Latest news with #BidenDebate
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden advisors pushed early Trump debate to show 'strength,' memo shows
WASHINGTON − Joe Biden's disastrous June 2024 debate performance, when the nation witnessed a hoarse and feeble president losing his train of thought and struggling to finish sentences, ended his re-election campaign. Now, a newly surfaced campaign memo shows how aides persuaded Biden to debate Donald Trump from what they said was 'a position of strength' and before early voting began in many battleground states. 'By holding the first debate in the spring, YOU will be able to reach the widest audience possible, before we are deep in the summer months with the conventions, Olympics and family vacations taking precedence,' said the memo, which was revealed by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf in a new book, '2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America." Throughout the memo - published July 7 by Politico - the advisers take pains to reiterate Biden's stature by addressing him as "YOU" in bold capital letters. The June 2024 debate took place months before the fall debate timeline suggested by the Commission on Presidential Debates. "In addition, the earlier YOU are able to debate the better, so that the American people can see YOU standing next to Trump and showing the strength of YOUR leadership, compared to Trump's weakness and chaos,' says the memo. It didn't turn out that way. In the aftermath of the June 27 calamity, when then 81-year-old Biden trailed off and froze at various points before a live television audience, he faced mounting pressure from influential donors and some lawmakers to drop out of the race. Less than a month later, Biden announced he was stepping aside and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, as the Democratic nominee. Harris, who ran the shortest presidential campaign in history, was trounced by Trump in November, capping a remarkable comeback. The contents of the memo stand in sharp contrast to a narrative pushed by the Trump administration, which has accused those close to Biden, including former first lady Jill Biden, of a 'cover-up' by making sure the former president had minimal public exposure and of keeping his supposed cognitive decline under wraps. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Kentucky, sent letters to Biden's physician and former White House aides in May demanding they appear for a transcribed interview as part of an investigation into Biden's health and use of the autopen to sign presidential documents. In June, Trump's Justice Department began an investigation into pardons issued in the final days of Biden's presidency and 'whether others were taking advantage of him through use of Autopen or other means." Biden announced last month that he had been diagnosed with an 'aggressive' Stage 4 prostate cancer. Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden aides said fateful 2024 Trump debate would show 'strength'
Fox News
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Credibility Crisis: Media scrutinized Trump's health, fitness in first term before turning blind eye on Biden
The cover-up of Joe Biden's cognitive decline is one of the biggest political scandals in recent history, erupting just over a year ago following his disastrous debate performance on June 27, 2024. Questions mostly among conservative critics about Biden's mental acuity began as early as 2019 when he ran in the Democratic presidential primary, but it wasn't until his ill-fated debate against Donald Trump last year that his decline became undeniable. And in recent weeks, between revelations from tell-all books, the release of the Hur tapes and his Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis, the scandal has only grown in scale. Yet during Trump's first term in office, the legacy media did not hesitate to opine on the president's health and fitness for office. The speculation about Trump's mental fitness began even before he was sworn into office. In November 2016, just days after Trump shocked the world with his election victory, The Atlantic's David Frum tweeted, "Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Article 4. We're all going to be talking a lot more about it in the months ahead." New York Times columnist Ross Douthat did just that in May 2017, penning a piece titled, "The 25th Amendment Solution for Removing Trump." CNN's Brian Stelter was an early media pioneer in questioning Trump's fitness. Following the violence in Charlottesville in August 2017, he claimed to viewers that chatter about the president's mental acuity filled newsrooms. "President Trump's actions and inactions in the wake of Charlottesville are provoking some uncomfortable conversations, mostly off the air, if we're being honest," Stelter began a monologue. "In discussions among friends and family and debates on social media, people are questioning the president's fitness, but these conversations are happening in newsrooms and TV studios as well… Questions like these: Is the president of the United States a racist? Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? And if he's unfit, then what?" Then-Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson similarly declared, "It's time to talk about Trump's mental health." "I have spoken with people who have known Trump for decades and who say he has changed. He exhibits less self-awareness, these longtime acquaintances say, and less capacity for sustained focus. Indeed, it is instructive to compare television interviews of Trump recorded years ago with those conducted now. To this layman's eyes and ears, there seems to have been deterioration," Robinson wrote. Around the same time, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell theorized that Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner moved their family to Washington, D.C., after their father's inauguration because they were "worried about the old man." "The kids have been watching, especially in recent years, a decline in Donald Trump's executive function," O'Donnell told his liberal viewers. "What neurologists call executive function includes basic mental processes like attention control, cognitive inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility. A decline in executive function is the beginning of the process that eventually leads you to take the car keys away from Dad." "Having personally watched Donald Trump become increasingly incoherent over the last several years, my first assumption was the kids were going to Washington because they knew Dad is utterly incoherent much of the time, and forgetful, and inattentive." In November 2017, The Daily Beast was confident in diagnosing Trump with "narcissism" and "sociopathy," admitting its willingness to disregard the famed Goldwater Rule, the principle for psychiatrists to avoid diagnosing others without a proper examination and consent, writing that psychological experts told the outlet, "Trump's years of media output—books, television appearances, tweets, and more—made his case one that is jarringly different, and one in which the Goldwater Rule doesn't apply." USA Today published an op-ed in May 2017 penned by psychologist John Gartner, who diagnosed Trump with "malignant narcissism," writing, "If you take President Trump's words literally, you have no choice but to conclude that he is psychotic." "Some say it is unethical to dare to diagnose the president, but hundreds of mental health professionals have come together to found Duty to Warn," Gartner wrote, promoting his group. "We believe that just as we are ethically and legally obligated to break confidentiality to warn a potential victim of violence, our duty to warn the public trumps all other considerations." "More than 53,000 people have signed our petition, aimed at mental health professionals, stating Trump should be removed under the 25th Amendment because he is too mentally ill to competently serve," Gartner continued. Time Magazine also posed the question, "Should Doctors Speculate About the President's Mental Health?" "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough urged Trump's cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment in November 2017 over his "erratic behavior" as the president engaged in a tit-for-tat with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un. "If this is not what the 25th Amendment was drafted for- I would like the cabinet members serving America, not the president, serving America - You serve America and you know it!" Scarborough shouted. "You don't represent him! You represent 320 million people, whose lives are literally in your hands!… The people close to him during the campaign told me had early stages of dementia." "Now, listen, you can get mad at me if you want to, but it is OK to say. When are we supposed to say this, after the first nuclear missile goes?" Scarborough continued, before calling Trump a "mentally unstable president." CNN's Jake Tapper jumped on the bandwagon, sounding the alarm over Trump's tweet taunting the dictator, saying his "nuclear button" is "bigger." "None of this is normal, none of this acceptable, none of this, frankly, stable behavior," Tapper said in January 2018. Days later, then-White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson was peppered with questions by reporters following Trump's physical exam, many of them probing the president's cognitive ability. "Can you assess the president's mental fitness for office?" NBC News correspondent Hallie Jackson asked. "Are you ruling out early on-set Alzheimer's? Are you looking at dementia-like symptoms?" then-ABC News correspondent Cecilia Vega pressed Jackson. "Is there anything you're keeping from us for privacy reasons?" then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta asked. Following that briefing, CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta openly declared that Trump had "heart disease" based on Trump's high coronary calcium score from data released by Jackson, even though Trump's own physician never made such a diagnosis. "The president has heart disease. Those numbers qualify him for having heart disease, and he clearly needs a plan to try to prevent some sort of heart problem down the road," Gupta confidently told CNN viewers. Even before Trump's 2018 physical, Politico panned the White House for not giving him a cognitive exam, running the headline, "Is Trump mentally fit? Don't count on his physical to tell you." "If President Donald Trump were any other 71-year-old — covered by Medicare and having his annual wellness visit — he'd be checked on his cognitive functions and possible safety risks. But when the president goes for his physical exam Friday, the White House said his mental fitness won't be tested. And there's no guarantee that the public would find out the results of cognitive tests if Trump were to take them," Politico wrote. In January 2018, the media hyped allegations about Trump's mental acuity from Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury," which alleged White House staffers spoke with each