Tim O’Brien is executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. He was formerly a writer and editor for The New York Times. His book TrumpNation caused Trump to sue him for saying that Trump was not a billionaire. Trump’s lawsuit was dismissed by the courts.
Joe Biden could have started writing the final chapter of his political career a year or so ago, when he still controlled the narrative.
“I’ve capped my long journey in public service by defeating Donald Trump, revivifying our economy and moving the US past the Covid era,” he might have said. “Therefore, I’ve decided not to seek a second term so the next generation of Democrats can succeed me and secure the White House and democracy for the American people.”
Instead, a humiliating and unsettling debate performance on Thursday night is now writing Biden’s final chapter for him. He shuffled onto the debate stage like the old soul that he is, rarely answered questions with more than a whispering rasp, often looked bewildered and failed to land enough memorable blows. Biden was so abysmal that Donald Trump, a convicted felon and sexual predator, effectively mastered the debate’s momentum and left Biden appearing like little more than a punching bag.
It may be time for Biden to consider moving on — and an intervention might be necessary to speed that along before the Democratic National Convention in August…
Biden ran for president three times before finally winning in 2020, and his ego may prevent him from letting go. He has spent most of his adult life in the Senate and the White House. He also took an admirable, courageous and necessary gamble by choosing to debate Trump so early in the election cycle, which I noted in a previous column this week. Biden wagered that he could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump and prove he was more vital and acute.
Biden lost that bet.
While Trump lied broadly and shamelessly throughout the debate, he was sharp-tongued and much faster on his feet than he has been in recent campaign appearances. He overshadowed Biden and the president’s loping, nebulous presence, reinforcing doubts about his ability to steer the ship of state.
None of this means Trump is fit for higher office. Biden’s Cabinet is populated by judicious and talented people, and the president himself has been purposeful throughout his career. Trump is a dangerous and unpredictable anarchist who has rarely attracted top-flight talent into his orbit.
But this is an election, not a management report card. Voters often respond to candidates emotionally, and perceptions of leadership can be deeply subjective. In that universe, Thursday’s debate was a monumental and debilitating setback for Biden. He failed to give full-throated and linear arguments for where he stood on core issues such as abortion and immigration. Some questions that he initially handled effectively, such as one about inflation and the economy, wound up following a meandering, perplexing path.
Biden’s most loyal supporters may forgive all of this, just as Trump fans have endless patience for his predations, lawlessness and buffoonery. But moderate and independent voters in swing states have had little patience for either man, and the debate may leave them permanently wary of Biden.
The president put on such a petrifying show that Trump got away with all of his usual atrocities.
Trump was impeached twice as president, and he was recently found guilty in three different courtrooms of sexual assault and criminal and civil fraud. He faces three other criminal prosecutions. Yet he managed to try labeling Biden a “criminal” during the debate.
Trump is a pathological liar who has dissembled with gusto for most of his 78 years. During the debate he offered a list of fabrications, including claiming Biden wants to quadruple personal tax rates and has been bribed by China; that the federal deficit is the biggest it has ever been; that he passed the Veterans Choice bill; that Biden indicted him; that more than 18 million undocumented immigrants have entered the US during Biden’s presidency; that the US footed 100% of NATO’s defense spending prior to his own presidency; that no terrorist attacks occurred during his presidency, and that states led by Democrats allow babies to be executed after they’re born.
Yet Trump tried labeling Biden a “liar” during the debate.
Biden, on the other hand, was spot on when he told Trump that he has “the morals of an alley cat” for romancing a porn star during his third marriage. Trump himself also briefly indulged the truth when he said he wouldn’t accept the outcome of this year’s election should he lose.
Trump also mentioned during the debate that he was running for the presidency because he thought Biden has been a singularly bad executive. I suspect the primary factor motivating Trump’s bid is his belief that a second White House stay will allow him to escape the multiple legal prosecutions bearing down on him.
Trump’s sordid business and political history, and his statements during the debate, are all reminders of how imperative it is that voters don’t send him back to the Oval Office. He and Biden are slated to debate again in September, and perhaps Biden envisions that as an opportunity to turn around his candidacy. It may be too late, alas.
The US is in perilous waters and Biden has always recognized that. He’s also done enormous good in protecting and preserving democracy at home and abroad. But he’s had his chance and he’s now come up short. He should consider stepping aside.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Funny how I said this months ago and (a) was roundly ridiculed for believing right-wing lies and (b) was told that it’s not possible to replace Biden. Kinda seems like y’all made your bed, now it’s time to lie in it.
