East Palestine, Ohio? NO! THIS Was A Trainwreck!

The first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump took place last night in Atlanta. It was hosted by CNN, and moderated by two extremely liberal commentators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. More on them later.

In the first 10 seconds, we were treated to what turned out to be the biggest news of the night. Joe Biden opened his mouth and sounded like an 85 year old man that was raspy, incoherent, doddering, stumbling for words, pausing, just plain lost. He had trouble answering questions. He had that look when he can’t get the words out when he closes his eyes like he’s trying to pull the right phrase out of his mind. He looked weak. He looked like we all have seen in public. I’m surprised he was able to stand for 90 minutes.

For Donald Trump, he was “nice”. Yes, he attacked Joe Biden. He relentlessly called him the “worst president in US history”, and basically laid the blame for the state of the country at his feet. Yes, Trump did not have a great night. He was more on attack mode than he was answering the questions from Bash and Tapper. He kept telling them he’d get to their question, and then go back to refute what Biden had said (or tried to). It was not necessarily a winning performance for Trump. He didn’t score a knockout in this one. He was awarded a TKO because Biden couldn’t answer the bell.

Biden consistently made mistakes. He said that he brought in 15,000 jobs after Covid (he meant 15 million). He said he went to Normandy and “talked to the dead World War II soldiers, and visited a World War I cemetery.” It would have been a neat trick, but it never happened. He lied on his numbers, and in short, he just sounded old and incapable of holding down his job.

Now, as for the moderators…I was actually impressed. Tapper and Bash did an admirable job. They asked tough questions of both men. They held them to the 2 minute time limit and 1 minute rebuttal. And they cut off the mics when the other person was talking. They did a yeoman’s job of controlling the debate. I told my wife it was a thousand times better than the first debate of 2020 when Chris Wallace totally lost control of it.

And now for the bad part for Biden. It didn’t take 10 minutes before the Democrat big wigs started the texting wars. They were embarrassed. They were nervous. They were sad and disappointed in the performance. They couldn’t believe that Biden had taken a week to prepare for the debate and sounded and looked so bad. They are ready to replace him as a candidate for the presidency. And if you troll around the internet this morning and look at the various headlines, everyone is saying it’s all over but the shouting. Almost. Don’t forget, Trump could still end up in jail over his convictions in New York. But Biden appears to be in deeper trouble with his party than Trump does with Juan Merchan.

My take on this debate was, it had very little to do with what was said. There were no appreciable zingers that will rival “I knew John Kennedy, you’re no John Kennedy”, or “Well, there you go again!”. This is a debate that could have only had the contestants going “Blah, blah, blah” for 90 minutes. The result would have been the same. Donald Trump looked presidential and in control. Joe Biden looked like he was searching for his nursing home.

Overall, we need to wait a week to fully digest what the polls are telling us. My take going into the debate was that it wasn’t going to move the needle all that much. However, after the performance I saw last night, and the Democrats’ response to their candidates’ performance, I think it’s possible the election could already be over. Joe Biden may never get the chance to make it to the September debate. He first needs to win the nomination in late August.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!