Many of President Biden’s backers were despondent Thursday night over his performance in the first debate of the general election, lashing out at the Democratic Party, the debate hosts and Mr. Biden’s campaign for the president’s rocky night.
Social media erupted with concern over Mr. Biden’s meanderings and mumbled answers, with some supporters demanding his party find a way to replace him on the ballot.
Other Biden backers pleaded with CNN, which was hosting the debate, to step in and rescue him by asking tougher follow-ups to former President Donald Trump.
“He’s clueless,” one Reddit user said of Biden, while another said, “Look, I’m voting for Biden 100%, but he is 100% not all there.”
“Biden is too old!” complained another, adding, “We needed Pete! You fools!”
That was apparently a reference to Pete Buttigieg, who ran in the 2020 Democratic primary and now serves as Mr. Biden’s transportation secretary.
“There’s going to be a discussion of if he should continue,” Obama White House strategist David Axelrod said on CNN after the debate.
“This is elder abuse,” Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, an online progressive program, said on X. “Democratic establishment is sick. If we stick with Biden, it’s a guaranteed loss.”
He suggested the party look to Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who ran for and lost the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 and 2020.
Another indication of Democrats’ discomfort came at the debate site. Republicans rushed into the “spin room” where reporters congregated afterward. Democrats were slower to arrive.
“They are in a panic,” said David Bossie, a veteran of GOP politics and Trump surrogate. “I was even shocked by how poorly he did.”
The Biden campaign, in its post-debate statement, didn’t address the complaints, instead saying the president “presented a positive and winning vision for the future of America” and contrasting that with Mr. Trump, “who offered a dark and backwards window into what America will look like if he steps foot back in the White House.”
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“Trump’s performance tonight reminded the American people why they fired him four years ago, and reinforced just how high the stakes are this November for the future of our country.”
Mr. Biden, in brief remarks to supporters afterward, sounded an upbeat note.
“They’re going to be out there, fact-checking,” the president said. “I can’t think of one thing that he said was true”
“Look we’re going to beat this guy, and I need you in order to beat him, he said, adding “You are the reason why America is as good as we are.”
Some Biden backers insisted his performance wasn’t so bad, other than the mumbles and occasional incoherent answers. They suggested his performance might translate better to the online world of short video clips or news accounts of the answers on policy questions.
“I think you all are talking about style,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia Democrat, scolded reporters. “The people I’m talking to in the state of Georgia — they’re not focused on style.”
Vice President Kamala Harris struck a similar note — defending Mr. Biden’s performance on substance, downplaying the performance as just “a slow start,” and urging voters to evaluate the president’s performance during his time in office rather than Thursday’s debate.
“I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I’ve been watching the last 3 1/2 years of performance,” she snapped back in a contentious interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Among Mr. Biden’s mishaps was a bizarre answer to a question about taxes, Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and Mr. Biden’s own plans for a tax increase on the wealthy.
“If they just paid 24%, 25%, either one of those numbers, we’d raise $500 million — billion dollars, I should say — in a 10-year period. We’d be able to wipe out his debt, we’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with COVID — excuse, me, dealing with everything we have to do with… Look, we finally beat Medicare.”
Mr. Trump retorted: “He’s right, he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”
At another point, Mr. Biden struggled in a claim that a terrorist entered the U.S. during the Trump administration. And he tried to make a claim that his own recent actions have improved things at the border, saying he was “going to continue to move for a total ban — the total initiative — relative to what we can do.”
“I don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either,” Mr. Trump said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has known Mr. Biden for decades, said he was “unnerved” by the performance.
“Unnerved for the country,” Mr. Graham told reporters.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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