This will be the last debate.
I have no doubts that Biden is an honest man who means will and that he’d still do the best job possible as president in his 2nd term. To support that thinking, I refer to his historical ranking, not his popularity among voters.
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232447088/historians-presidents-survey-trump-last-biden-14th
Still, I recall a voter in line in front of me in the 1968 election telling her friend why she couldn’t vote for Hubert Humphrey.
Because he was bald.
That’s why I think Biden must step down. Too many voters think like that one I overheard in 1968, the same year I was discharged from active duty in the US Marines. That was the first election I voted in.
The country cannot afford to risk voters not voting for Biden because or his age, his cold and his stuttering on stage lasst night.
GALLUP shows that Republicans (realy the MAGA cult) are more enthusiastic about Traitor Trump than Democrats are about Biden.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/646547/age-issues-working-trump-advantage-pre-debate.aspx
The difference between Traitor Trump’s MAGA cult and rational voters is MAGA are fanatics and they’re voting for a traitor and a convicted rapist and fraud. They don’t care how old the traitor is. They don’t care that h’es a traitor. They don’t care that he’s a rapist. They don’t care that he’s a fraud.
To the MAGA cult, Traitor Trump can do no wrong.
So, for the country, I also think Biden must not run. He must step down and let someone younger who has a much better chance of winning those voters who wouldn’t vote for a bald man, or a man who is 81 and sutters, so they won’t stay home or vote for the traitor because he didn’t have a cold and stutters.
I wrote yesterday on my blog that this will be the last presidential debate. Sixty-four years ago, I watched the first debate as an undergraduate at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. Four of us and our landlady, Mrs. Williams, sat in her living room and watched Kennedy and Nixon debate on a small black-and-white TV screen. Last night, perhaps like you, I started to watch the debate on a large-screen Visio TV. As many have said, seeing and hearing Joe Biden struggle with a hoarse voice and cough was painful. As bad as that was, what was worse was Trump’s nonstop lying and denying reality. The two bumps on the log were equally irritating; they did not respond to the debater’s replies or question what they said. There was no accountability.
Let’s hope this is the last debate.
He should do more than consider it. This is about putting his country before himself. And the people closest to him need to convince him to do it. This election is too important.
Unfortunately, I think it’s those advisors closest to Biden who don’t want to lose their cozy positions of power. I’m not afraid of trump (he’s a mouthpiece….a mere puppet)….but I am afraid of the people he brings into his administration!
For the good of the country, Trump should step down and out of his run for the presidency, permanently suspend his campaign and flush it down the tubes of historical oblivion.
I am surprised no one appears to have watched the same debate I saw last night. I didn’t see President Biden stumble. I saw CNN stick out its leg and trip him. It brought back memories of CNN et al wrecking the Sanders 2016 and 2020 campaigns. And it reminded me that the reason CNN is attacking Biden is that the incumbent president has supported and signed progressive legislation sponsored by Senator Sanders, Chair of the Senate Budget Committee. The corporate owned media is going for more tax breaks and deregulation, and they will get what they want. They will torpedo Biden 2024.
The oligarchy is too powerful. Since when did we need debates in June, before the conventions? Why did CNN do this in the first place? Why did CNN spend weeks hyping the event as earth shatteringly important? It was just an informal cable tv show. Why was the pre-debate show five hours long, nearly Super Bowl pregame duration? Why did CNN put so much pressure on the president during all the pregame hype to have the greatest debate performance since Kennedy or Lincoln? And all Trump had to do was avoid an uncontrolled outburst? Could it be the same reason the moderators accepted all of Trump’s lies at face value and changed the subject when Biden got going with some passion about military veterans like his son?
Biden is going to lose. It will not be his age or his mental acuity. It will not be his fault. It will not be the voters’ fault. If Biden were to lose to a different Democratic candidate in the convention, that candidate would lose too, if he or she didn’t support corporate libertarianism. I appreciate what Joel said in the last post, that a president could be in a coma as long as he had progressive policies. That’s right. To overcome the oligarchs, however, one must be faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
The news this week is that Congressman Bowman lost. We’re all screwed.