other about the president's fitness to serve. It was at that time that Trump famously referred to himself as a "very stable genius" while combating the claims. "The tip toeing is over. The whispers are turning into shouts. President Trump's fitness for office is now the top story in the country," Stelter told "Reliable Sources" viewers. "Reporters and some lawmakers are openly talking about the president's mental stability, his health, his competency." "Many Americans are worried. And journalists need to cover that," Stelter urged his media colleagues. "Does it seem likely in any way that members of the GOP will take this seriously, will want to take a look at the president's mental fitness?" MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked. The Washington Post feasted on the Wolff news cycle with the headline, "The White House struggles to silence talk of Trump's mental fitness." CNN's website ran with "Trump defends his sanity amid questions about his mental state." CBS News similarly went with, "Trump defends mental fitness in wake of questions raised in new book." Frum of The Atlantic declared in April 2018 that Trump was "unfit to command" and linked his mental instability to national security. "This president is not in command of himself," Frum wrote, later adding, "The person nominally in charge is in no psychic state for his office. His condition is deteriorating—and with that personal deterioration, there also deteriorates America's security and standing in the world." In September 2018, on the same day The New York Times published the infamous anonymous op-ed where the author declared they were "part of the resistance inside the Trump administration" (it was later revealed to be mid-level DHS staffer Miles Taylor), NPR published a report, "What You Need To Know About The 25th Amendment," citing "Another surreal twist in the midst of another frenetic week," prompting questions about the law. Later that month, The New York Times published a bombshell story alleging then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein floated secretly recording Trump and discussed the 25th Amendment with others in the administration, something Rosenstein denied at the time. In February 2019, "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley of CBS News discussed what had allegedly transpired with the ousted Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who said he had such discussions with Rosenstein. "As you're sitting in this meeting at the Justice Department talking about removing the president of the United States, you were thinking what?" Pelley asked. "How did I get here, confronting these confounding legal issues of such immense importance, not just to the FBI but to the entire country. It was... It was disorienting," McCabe responded. In November 2019, the media erupted over Trump's unscheduled visit to Walter Reed Medical Center as the White House was obscure with its public statements. It was later revealed to have been for a routine colonoscopy. "Trump's weekend hospital visit draws a skeptical reaction," wrote The Associated Press. Politico at the time declared that, "Yes, It's OK to Speculate on the President's Health." "Given the record of this White House, and the long history of presidential medical cover-ups, it's almost a responsibility," then-Politico writer Jack Shafer wrote. "You don't have to think that Trump was lying about his Saturday Walter Reed visit to insist that his health… should be a foundational issue in the 2020 campaign. Getting honest answers out of a politician about his or her health begins with asking the right questions. The right question to ask Trump is this: 'What explains your unusual visit to Walter Reed?'" The media also went wild speculating over Trump's health in June 2020 following his appearance at West Point, where he went viral for cautiously walking down a ramp and drinking a glass of water with both hands as he was speaking. New York Times star reporter Maggie Haberman authored the story, "Trump's Halting Walk Down Ramp Raises New Health Questions," telling readers, "President Trump faced new questions about his health on Sunday, after videos emerged of him gingerly walking down a ramp at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and having trouble bringing a glass of water to his mouth during a speech there." Haberman even cast doubt on Trump's claim that the ramp was "steep" and "very slippery," writing he "offered a description that did not match the visuals" and there "was no evidence that the ramp was slippery, and the skies were clear during the ceremony." "The president has frequently tried to raise questions about the health and mental fitness of his rivals, while growing indignant when his own is questioned," Haberman wrote. "Most recently, he and his allies have questioned the mental acuity of the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is 77." The Washington Post was equally skeptical of Trump with its headline, "Trump tries to explain his slow and unsteady walk down a ramp at West Point." "President Trump late Saturday tried to explain his slow and unsteady walk down a ramp at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which had generated concern and mockery on social media, by claiming the walkway was 'very slippery' and that he was worried about falling," wrote Philip Rucker, one of The Post's top political journalists at the time. "Elements of Trump's explanation strained credulity. Trump's claim that the ramp had been 'very slippery' was inconsistent with the weather, which on