the opportunity to call Trump “a convicted felon” – you knew that was coming tonight – and Trump countered that Biden’s son Hunter is a convicted felon. Trump noted that he was the victim of Biden’s weaponization of intelligence agencies and law enforcement; asked if he intended to seek retribution against his political opponents if elected, Trump said “success would be my retribution.” All Biden could do was bring up the Stormy Daniels scandal irrelevantly and condemn Trump for having “the morals of an alley cat.”
After admitting that he believes tens of millions of Trump supporters will be voting against democracy, Biden tried to make Trump sound like a Hitler fanboy, citing the same debunked “very fine people” lie he’s been milking for years. Trump forcefully countered it. By now it was clear Biden was floundering.
When the questioning turned to what he would say to black people who felt not enough progress was being made under his administration, Biden claimed he had done a lot for black people “but there’s a lot more to be done.” That’s what Democrats always say, but nothing ever improves for black Americans, and they’ve been noticing, which is why Trump’s support among blacks is growing at a rate that terrifies Democrats. Trump countered by slamming Biden for “killing” blacks with inflation and illegal immigration.
Pressed if he would “take any action” at all to counteract the so-called “climate crisis,” Trump merely answered that he wants clean water and clean air, but went on to denounce the climate accords as putting an unfair economic burden on the U.S. Biden just kept saying Trump was a liar.
To keep social security solvent, Biden’s only solution was to “make the wealthy pay their fair share.” He claimed Trump wants to end social security; Trump countered that illegal immigration is going to destroy social security. Biden actually had the gall to say we have the most successful economy in the world, and that Trump was the worst president in history.
Biden also claimed ludicrously that no one in the world thinks our country is weak, that we are respected all over the world. Trump hit back with, “We’re closer to WWIII than at any time.” Our enemies don’t respect or fear Biden, Trump said. “If he wins this election, our country doesn’t have a chance.”
Asked what they would do to help victims of the opioid crisis, Trump returned to blaming Biden for destroying the country economically and for unchecked drug- and human trafficking; Biden declared he was building fentanyl-detecting machines, which hardly seems like a bold plan to reverse the crisis.
Asked how he would assure voters that he can handle the job well into his 80s, Biden slurred his way through his record and accomplishments. Asked the same question, Trump answered that he “aced” two cognitive tests and physicals every year. They began to argue about their golf handicap, and Biden hilariously said he would meet him on the course if Trump promised to carry his own bag of clubs – as if Biden could even swing a putter. “Let’s not act like children,” Trump said.
Bash asked pointedly if Trump would condemn political violence, something he has done many times in the past but which the media ignore. Trump said of course he does not support political violence, but Bash pressed twice more if he would peacefully accept the results of the election. Trump said absolutely, if it’s fair and legal. Biden had little of substance to say except to repeatedly call Trump a whiner.
In his closing statement, a rattled Biden fumbled through an uninspiring prepared speech that tried to gaslight Americans into thinking things are going great. In his closing statement, Trump reiterated that under Biden our nation was failing, but he promised to make it great again.
Trump, only three years younger than his opponent, looked and sounded as vigorous as ever. Biden looked and sounded like he won’t even survive his current term, much less a second four years. His voice never rose above a whispered rasp, and he often slurred his speech or coughed. At one point he trailed off incomprehensibly, and Trump simply said, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” While Trump talked, Biden glared at him in open-mouthed horror and outrage like an old crank watching a rowdy teenager doing wheelies on his lawn.
Trump, who went like a pit bull after every false claim Biden made, even at the expense of answering a few of the questions, clearly got under Biden’s skin. The President spent much of the debate in a state of agitation about Trump’s statements. Many of Biden’s sentences began with “The very idea…” After Trump laid into him for what he called “Biden migrant crime,” Joe responded helplessly with, “Every single thing he said was a lie.”
No one expected the debate outcome to change anyone’s mind. A whopping 88% of Republican voters, 77% of Democrats, and 75% of Independents said prior to the debate that it is “not at all likely” or “not very likely” that it would sway their vote. But already, Democrat pundits have taken to cable TV and social media to admit openly that the debate was catastrophic for Biden, and that the Party needs a replacement candidate. Even CNN host John King called it “a game-changing debate in the sense that right now as we speak, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party.”
The incumbent Party is now having to come to terms with the stark reality that in the wake of the debate, the candidate everyone is writing off is not the “convicted felon” Donald Trump but the nominee they’re saddled with.
Watch: Biden, Trump Spar in First 2024 Presidential Debate | WSJ News
