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On stage stood the two oldest presidential candidates the country has seen.
President Joe Biden, 81, stood to the right. It was supposed to be a night where he reassured voters that he, already America’s oldest president, is up for another four years. His campaign hoped the night would dispel fears about him being closer to 100 than 50.
He did anything but. Biden mumbled, stumbled and rambled throughout the 90-minute debate leaving the world stunned at the performance.
On the left was 77-year-old former president Donald Trump. He spoke crisply, authoritatively and didn’t get sucked into his usual name-calling that has become a trademark of his political career. He was on stage to take on the ‘worst president ever’ and show he was ready for another term.
But he lied nonstop. Trump blabbered on, refusing to answer questions and spewing lies that have become trademarks of his 2024 campaign. Yet, for some reason, the media — and the world — only care about one half of the equation.
Donors, media pundits, editorial boards and even 11 House Democrats so far have called on the president to drop out of the race. In the post-debate frenzy, through his energetic, passionate interviews and rallies, Biden has tried to eclipse his tired performance. Still, calls for him to step aside have only grown louder.
But no one is talking about Trump - and he is escaping accountability.
Biden’s performance was not what he and his team hoped for. It was a night when he was hard to hear and lost his train of thought. It was difficult to follow him at points and he hardly seemed capable of serving another four years. Even Biden said he was “just having a bad night.”
Trump hasn’t been praised for his debate — but criticism of Biden has taken up all the oxygen in the room.
Here’s a summary: Not only did Trump repeatedly lie, but he also delivered nonsensical responses and non-answers lacking any insight into his policy plans.
One political analyst brutally called the former president’s debate performance “incoherent, rambling and utterly divorced from the truth.”
Some blamed the CNN debate moderators, who did not push back on his responses, which ranged from spiteful to ludicrous, and instead offered an unhelpful “thank you” after each one. The network also chose to abstain from any live fact-checking of the candidates on stage. But, an online fact-check by CNN itself, highlighted the need for it: Trump lied 30 times in the 90-minute debate.
Trump “was able to say truly insane, insane, insane things and nobody noticed because everyone was so fixated on Joe Biden,” journalist and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast said on MSNBC. “I think Democrats are being held to a different standard here.”
For example, when moderator Jake Tapper asked what he would do to make child care more affordable, the presumptive GOP nominee initially dodged the question.
After Biden offered a real response to the child care question — vowing to increase the child care tax credit — Trump was pressed again, given one minute to respond. But the former president again ignored the question in favor of uttering a series of incomplete thoughts: “We have polling. We have other things that do – they rate him the worst because what he’s done is so bad. And they rate me – yes, I’ll show you. I will show you. And they rate me one of the best. OK.”
Later, when Trump was given an opportunity at the debate to address voter concerns over his mental fitness, the 77-year-old offered two points to alleviate the public’s fears.
First, he mentioned that he “aced” two cognitive tests — in one of which he famously had to recall the words: “person, woman, man, camera, TV.” Second, he told the crowd that he “won two club championships — not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way.”
Also of concern on the debate stage, Trump didn’t commit to unconditionally accepting the election results and underscored his intentions to seek political retribution.
By saying these two points, Trump “threatened our democracy,” historian Allan Lichtman said on CNN. “Why wasn’t that the headlines? Why wasn’t that the greatest concern from the debate rather than all the focus on Joe Biden?”
That zeal for political retribution comes after he was convicted of 34 counts in his home state. Some remarked on how the media glossed over the fact that Trump has twice made history - becoming the first US president to be impeached twice and the first former president to become a convicted felon.
Commentator Kaivan Shroff remarked that the media has chosen to “ignore Trump being a convicted felon, racist, nutjob, etc” while journalist Sophia Nelson said on CNN that she believed it’s fair to question Biden after his performance, but warned of the “pile-on” against him. The press is “not questioning Trump and his fitness...Trump has a moral character problem. He is a convicted felon.”
A few have blasted the former president’s debate performance — but those few have been swallowed up in the media hysteria.
“It’s frankly astonishing that we have no less than eight op-ed pieces calling for Biden to drop out after a bad debate, but we had zero after any one of Trump’s convictions,” journalist Victoria Brownworth wrote. “It’s not just MAGAs deep in the cult of Trump and maybe the country should own this failure of responsibility.”
The impact of the coverage is already evident. Before the debate, a poll showed Biden having the edge over Trump. However, in the days following the debate, a poll showed that 51 percent of voters would pick Trump compared to 48 percent of voters who would pick Biden.
Now, questions remain about if Trump will ever answer for his debate lies or if the world will stay focused on Biden and his night, and ignore the days that followed the bad night.
“I really wish the media would just cover all the lies Trump disgorged during the debate and all the other stuff that makes him unfit as opposed to covering how the president of the United States looked lost on stage for 90 minutes and many Dems want to replace him,’ editor of the Nevada Independent Jon Ralston wrote on X.
User SeattleSusieQ wrote on X: “When will @CNN be as non-stop on Trump lies and dementia as much as they have done with Biden’s debate?” Later she added: “Same goes for @msnbc. @CNN and @MSNBC have no journalistic integrity.”
Director of the Center for Politics Larry Sabato called out the media coverage arguing that Americans — including the press — seem to have become accustomed to Trump’s disconcerting behavior: “Are you all completely numb to the dictatorial future Trump projects for America? Some of you will be featured in the tribunals—and not just covering them.”
“Every editorial board that demanded Biden’s withdrawal MUST now demand Trump’s withdrawal.”
