Biden tries to stop the panic

(New York) The first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, watched live by 47.9 million viewers, plunged the Democratic Party into an unprecedented crisis.

Panicked by the president’s disastrous performance, strategists, donors and elected officials, current or former, have expressed since Thursday evening, in public or private, their doubts about the chances of their party’s candidate to beat his Republican rival in November, or their hope of seeing him withdraw from the race for the White House.

Early Friday evening, the editorial page of the New York Timesthe most influential American daily, added its voice to those of these Democrats by calling on Joe Biden to throw in the towel.

“Mr. Biden has been an admirable president. Under his leadership, the nation prospered and began to address a series of long-term challenges, and the wounds opened by Mr. Trump began to heal. But the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not run for president again,” argued the Times after saying the president appeared “like the shadow of a great servant of the state” during the debate organized by CNN in Atlanta.

“The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: recognize that Mr. Biden cannot continue his race, and create a process to select someone no longer able to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November,” added the Times.

Never mind: several of Joe Biden’s allies, including Barack Obama, have renewed their confidence in him, one of them even going so far as to call the president’s Democratic critics “vultures”.

Never, at this stage of a race for the White House, has such a debate broken out within one of the major American parties on the merits of the candidacy of an outgoing president.

Accompanied by his wife Jill, Joe Biden tried to stop the panic in his camp at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he hammered home his intention to “win in November.” Speaking in a strong voice before a partisan crowd, he delivered incisive remarks that contrasted with his hesitant or confused responses the day before. The presence of the crowd — and teleprompters — probably didn’t hurt him.

“I know I’m not a young man, to say the least,” he said the day after the debate, which reinforced questions about his mental and physical abilities. “I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as easily as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, as millions of Americans know, that when you’re down, you get back up.”

The crowd responded by chanting a variation of a slogan that marked Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign 16 years ago: “Yes you can!”

But there is no shortage of skeptics.

Support despite everything

Former Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill expressed the hope that members of Joe Biden’s inner circle would have a frank conversation with him “about his abilities to exude force.” Alluding to the confidences of current Democratic senators, she spoke of a climate of “crisis” within her party.

“My job is to be really honest,” she said Thursday night on MSNBC, where she is a regular contributor. [Joe Biden] had one thing to accomplish. And it was to reassure America that he was up to the presidency at his age. And he failed tonight. »

At the same time, David Axelrod, former strategist for Barack Obama, said on CNN that “there will be discussions” among Democrats about the opportunity to replace Joe Biden at their party’s convention in Chicago at the end of August.

But his former boss will not take part. In a post on X, Barack Obama reiterated his faith in Joe Biden.

“Bad debate nights happen,” wrote the former president, who also created unease – though not as deep, in his first debate against Mitt Romney in 2012.

Hillary Clinton also posted a similar message of support on X. True to form, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman added a bit of fury to his support for the president, urging Democrats to ” [se] chill the f**k out.

“I refuse to join the Democratic vultures. No one knows better than I do that a brutal debate is not the sum total of the person and their record,” said the politician, who looked very bad in 2022 during his first debate after suffering a stroke.

Still, Joe Biden was also abandoned by two of his most loyal media allies, namely MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and columnist New York Times Thomas Friedman.

Both praised Joe Biden’s record over the past four years. Both concluded that he should withdraw from the race.

“I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a hotel room in Lisbon, and it made me cry,” Thomas Friedman wrote. “I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in an American presidential campaign in my lifetime, precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no matter to represent oneself. »

Trump is at it again

Joe Biden’s poor performance will have eclipsed the countless lies told by Donald Trump on almost every subject discussed during the debate. It is not certain that undecided voters will forgive him for his mistakes.

But the former president’s luck continued Friday morning when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a January 6 rioter in a case that could help his own cause in Washington, where he has been indicted on post-election conspiracy charges.

“A massive victory for the political prisoners of January 6,” he wrote on Truth Social, referring to those convicted in connection with the assault on the U.S. Capitol.

He later mocked Joe Biden’s debate performance.

“He got the rules he wanted, the date he wanted, the network he wanted, with the moderators he wanted. No amount of rest or trickery could help him,” he said, addressing a partisan crowd gathered in Chesapeake, Virginia.