I read that Biden’s team wanted an early debate because they wanted to change the dynamic of the race before early ballots were being cast. I don’t think the timing of the debate was forced on Biden by oligarchs.
So it wasn’t evil, but was instead stupidity? That’s — better? We are screwed.
Well, it could have been smart, if Biden were actually able to perform.
I will vote for whoever is on the ballot against Trump, but this is terrible.
And just why did CNN allow Trump to stand up there and spew lies? They didn’t need fact checkers to call him out unless they are just talking heads with no clue what is fact or fiction. Apparently Biden blew it royally. I didn’t watch it, but reading the pundits makes you think that all that matters is how well you bluster.
Should Biden step down? Just who do you think could replace him? There is no one out there who could have accomplished what he has and no one who has the name recognition or record to even come close.
It is past time for every Democratic politician at the very least to get out there on the stump.
A lot of Trump’s lies were so egregious that the moderators didn’t need Daniel Dale in their earpieces. They just needed to say, “No one advocates killing babies,” and “There have been nowhere near 18 million migrants in 4 years,” and, “The deficits were higher under your presidency.” I could have said those things, and I’m just a peon spectator. WHY couldn’t the moderators handle that???
They didn’t do their jobs. That they didn’t is unconscionable.
I read this blog occasionally for a few years, and then around two years ago I started to submit comments on a few topics. I stopped commenting last year because I increased my professional workload and therefore had to decrease my online reading. But there is another reason I limited my involvement with this blog: it became a stridently partisan echo chamber, with any dissent from the party line met with personal insults.
I noted in several comments that Joe Biden was showing obvious signs of age-related cognitive decline. I have seen the same signs in older family members who ended up in memory care facilities. But almost all other commenters and this blog’s host wouldn’t tolerate such an observation. I and other dissenters were called Trump-lovers, MAGA supporters, far Right, etc. This despite my frequent and strong criticisms of Trump. Here’s a reader comment from today’s New York Times that expresses my thoughts perfectly.
“The surprise over this performance is amazing. Most Americans knew this about Joe years ago. Anyone that was surprised by last night needs to realize that they live in a bubble and that they get their information in a silo. Institutions like The Times kept telling us he was fine. To me that’s the real story. This is an example why my conservative friends and family don’t believe anything they read from these institutions. This is an example of how we get Trump.”
Friendly advice: stick to your principles, but don’t become blindly partisan for any politician. Doing so destroys your ability to recognize negative realities that are obvious to rational people.
I’d give you a clapping emoji if I could! I agree with all you have said….thank you!
Amen, Jack. Well said.
Whatever Democrats decide to do, they must work for a winning strategy. They cannot afford to ignore public feedback. Most voters decide on a candidate based on an impression, and Democrats need to present a candidate that can elevate public opinion. I would love to vote for Biden, but I will vote for any decent Democrat on the ticket. However, winning this election is the most important consideration. The Hill offers some insights that Democrats must honestly consider. Democrats need to consider country over individual feelings as this election is so darn consequential. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4745588-after-the-debate-theres-no-denying-democrats-need-a-plan-b/
They cannot afford to ignore public feedback.
Again and again and again, I posted here about Biden’s historically low approval ratings and about his signs of decline. And for my trouble, I was smacked down, ridiculed, and worse.
Political ideology is like teenagers driving cars fast. Lots of fun. Then it hit the wall that is reality.
Yes. Please
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Amen.
HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT!!!
America is long, long overdue for a woman President.
Long overdue.
Within the next few weeks, Biden should resign as President, citing health reasons, some of which are clearly evident. That would give Harris national exposure as America’s first woman President and would ignite women of all ethnic backgrounds to want to see her continue as President. That block of voters would sway the election in her favor over Trump.
Biden had indeed been a good President; and he is a fundamentally good and moral person. Nevertheless, in the world of practical politics, he is all too likely to lose to despicable Trump who would bring our republic to its knees. So, he must not be the Democratic Party candidate for President in the November election.
I am a huge fan of Harris. Unfortunately, she is like Hilary. She galvanizes the sexism so ingrained in our culture. She can’t win. Making her the candidate is a recipe for loss. That’s not a pretty thing, but it’s the political reality.
Stepping aside at this juncture hand Trump the win. There is no way to get organized that fast in a US presidential election. In the chaos, Trump wins, because he loves chaos. We need to support Biden at this point.
Hey, O’Brien, you could step aside, too.