Ronald Reagan was known for his masterful rhetoric. Yet in his first debate as an incumbent in 1984, he delivered a subpar performance—short on sparkling narrative, overstuffed with statistics, meandering at the close—igniting panic over his age, which was then 77.
Here we go again.
Joe Biden’s struggles last night were worse than Reagan’s. And the 81-year-old Biden has less room for error. Reagan trounced Walter Mondale in the polls when the two first debated in early October, while Biden is running slightly behind primarily because of concerns about age.
The only reason Biden offered an early debate with Donald Trump was to defuse questions about his age and reset the race. Trump helped Biden by setting the bar low so that “stringing two sentences together” could be treated as a big win. And somehow, Biden failed to clear it, committing many of the same errors Reagan did and then some.
Too often, Biden made his job more complicated than necessary. He didn’t need to bring up Trump’s exploitation of an undocumented immigrant murderer when recounting how Trump engineered the overturning of Roe v. Wade. He didn’t need to bring up Afghanistan when challenging Trump’s record on the economy. He needed to stick to the narrative with which he began: Trump left me “chaos,” and we “put things back together again.” More consistency and fewer digressions would have mitigated the problems of Biden’s raspy voice and low energy.
Yes, Donald Trump was a colossal liar. Yes, America would be better off if its president had a raspy voice instead of a rap sheet. But clearly, many voters are worried that Biden is deteriorating.
Biden also could have helped himself on that front by acknowledging the raspy voice and low energy. It wasn’t until well into the debate that Biden aides told reporters, in response to questions about his voice, that he had a cold. The president could have said so upfront. More broadly, Biden could be more forthright about aging in general—that while he may walk more gingerly and talk more haltingly, he has the record to prove he can still do the job of Commander-in-Chief. Candor breeds confidence.
History tells us Biden can recover. Reagan did, with his famous quip in the second debate: “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” (As I’ve written previously, that line drew attention away from what could have been a disastrous moment earlier in the evening when Reagan clumsily contradicted himself about alleged illegal CIA activity in Nicaragua.)
In 2022, John Fetterman recovered after an awful U.S. Senate debate in Pennsylvania months after he suffered a major stroke that wreaked havoc on his hearing and speech. In the immediate aftermath, Democrats panicked. His Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, overtook Fetterman in post-debate polls. Yet Fetterman had the last laugh.
Biden has a steeper challenge than either Reagan or Fetterman. Reagan wasn’t behind, and Fetterman wasn’t running to lead the free world. But Reagan’s and Fetterman’s cringe-inducing debates were in October, less than a month before the election. Biden has 130 days until the election. That’s 130 chances to appear publicly or submit to media interviews, so he can show his ability to handle unscripted questions and provide in-depth responses. He has less time—52 days—before the Democratic convention in Chicago to stem the panic in the party ranks.
The maddening aspect of the situation is that we know Biden can do this. He has given energetic, cogent, and agile State of the Union performances and media interviews in which he speaks fluently about complex issues.
If he is going to stay in the race and have a chance of winning, he must subject himself to more public questioning and offer convincing reassurances. Nervous Democrats’ calls for him to drop out have already resurfaced and will soon become deafening. The State of the Union address in March quelled the last bedwetting cycle. Biden cannot wait until his August acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention to shut down the next one.
He wasted a big opportunity last night. He needs to create some new ones—and fast.
