Trump-Biden presidential debate was 90 agonizing minutes with few insights

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For 90 agonizing minutes that disrupted the summertime evening rituals of tens of millions, the two warriors conducted a battle for the biggest prize in American civic life. With jabs and uppercuts, old Donald Trump and even older Joe Biden tangled and angled for a second chance of leadership in the White House.

But for Americans who tuned in, the debate was a clear defining moment in the campaign, the kind that has perhaps no precedent in modern presidential politics, one that may permanently have damaged Mr. Biden’s campaign and soiled his legacy.

The cross punches may have seemed shopworn, but the right hook of Mr. Trump found purchase far more often than the left hook of Mr. Biden hit its target, in part because of the President’s halting presentation and feeble appearance. It was a Biden performance so weak in contrast to the animation of Mr. Trump that calls for the President to withdraw from the race, now offered quietly among Democrats, almost certainly will amplify and become public and issued with panic in coming days.

In the entire history of presidential debates, which date to 1960, there never has been a performance as dramatic in its contrast as the CNN session Thursday night. The comparison inevitably will be with the first 1960 presidential debate, but while senator John F. Kennedy was widely regarded as the victor by those who viewed the session on television, others who listened to it on the radio felt that vice-president Richard Nixon did better. There will be no split – radio versus television – about this debate.

As the weekend approaches, analysts will examine whether Mr. Biden’s pallor and his proclivity to stare into space was more dangerous to his campaign than Mr. Trump’s failure to address climate change and his evasion of questions about his responsibility for the rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and his reluctance to say he would accept the result of the 2024 election. They, too, will evaluate Mr. Trump’s characterization of Mr. Biden (“This man is a criminal”) against Mr. Biden’s characterization of his rival as a man who possessed “the morals of an alley cat.”

At times, the session took on the character of a bar fight, with Mr. Trump pointing to Mr. Biden and saying, “He’s not equipped to be president,” and with Mr. Biden reminding viewers that his predecessor was a convicted felon. The two repeatedly accused each other of lying – not the customary fare for a presidential debate. The two labelled each other the worst chief executive in the history of the country. They digressed into a sad discussion of their golf handicaps.

It was the clash of the summer season, and it came as an aggregation of this month’s polling showed the race in a virtual tie; in a two-way contest, Mr. Biden holds a 0.2-percentage-point lead over Mr. Trump. Though the debate provided few insights, it did provide a few answers.

Did either man show his age?

Both are familiar figures – Mr. Biden in national politics since joining the Senate in January 1973, Mr. Trump as a boldface tabloid name since appearing in a Meet Donald Trump New York Times feature profile a mere seven months later. If the arguments seem old, it was in part because the two men making them are, in a word, old. (Mr. Trump is 78, Mr. Biden three years older.)

And yet Mr. Trump, looking fit and rested, showed far more energy and was more often on the offensive. Mr. Biden, whose opening statement seemed to be delivered as if he had a frog in his throat, looked for all the world like a gaunt Thanksgiving reveller who had ingested too much tryptophan in his turkey.

The danger for Mr. Biden is that he may suffer from his appearance the way Mr. Nixon did in 1960. The principal question to come out of the session is whether Mr. Biden’s hoarse voice is the 2024 equivalent of Mr. Nixon’s perspiration.

Was Mr. Biden fluent without notes, prompt cards or a teleprompter?

Even Mr. Biden’s handlers will have a hard time denying that, while Mr. Biden seemed well-prepared and was effective in his defence of abortion rights, his delivery was tentative and often stumbling, perhaps the result of a lifetime struggle with stuttering. But often he reached, without success, for words and on occasion looked confused. Mr. Trump scored a point when he said he didn’t understand the end of Mr. Biden’s argument on immigration and that he doubted that the President knew what he was saying.

Was Mr. Trump forward-looking or backward-looking?

Much of the critique of Mr. Trump has been that his emphasis has been on his own grievances, based on the past. Besides his endorsement of this week’s Supreme Court decision permitting emergency abortion in Idaho, the former president broke little new ground. But he did not dwell on his grievances, and when he spoke of the past, it was in defence of his record as president.

Was the debate conducted on Mr. Trump’s turf (immigration, crime, inflation) or on Mr. Biden’s turf (climate change, infrastructure initiatives, calm stewardship rather than chaotic upheavals)?

The Trump issues were far more prominent during the session than the Biden issues. That should not be a surprise. As the sitting president, Mr. Biden naturally was on the defensive; all incumbents in presidential debates are. That is why Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976; the 38th president had to defend the inflation that occurred in his administration. It is also why Ronald Reagan defeated Mr. Carter four years later; the persistence of inflation, the growth in interest rates and the failure to release the 52 hostages in Iran inevitably hurt the incumbent.

As for Mr. Biden’s issues, climate change was not even mentioned until the last two-thirds of the debate. When Mr. Trump was asked about climate change, he spoke about crime and his success in boosting the economic prospects for Black Americans. After further prompting, he said he wanted “absolutely” clean air and water but did not address climate change. Mr. Biden answered: “I don’t know where the hell he has been.”

Who made the better case for this being a crisis of democratic values?

This may have prompted Mr. Biden’s best performance of the evening – and Mr. Trump’s worst. Mr. Biden displayed outrage at the insurrection at the Capitol. Mr. Trump’s answer about Jan. 6 was to assert that on that day, the United States had a secure border, was energy independent, enjoyed non-intrusive regulation and was respected worldwide.

Ignoring the question, he argued that Mr. Biden “comes in and we are now laughed at,” adding, “He goes after his political opponent because he can’t beat him fair and square.”