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NEWS
Biden fails debate test
President Joe Biden’s senior advisers, aides and the First Lady have a lot of explaining to do.
For weeks, they’ve assured America that the Democratic party’s 81-year-old presumptive nominee was fighting fit and capable, not only of serving out his term but carrying on four more years.
Americans were told not to believe their lying eyes, that the man they watched freeze at public events and ramble incoherently when speaking extemporaneously was actually sharp as a tack behind the scenes.
Well, where was that man at Thursday night’s debate?
The future of Joe Biden’s campaign rested on this single test – the first faceoff of the 2024 election – and he patently failed.
Democrats (are) in full-blown panic – and wondering if there’s time to swap out their candidate for another before voters go to polls in November.
From the minute President Biden shuffled onto the stage in Atlanta, millions of Americans watching knew something was wrong.
His appearance was, frankly, shocking – mouth agape and eyes hooded.
Then, he opened his mouth – and it was worse.
His voice was weak. His train of thought wandering.
Throughout the 90-minute debate, he was often difficult to hear and completely unintelligible.
Even Democrats were astounded.
‘There is a sense of shock about how he came out at the beginning of this debate about how his voice sounded,’ said former Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod. ‘He seemed a little bit disoriented.’
Biden spat at Trump that he had ‘sex with a porn star,’ adding ‘while your wife was pregnant.’
These allegations against Trump are well-known. They won’t do much to change any voters’ minds.
Though, they do make Biden appear pathetically desperate.
From the economy to the border, to foreign policy and health care, Trump delivered the most effective and impactful lines of the night.
On immigration, Trump was a clear winner again and again.
‘I’d love to ask [Biden] why he allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails, and mental institutions to come into our country and destroy our country.’
And, of course, there is the issue of the economy – and persistent inflation eating away at American paychecks.
‘[Biden] inherited almost no inflation,’ Trump observed, ‘and it stayed that way for 14 months. And then it blew up under his leadership because they spent money like a bunch of people that didn’t know what they were doing.’
Before Thursday night, most Americans already thought Biden couldn’t serve another four years as president.
Now, surely, all of them, if they are being honest, will agree with that assessment.
Biden’s candidacy is cooked.
—The Daily Mail
Swing state voters react to Biden-Trump presidential debate
A voter in Nevada compared President Joe Biden’s performance to elder abuse.
A voter in Georgia was so disgusted with what he was hearing from the Democratic incumbent and former President Donald Trump that he quit watching, walked to a liquor store and bought a six-pack of beer.
Another voter in Wisconsin called it “a painful experience.”
Reporters for USA TODAY’s network partners interviewed swing-state residents shortly after the debate ended to see how they thought each candidate fared.
Voters attending a debate watch party in Wisconsin’s liberal bastion, the capital city of Madison, lamented the choice in front of them.
Noah Anders, 24, grimaced when asked what he thought about the debate.
“It was a painful experience to sit through,” Anders said. “Neither candidate inspires our country.”
Anders, who will soon start law school at the University of Wisconsin, said the debate left him with concerns about Biden’s cognitive abilities but that he also questions Trump’s mental acuity.
“To be president you deal with a lot of tough issues, and I don’t know if they have the ability to navigate the nuance and hardships of the job,” he said. “Good luck, America.”
Timothy Sanders, 48, said despite the president’s shaky performance, he is still optimistic about Biden. But he acknowledged the president didn’t sound as crisp at a time that optics could be important to the election.
“I’m not concerned at all about his age,” he said. “If you had a grandpa who took you fishing and had a stutter, you would still trust him. You wouldn’t put him in a debate on live television if you could avoid that because that’s entertainment. That’s not fair.”
Jesse Clingan, 42, a construction worker from Milwaukee, also wasn’t pleased with the Biden-Trump matchup.
“It’s kind of picking the worst of two evils,” Clingan said. “I resent having to choose one of them. But at the end of the day, I’d rather have (Biden) on his worst day than Trump at all.”
In Arizona, several watch party attendees yelled “He’s going to poop his pants!” in reference to Biden’s age.
At the halftime mark in the debate, Angela DiLiberto, 51, of Phoenix, said Trump was smoking Biden.
“I want Trump to say ‘Putting him out on a stage like this is cruel,'” she said, commenting on his age.
Her friend, Ann Campbell, 69, of Phoenix, said she is concerned about Biden’s age.
“It’s sad to me because I have elderly parents and he needs to be home,” she said.