Saturday in West Point, N.Y., was sunny and clear-skied. The grass plain on which the commencement took place was dry." A separate Post report juxtaposed concerns about Trump's health with Biden's with the headline, "As Trump casts Biden as 'sleepy Joe,' his critics raise questions about his own fitness." "For Trump, who has tried to cast his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, as 'sleepy' and mentally absent, the attacks over his own wellness appeared to hit close to home," The Post wrote. Both The Times and The Post elevated mockery of Trump by liberal late-night hosts. CNN and MSNBC went wall-to-wall with coverage of Trump's cautious walk down the ramp. "What's the matter with Donald Trump?" MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace asked a panelist with a slight grin. "Americans have every reason to question his health. Walking down a ramp, holding a rail, probably no issue. Now you know how it feels, don't you? What goes around, comes around," then-CNN anchor Don Lemon taunted Trump. Tapper took a swipe at Trump for "spending about 14 minutes talking about West Point and defending his wobbly walk down that ramp," while recapping the president's remarks from a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As Trump was being treated for COVID at Walter Reed Medical Center in October 2020, CBS News' Margaret Brennan pressed then-National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien on invoking the 25th Amendment during an exchange on "Face The Nation." "Have you and the team discussed a scenario in which at some point the president might have to transfer power if he can no longer discharge the powers and duties of his office?" Brennan asked. "No, that's not something that's on the table at this point," O'Brien responded. "But it may be as you just said," Brennan interjected before O'Brien touted Trump's recovery. Brennan wasn't alone. There was a flurry of reports speculating about the 25th Amendment being implemented during Trump's bout with COVID like ABC News' "What happens if Trump becomes incapacitated? The 25th Amendment could kick in," The Associated Press' "AP Explains: Transfer of power under 25th Amendment" and the liberal site Slate's, "The 25th Amendment Needs an Update." Media chatter over the 25th Amendment resurfaced months later following the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, less than three weeks before Biden was sworn into office. CNN, ABC News and CNBC all reported that members of Trump's cabinet were having discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment, though it was never ultimately pursued. Fast-forward to 2025. Trump was sworn back into office after defeating Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, all of which followed Biden's dramatic exit from the race last July. After turning a blind eye for much of the Biden era regarding presidential health and wellness, the legacy media revived its intense scrutiny of Trump in the heat of the 2024 election. Last September, The Los Angeles Times speculated about Trump's "rhetorical walkabouts," suggesting it was a sign of "cognitive decline." CNN's Abby Philip argued there was a "double standard" regarding the lack of attention towards Trump's mental acuity. In October, PBS News Hour took aim at Trump's "rambling speeches," saying they "raise questions about mental decline." NBC News sounded the alarm over Trump's behavior at one campaign event with the story "Trump's bizarre music session reignites questions about his mental acuity," as did The New York Times with the headline "Trump's Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age." The Washington Post also asked, "How big a political problem is mental acuity for Trump?" The media continued speculating about Trump's health even throughout his second term. Last month, USA Today columnist Rex Huppke penned a piece titled "Is Trump in mental decline? He sounds far worse than Biden ever did." The Daily Beast ran the headline, "Trump Shows Signs of 'Cognitive Decline' Says Speech Expert." Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the co-authors of the bombshell Biden book "Original Sin," have said during their book tour that one of the lessons learned in reporting on Biden's cognitive decline is for journalists to intensely pursue the truth about a president's health going forward, including Trump's. "This goes beyond Joe Biden. It should be relevant to Donald Trump and whoever comes after Donald Trump," Tapper said.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Flashback: The debate night against Trump that threw Biden's reelection campaign into a free fall
A year ago Friday, President Joe Biden took the debate stage against then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and drove one of the final nails in his reelection campaign's coffin as traditional allies turned their backs on the 46th president and subsequently rallied to replace him as the frontrunner against Trump. Biden entered the reelection cycle already racked by claims and concerns that his mental acuity had slipped and he was not mentally fit to continue serving as president, which was underscored by special counsel Robert Hur's report in February 2024 that rejected criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials, citing he was "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." The then-president spent days preparing for the debate from Camp David in Maryland, as videos of his recent public gaffes and missteps haunted the campaign in the days leading up to the