Hear
In the first presidential debate ahead of the 2024 United States elections, Joe Biden and Donald Trump They exchanged positions on issues such as the economy, abortion, immigration and taxes, among many others. Aside from the results of the surveys that showed trends in public perception, several Political analysts made their own observations regarding which candidate won the verbal confrontation.
Although establishing a clear winner is difficult, given that it has to do with subjective assessments, the vast majority of specialists agreed that the performance of Biden left much to be desired in what Stephen Collinsonpolitical commentator CNNdescribed as “the most fateful presidential debate in history”.
Specifically, the specialist considered that The Democratic president’s ability to “communicate with the country is seriously compromised” and maintained that his performance was “the weakest” since John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon began the tradition of televised debates in 1960. “If Joe Biden loses the November election, History will record that it took only ten minutes to destroy a presidency.”he sentenced.
“Biden’s voice was weak, reduced at times to a whisper. At first, the president’s responses were incoherent.”Collinson stressed, then reflecting: “Watching a president struggle in front of millions of people watching on television around the world was difficult to watch. As a matter of humanity, the personification of the ravages of age that await us all was painful”.
The weak points that different analysts highlighted were mainly his age and his apparent fragility, questions about the current president that already existed prior to the debate, but that were accentuated even more with the event. One of the most memorable moments last night was when, after a hesitation from the Democrat, Trump took the opportunity to expose him: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, nor do I think he knows what he said.”.
In a joint analysis for CBSNewsthe experts Kathryn Watson, Kaia Hubbard, Caitlin Yilek They noted that Biden “often lost his train of thought and had difficulty communicating his positions on a variety of topics.” Meanwhile, they defined the event as “a 90-minute affair that was defined by incoherent responses from the current president and lies and erroneous statements from his predecessor.”
On the other hand, the political scientist and influencer Ian Bremmer shared on X (ex Twitter) a screenshot with different titles of opinion articles by specialists from The New York Times: “President Biden is my friend. He should withdraw from the race”by Thomas L. Friedman; “Biden cannot continue like this”, by Frank Bruni; “I’m hearing a lot of friendliness from Democrats about Biden’s performance in the debate,” by Patrick Healy; and “President Biden, it’s time to drop out of school”by Nicholas Kristof.
In Friedman’s case, Biden’s “friend” said that watching the debate made him cry. “I cannot recall a more heartbreaking moment in the American presidential campaign in my lifetime”the analyst said in his note in The New York Timeswhile calling for the president to withdraw from the race for re-election.
Although there are common agreement that Biden’s performance in the debate went from less to more, and that towards the end of the event his performance was consolidated, there are those who believe that the first minutes were insurmountable. “While Biden, 81, gained strength as the debate progressed and was clearly well prepared to respond to both Trump’s questions and claims on stage (backing up his answers with statistics and fact-checking the former president on moment), his raspy voice and calm demeanor (which his campaign attributed to a previously undisclosed cold) play into the concerns many Americans have about their age”raised by G. Elliott Morris and Kaleigh Rogers in ABCNews.
Watson, Hubbard and Yilek found that compared to Biden, “Trump sounded forceful, even as he mischaracterized his record.” and many of the president’s positions throughout the night.” Although the age of the former Republican president (78) is not far from that of the current president, Trump He seemed much more animated and agile on stageas noted by Elliott Morris and Rogers.
Although several analysts mentioned the lack of support and veracity in the republican’s statements During the event, they highlighted his temperamental control and his non-verbal communication. Elliott Morris and Rogers noted: “He started the night with a calmer demeanor than we have seen from him in the past, and “He was generally respectful of the rules of debate regarding time limits and interruptions.”.
“Former President Trump stood by his incorrect messages tonight, but “Biden was not able to counter them in real time convincingly”he indicated Henrietta Treyzmanaging partner and director of economic policy research at the consulting firm Veda Partners a The New York Times.
According to an analysis of Andrew Lilleychief interest rate strategist at barrenjoey in Sydney, to the agency Reutersprediction markets show that “the probability that Trump will win the election has increased since the start of the debate from around 55% to 60%”Along the same lines, Morris and Rogers concluded: “In the end, Biden won the policy debate, but lost it in the presentation and failed to assure voters that he will be in power for another four years.”
THE NATION