In Nevada, Reno Republican Nicol Herris said she felt like the country was lost while watching the presidential debate.
“My dad used to tell me to understand how a company is doing, look at its leadership,” she said. “And now we have President Biden looking like this? It’s elder abuse. Trying to follow his mumblings was hard.”
Scott Elper, 30, grew up just outside Harrisburg, the state capital in central Pennsylvania, and didn’t think (the debate) would have much of an impact on voters.
“It was the same old schtick from both sides, honestly,” he said. “I am kind of disappointed that Biden kept getting swept into (Trump’s) madness.”
—USA TODAY
Biden speaks after debate
President Biden spoke to reporters following Thursday night’s CNN debate and expressed the belief that he performed well against former President Trump.
“I think we did well,” Biden told reporters at an Atlanta area Waffle House when asked how he performed.
Biden was then asked if he was suffering from a cold, which the campaign revealed following the debate performance where many expressed concerns about the sound of Biden’s voice.
“I am sick,” Biden said.
—FOX News
Replace Joe?
One resounding question emerged from last night’s event: whether Biden should step aside so the Democratic Party could nominate another candidate to take on Trump in November.
Some Democrats began calling for Biden to do just that after the 81-year-old stumbled from the onset of the debate.
Among the reactions from Democratic lawmakers post-debate:
→ “This was like a champion boxer who gets in the ring past his prime and needs his corner to throw in the towel,” one said, adding that he meant Biden should exit the race.
→ It’s “time to talk about an open convention and a new Democratic nominee,” said another, who had been a solid Biden supporter.
The fear among these Democrats is that the version of Biden that showed up to the debate cannot win in November.
—NBC News
Devastating snap poll reveals how many independent voters think Joe needs to drop out
An exclusive poll for DailyMail.com found that a clear majority of independent voters believe President Joe Biden should no longer be the Democratic nominee after a car-crash debate with Donald Trump.
Some 62 percent said he should be dumped from the ticket.
J.L. Partners polled 805 independent voters immediately after the 90-minute clash, and found that 68 percent said the former president won out over his White House successor.
—The Daily Mail
RNC business lower than anticipated
Mere weeks away from the Republican National Convention, few bars and restaurants near Fiserv Forum and elsewhere downtown are reporting bookings for private events during the four-day convention, a major letdown for business owners who had been promised or expected big business.
The Pabst Theater Group does not have any bookings at four of its venues, including the Riverside Theater and Pabst Theater. Upscale downtown restaurants, such as Amilinda and Lupi and Iris, have few to no bookings or reservations for the four days of the RNC. And many bars and restaurants on North King Drive don’t have any bookings for private events.
Gary Witt, CEO of the Pabst Theater Group estimated the loss from unrealized bookings to be over $100,000.
“Right now we’re getting a nothing burger,” Witt said.
In a statement, the RNC’s Committee on Arrangements said the convention would be a net positive for Wisconsin.
“The RNC has never been in the business of telling business owners how to market or run their companies,” the statement said. “At the end of the day of we have upwards of 50,000 guests coming to Milwaukee. After the (Democratic National Convention) left Milwaukee high and dry, the Republican National Convention looks forward to highlighting Milwaukee on the international stage in July.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin Elections Commission rejects recall attempt against state’s top Republican
The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday rejected an effort to force a recall election of the state’s top Republican after determining that not enough valid signatures were collected.
The vote by three Republican commissioners and one Democratic commissioner means Assembly Speaker Robin Vos will not have to stand for a recall election unless a court intervenes. Vos was targeted for recall by fellow Republicans and supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Recall organizers targeted Vos, the longest-serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin history, after he refused calls to decertify President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state. Biden’s win of about 21,000 votes has withstood two partial recounts, lawsuits, an independent audit and a review by a conservative law firm.
Vos further angered Trump supporters when he did not back a plan to impeach Meagan Wolfe, the state’s top elections official.
Elections commission staff had determined that petition circulators submitted 16 more valid signatures than needed to force a recall election of Vos. But the commission broke with the staff recommendation Thursday and threw out an additional 188 signatures because they were collected beyond the 60-day petition circulation window.
—Associated Press
Studies: Young Liberal Women Are Most Mentally Ill Demographic – Old Conservative Men the Least
An infographic showing a connection between age, gender, and political affiliation to a mental health diagnosis has sparked debate on social media.