debate. Trump, meanwhile, led the charge in demanding Biden take a drug test to prove he was not taking performance-enhancing supplements ahead of the highly anticipated event. Biden brushed off accusations he was using any performance-enhancing supplements, including mocking Trump's challenge that he take a drug test in an X post showing him drinking a can of water. New Book Reveals Biden's Inner Circle Worried About His Age Years Before Botched Debate Performance "I don't know what they've got in these performance enhancers, but I'm feeling pretty jacked up. Try it yourselves, folks. See you in a bit," the X post read, accompanied by a photo of Biden drinking a can of water that read "Get real, Jack. It's just water." Read On The Fox News App Just minutes later, Biden would deliver a failing debate performance that unleashed panic among the Democratic Party, as some rushed to defend Biden, and others broke with the man who had served in public office for more than 50 years to demand fresh leadership at the 11th hour of the campaign cycle. Former Nbc Host Chuck Todd Admits Media Feared That Covering Biden's Decline Would Help Trump "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don't think he knows what he said either," Trump shot at Biden at one point during the debate. The viral moment followed Biden attempting to tout Congress' bipartisan border package that lawmakers had bucked earlier in 2023. Biden said, "We find ourselves in a situation where when he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers put them in cages, making sure that the families were separated." "That's not the right way to go. What I've done since I've changed the law, what's happened? I've changed it in a way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally, that's better than when he left office. And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers," Biden said, appearing to trail off. Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Grapple With Biden's Legacy As 2028 Race Begins Overall, Biden's 90-minute performance was riddled with him tripping over his words, speaking in a far more subdued tenor than during his vice presidency, having a raspy and unsure voice, and losing his train of thought at times. Biden and Trump also were both confronted over their ages during the debate, with the moderator saying Biden would be 86 by the end of a potential second term, and Trump 82. Biden defended his age, saying he "spent half my career being criticized about being the youngest person in politics. I was the second-youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I'm the oldest. This guy is three years younger and a lot less competent." Democrats Fretted Behind The Scenes About Biden's Decline Despite Public Confidence, New Book Claims Trump, meanwhile, said he had taken cognitive tests and "aced them." The debate unleashed panic among Democrat allies of the president and members of the media, as they remarked his performance was a failure that added fuel to the fire surrounding concerns over his mental acuity and age. "My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic," then-MSNBC host Joy Reid, for example, said. "My job now is to be really honest," former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said during an appearance on MSNBC after the debate. "Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn't do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight." "I think the emotions of the night were basically disappointment, anger, and then, by the end, it was panic," one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital following the debate. First 2024 Trump-biden Presidential Debate: Top Clashes Over Issues From The Border To Ukraine Legacy media outlets such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune called on Biden to map out an exit plan – with the Times describing Biden as a "shadow of a great public servant" – while Biden allies such as former President Barack Obama and first lady Jill Biden reiterated their support for the 46th president's re-election. "Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know," Obama said the day after the debate. "But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight – and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit." Criticisms Mount That Biden Is A 'Shadow' Of Himself After Disastrous Debate: 'Not The Same Man' From Vp Era Soon after the debate, however, reports spread that Obama was working behind the scenes to rally that Biden drop out of the race, so a new generation of Democrats could take the reins of the party. The White House, meanwhile, forcefully defended the president following the debate. "Absolutely not," then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared in a media briefing July 3, 2024, when asked if Biden had any plans to exit the 2024 race. Biden ultimately did drop out of the race on July 21, 2024, less than a month following the debate, as pressure from traditional allies grew. The president announced his departure in a Sunday afternoon message posted to his X account. The announcement was soon followed by him endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take up the mantle, leaving her with just more than 100 days to launch her own presidential campaign against article source: Flashback: The debate night against Trump that threw Biden's reelection campaign into a free fall
Fox News
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Flashback: The debate night against Trump that threw Biden's reelection campaign into a free fall
