CNN, the debate’s moderator, seemed to dictate that the moderator could not correct a single word or check a single fact, instead acknowledging each outrageous lie with a simple “thank you.” But the ultimate failure was Biden. He looked weak and lost, his mouth agape, muttering, rambling, losing his train of thought. Even when he had a good line or a spot-on rebuttal to Trump’s attacks, he delivered it so poorly that it lost its effectiveness.
The stage in Atlanta needed a standard-bearer for truth on Thursday night, and Biden clearly wasn’t up to the task.
Trump’s claims were so far-fetched even for him that a worthy opponent would have had no trouble exposing the nonsense and setting the record straight. But the sitting president was woefully incompetent. This was a disaster not just for Biden and the Democratic Party, but also for the endangered idea that the truth still matters.
Not a single question was asked without Trump turning the debate into a vehicle for deception. Trump fabricated the following about Biden:
“He is being paid by China. He is a Manchu candidate.”
“He wants to raise everyone’s taxes fourfold.”
“He destroyed our country by allowing millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and psychiatric hospitals.”
“He killed so many people on our border.”
“He has the largest budget deficit in the history of our country.”
Trump lied about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying, “She said, ‘I take full responsibility for what happened on January 6th.'”
He lied about Democrats, saying, “They would take the lives of children as young as eight months, nine months and even just after birth.”
Trump lied about a former chief of staff saying he called fallen soldiers “morons” and “losers,” and Biden said he “made that up.”
He lied about immigrants in the country illegally receiving social security benefits and staying in “luxury hotels.”
And he told big lies about his record: that the economy was “perfect” when he left office, that he was the one who lowered insulin prices, that he should be credited with “getting us out of that COVID disaster,” that the government was “ready to start paying down the debt” during his presidency, that he boasted of “the best environmental numbers ever,” and that there was “no terrorism under my administration.”
These were all obvious gaffes, but the hosts didn’t correct any of them, and the embattled president barely corrected them. To conclude the performance, somewhere in the midst of this string of lies, Trump had the audacity to say about his opponent, “I’ve never heard anybody lie like this guy.”
The few things the former president said that weren’t outright lies were perhaps even more egregious. Trump absolved himself of any responsibility for the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, claiming that “we were respected around the world” that day. He also made it clear that he would not accept the results of the election. He called Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky a “salesman” and said, “We shouldn’t spend money to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.”
The comments were so outlandish, and the outlandish claims were so easily refuted, that Biden should have simply written him off. Instead, he appeared startled, spoke with a staggered voice (his campaign belatedly explained that he had the flu) and struggled to form coherent responses. For example, he said, “What could I, um, do with COVID? Excuse me, um, um, deal with all the things we have to do, um, if we finally win Medicare.”
Biden said: Roe v. Wade He countered the trimester clause by saying, “The first time, it’s about women and doctors. The second time, it’s about doctors and extreme circumstances. The third time, it’s about doctors, that is, women and the country.” Regarding the Ukraine issue, he said, “If you look at what Trump did in Ukraine, he — this man told Ukraine — Trump, ‘Do whatever you want, do whatever you want.'”
Seeking to discuss the border issue, Biden said he would “continue to act until we get a full commitment on increasing Border Patrol and asylum officers — a full ban.”
Asked to respond, Trump said: “I have no idea what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said.”
Biden recovered a little from his early disasters, but the rest of the debate was a little less of a disaster. He protested the lies (“I’ve never heard such bullshit”); he threw in some harsh words (“You’re an idiot. You’re a loser” and “You have the moral compass of a stray cat”); and later in the evening, he forcefully refuted Trump’s insistence that the United States was a “failed state.” “I’ve never heard a president talk like this. We are the envy of the world. … We are the greatest country in the world,” Biden said. But seconds later, he was embroiled in a silly spat about Trump’s golfing skills. “I got my handicap down to six when I was vice president,” the president said.
If the country is “failing,” it is because it is undergoing a relentless, disciplined, and systematic assault on all that is true, and because the only person our reality-oriented community was counting on to save us has proven unfit for the job.