The historic data from a 2020 Pew American Trends Panel study asked respondents whether a doctor or healthcare provider had ever told them that they have a mental health condition.
Results show that white liberal women aged 18-29 were the most likely to have been diagnosed with a mental health condition with 56.3% of respondents answering ‘yes’ in response to the question. This dropped to 27.3% when 18-29-year-old conservative women were questioned.
Trends show a decrease among all political affiliations in older age groups, with the exception being white moderate women aged 30-49 (32.8%) compared to the 18-29-year-olds of the same political viewpoint (28.4%).
White conservatives over 65 were around ten percentage points lower than their liberal counterparts, with only 4.5% of conservative men aged 65 and over answering ‘yes’.
—Woke Spy
Theodore Roosevelt’s pocket watch returns home 37 years after it was stolen
Almost four decades after it was stolen from a Buffalo, New York, museum, a pocket watch carried by the 26th president, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, was returned to his family home on Long Island, officials said.
The silver pocket watch was returned to the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, which is where Roosevelt had the “Summer White House” during his presidency, the National Park Service and the FBI said.
The watch is engraved with Roosevelt’s name and “D.R. & C.R.R.” — the initials of Roosevelt’s younger sister, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, and his brother-in-law Douglas Robinson Jr.
It was stolen from a museum in Buffalo in 1987. The thief was never caught, but last year the watch ended up before a Florida auction house, where an auctioneer researched it and recognized its significance, the FBI said.
The watch will be on display at the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.
Roosevelt was given the watch by his younger sister and brother-in-law before he left to fight in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
Roosevelt had several watches, and while Special Agent Robert Giczy, a member of the FBI Art Crime Team, described it as “a fairly pedestrian Waltham 17 jewel watch with an inexpensive coin silver case,” it had sentimental value to Roosevelt and now historic value to everyone else.
“Darling Corinne, You could not have given me a more useful present than the watch; it was exactly what I wished…Thank old Douglas for the watch — and for his many, many kindnesses,” Roosevelt wrote to his sister on May 5, 1898.
—NBC News
OPINION
Biden has no business running for president. The debate proved it.
From the minute Biden shuffled on to the stage Thursday night in Atlanta, to when he started mumbling in a raspy voice, it was clear he is not up to the most important job in the country – and definitely not up for another four years in the White House.
When the president gave his answers, it seemed like he was quickly reciting memorized responses from his past week focused on debate prep at Camp David.
Yet, even then, he couldn’t get through a whole sentence or thought without stumbling, looking confused or just having a hard time finding the breath to finish. He often misspoke and had to repeat himself.
For months, voters have made clear their biggest concern about Biden is his age, at 81. The president has visibly declined in the last few years, and if he wanted to quell those fears, this forum was the time to do it.
And he failed.
Former President Donald Trump delivered the performance he needed to.
While he delved into bullying and unnecessary digs at his opponent, standard behavior for Trump, he stayed on message and proved a stark contrast to Biden.
Although Trump is 78, only a few years Biden’s junior, the former president spoke with confidence and seemed much more in control of the situation.
And for much of the debate, he kept focused on the issues the American people are most concerned with this election: the economy and immigration.
Biden struggled to explain why inflation and illegal crossings at the border have exploded under his watch – and what he would do in the next four years to combat it.
The president also seemed to have little appreciation for the horrors of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the 13 American lives that were lost, which happened under his direction.
When it comes to abortion – an issue Biden hoped would drive Democrats to the polls – Trump did a good job staying consistent on how abortion rights should stay with the states after Roe v. Wade was overturned two years ago.
Trump has plenty of flaws, many of which played out during the debate.
But the biggest loser in the contest was Biden.
The president knew all eyes would be on him and how he performed, and he was unable to deliver the confidence that he’s capable of continuing in his role.
Democrats wanted to see if Biden could rally and offer a performance that could drive the support he needs in November.
He needed to show the country only 90 minutes of coherence and strength.
And Biden didn’t deliver.
— Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – In 1870 Christmas was established as a federal holiday in America. A Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus, December 25th is also enjoyed by non-Christians for its gift exchanges and holiday lights hung in houses and towns to brighten the dark days of winter.
In the 1800s, Americans’ views on Christmas changed a great deal. The author Washington Irving is often credited with shaping Christmas customs in the U.S., like his promotion of St. Nicholas as a beloved character who “came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.” Irving loved the merriment of how Christmas had been celebrated in England, with singing and dancing, before the Puritans got involved.
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