A year ago Friday, President Joe Biden took the debate stage against then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and drove one of the final nails in his reelection campaign's coffin as traditional allies turned their backs on the 46th president and subsequently rallied to replace him as the frontrunner against Trump. Biden entered the reelection cycle already racked by claims and concerns that his mental acuity had slipped and he was not mentally fit to continue serving as president, which was underscored by special counsel Robert Hur's report in February 2024 that rejected criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials, citing he was "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." The then-president spent days preparing for the debate from Camp David in Maryland, as videos of his recent public gaffes and missteps haunted the campaign in the days leading up to the debate. Trump, meanwhile, led the charge in demanding Biden take a drug test to prove he was not taking performance-enhancing supplements ahead of the highly anticipated event. Biden brushed off accusations he was using any performance-enhancing supplements, including mocking Trump's challenge that he take a drug test in an X post showing him drinking a can of water. "I don't know what they've got in these performance enhancers, but I'm feeling pretty jacked up. Try it yourselves, folks. See you in a bit," the X post read, accompanied by a photo of Biden drinking a can of water that read "Get real, Jack. It's just water." Just minutes later, Biden would deliver a failing debate performance that unleashed panic among the Democratic Party, as some rushed to defend Biden, and others broke with the man who had served in public office for more than 50 years to demand fresh leadership at the 11th hour of the campaign cycle. "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don't think he knows what he said either," Trump shot at Biden at one point during the debate. The viral moment followed Biden attempting to tout Congress' bipartisan border package that lawmakers had bucked earlier in 2023. Biden said, "We find ourselves in a situation where when he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers put them in cages, making sure that the families were separated." "That's not the right way to go. What I've done since I've changed the law, what's happened? I've changed it in a way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally, that's better than when he left office. And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers," Biden said, appearing to trail off. Overall, Biden's 90-minute performance was riddled with him tripping over his words, speaking in a far more subdued tenor than during his vice presidency, having a raspy and unsure voice, and losing his train of thought at times. Biden and Trump also were both confronted over their ages during the debate, with the moderator saying Biden would be 86 by the end of a potential second term, and Trump 82. Biden defended his age, saying he "spent half my career being criticized about being the youngest person in politics. I was the second-youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I'm the oldest. This guy is three years younger and a lot less competent." Trump, meanwhile, said he had taken cognitive tests and "aced them." The debate unleashed panic among Democrat allies of the president and members of the media, as they remarked his performance was a failure that added fuel to the fire surrounding concerns over his mental acuity and age. "My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic," then-MSNBC host Joy Reid, for example, said. "My job now is to be really honest," former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said during an appearance on MSNBC after the debate. "Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn't do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight." "I think the emotions of the night were basically disappointment, anger, and then, by the end, it was panic," one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital following the debate. Legacy media outlets such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune called on Biden to map out an exit plan – with the Times describing Biden as a "shadow of a great public servant" – while Biden allies such as former President Barack Obama and first lady Jill Biden reiterated their support for the 46th president's re-election. "Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know," Obama said the day after the debate. "But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight – and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit." Soon after the debate, however, reports spread that Obama was working behind the scenes to rally that Biden drop out of the race, so a new generation of Democrats could take the reins of the party. The White House, meanwhile, forcefully defended the president following the debate. "Absolutely not," then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared in a media briefing July 3, 2024, when asked if Biden had any plans to exit the 2024 race. Biden ultimately did drop out of the race on July 21, 2024, less than a month following the debate, as pressure from traditional allies grew. The president announced his departure in a Sunday afternoon message posted to his X account. The announcement was soon followed by him endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take up the mantle, leaving her with just more than 100 days to launch her own presidential campaign against Trump.
Fox News
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
One Year Later: How Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance forced his media allies to turn on him
The legacy media largely shielded Joe Biden from negative coverage of his health, age and cognitive decline during his presidency, but that all changed on June 27, 2024, when his disastrous debate performance changed the course of history. Biden appeared frail and struggled with a weak voice, delivering rambling answers while frequently appearing to lose his train of thought during the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign against President Donald Trump in Atlanta. Biden fumbled key answers and famously declared, "We finally beat Medicare," when he apparently meant to say that he beat big pharma. At one point, as the two candidates traded fire over the issue of immigration, Trump pounced after another rambling answer from Biden. "I really don't know what he said on this, and I don't think he knows what he said either," Trump said. DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall said the infamous on-stage debacle was one of the rare instances that a presidential debate truly impacted the trajectory of the election. "Up until that debate, the establishment media were firmly in the Biden campaign camp, covering up evidence that was in plain sight that the president was cognitively and physically in decline. The media shamelessly repeated White House talking points about deep fakes and how vigorous and mentally sharp Biden was," he told Fox News Digital. "These narratives were false, of course, but that didn't matter to the mainstream reporters as they felt compelled to cover for Biden, in spite of what citizens could see plainly on the rare occasions when Biden was allowed to speak in public," McCall said. "The primary motive of the activist press, of course, was to try to deny Trump any traction in the election season," he continued. "The poor debate performance by Biden ripped the Band-Aid off, forcing the media to turn on a dime and begin the drumbeat to run Biden out of the race because he was too old and incapable." The debate meltdown caused an earthquake across the media landscape, ranging from "dismal" reviews to vocal calls on the left for him to withdraw from the 2024 race. CNN's John King put a spotlight on the "very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party" that began in the early minutes of the debate. "This was 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," King told viewers. "It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they're having conversations about the president's performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket, and they're having conversations about what they should do about it." King's CNN colleague Kasie Hunt similarly wrote on X, "The voice, open-mouthed look, and visual contrast between President Biden and former President Trump all have Democrats I'm talking to nearly beside themselves watching this debate." Then-NBC News pundit Chuck Todd admitted that Biden looked like the "caricature" conservatives have painted of him, specifically over his mental acuity. Bloomberg Opinion editor Tim O'Brien wrote on X, "Biden simply comes across as a somewhat dazed punching bag." "The View" co-host Joy Behar suggested the program was "in mourning" and urged Democrats to pivot away from Biden in order to keep Trump out of the White House. "That was quite a turnaround from the reporting templates of previous weeks. But the media finally realized, based on the disastrous debate performance, that Biden's chances of winning the election were fading quickly," McCall said. The debate, which came after a flood of liberal anger towards a Wall Street Journal report that raised questions about the president's viability, was essentially the beginning of the end for Biden's time on the ticket. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a longtime Biden ally, wrote that the debate "made me weep" and realized Biden should step aside. "I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime — precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election," Friedman wrote. Fellow Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on X that he wished "Biden would reflect on this debate performance and then announce his decision to withdraw from the race." CNN commentator Van Jones, who cried for joy when Biden won the 2020 presidential election, offered an emotional plea for the president to step aside. The Atlantic's Mark Leibovich penned a piece titled "Time to go, Joe." "Biden needs to step aside—for the sake of his own dignity, for the good of his party, for the future of the country," Leibovich told readers. The aggregate website Drudge Report blared the headline "OPERATION: REPLACE BIDEN." "DEMS SCRAMBLE WITH 130 DAYS TO GO! DEBATE CATASTROPHE," the Drudge Report wrote in all caps. It included a poll question over who would be the best Democrat to replace him out of Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala Harris or "Other." MSNBC's "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough suggested Biden might need to step down. "If he were CEO, and he turned in a performance like that, would any corporation in America, any Fortune 500 corporation in America keep him on as CEO?" Scarborough asked. Biden stepped aside the following month, suspending his re-election campaign and quickly offered his "full support and endorsement" for then-Vice President Kamala Harris to take over as the party's presidential nominee. "The media then quickly got on the Harris bandwagon, with as little scrutiny as they had given Biden in previous months. The media promoted Harris as cool and energetic, and even helped label her as a pop culture 'brat.' The activist media virtually ignored that Harris didn't win any primary votes and was rushed through the nominative convention without having to deal with any opposition," McCall said. "Overall, the media's poor performance in covering the Biden administration up to the debate and then the media's abrupt turnaround is perhaps the most shameful and egregious example of journalistic malpractice in American history," he added. "This episode showed that the news industry was not interested in reporting reality to help a citizenry understand the situation. Instead, the mainstream media collectively engaged in activism, demonstrating a cynical attempt to herd public sentiment. That effort eventually failed, with the consequence for the media being a further decline in credibility," McCall concluded.
