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Explainer: Replacing Biden as a presidential candidate

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Biden-Trump debate draws 48M TV viewers

new york — Roughly 48 million TV viewers tuned in to watch Thursday’s U.S. presidential debate between Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump, according to preliminary Nielsen data.

The number suggests the final audience will be about one-third less than the 73 million people who watched the candidates’ first face-off in 2020, and among the three lowest-rated first presidential debates since 1976.

The relatively low number compared with past debates in recent election cycles could be indicative of low voter enthusiasm for both candidates. It does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline.

Media experts were looking to see how a new format by host CNN would play out, and whether it would provide a template for future debates. The restrictions of that format, which included the option for CNN to mute the candidates’ microphones, imposed some discipline on the candidates and should be emulated by other networks, three media experts said.

CNN, which held the exclusive rights to present the debate, allowed candidates two minutes for each answer and one minute for rebuttals, and muted their microphones if they exceeded those limits. The studio did not have an audience, and moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did not fact-check the candidates in real time.

CNN defended itself against the criticism from some media commentators that the absence of real-time fact-checking allowed both candidates to spread false claims.

“The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.
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Worried Democrats discuss replacing Biden after debate disaster

  Washington  — After what many deemed a disappointing performance by U.S. President Joe Biden in Thursday night’s debate against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, Democrats are discussing whether their 81-year-old incumbent should be replaced at the top of the presidential ticket by someone younger.

The Biden campaign’s strategy “to get an early debate on the books in order to change the arc of the campaign failed,” said Jim Manley, a political strategist who has worked for several top-tier Democratic Party senators over the decades.

Biden needed to reassure loyalists, as well as try to persuade the small but critical number of independent voters in swing states, that he is still mentally and physically fit to lead the nation.

Speaking initially in a soft and hoarse voice, Biden came off as incoherent at times, appeared confused, lost his train of thought and verbally stumbled during his 90 minutes at the lectern opposite Trump, who was more articulate and less combative than usual, although the former president uttered many more untruthful declarations than Biden.

“The most salient detail of the evening was Biden’s tone of voice, which was faltering and not strong. It was his inability to come up with easy-to-follow coherent answers to questions, and he did that half the time, but half the time he didn’t, and in a number of cases he lost his train of thought,” Michael Kimmage, professor of history at The Catholic University of America in Washington, told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.

Biden’s campaign explained that the president had a cold. His performance suggested something more concerning as he stumbled over his words, corrected himself in mid-sentence and flubbed figures.

“There’s panic in the Democratic Party,” Maria Shriver, a prominent member of the Democratic Kennedy clan, said on social media, terming Biden’s performance “heartbreaking in many ways.”

Headlines in major U.S. newspapers on Friday also mentioned panic and alarm among Democrats. Leading web news sites, notable officials in the party and at the White House, along with top donors, began pondering whether Biden could continue to lead the ticket.

“JOE BIDEN MUST DROP OUT,” proclaimed a Friday headline for the first-ever editorial posted by Raw Story, which calls itself the largest independent, progressive news site.

The few prominent Democrats who had previously publicly expressed concern about Biden’s clinical suitability for a second term had been chastised as “bedwetters” for their excessive worrying.

Washington woke up Friday to many more bedwetters.

“The bedwetters and nervous Nellies are going to demand that he step aside — but as of right now I don’t see that happening,” Manley told VOA.

Biden, until Thursday night, had been on course to accept, without any remaining challengers, his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. That was cast in doubt after his poor performance in Atlanta on Thursday night during the debate hosted by CNN and carried live by some 20 other television networks in the United States.

Unless Biden voluntarily steps aside soon, there is virtually no chance of anyone successfully challenging him for the nomination at this stage.

The party faces a critical deadline on August 7, about two weeks before the traditional convention roll call vote. That is when the traditional bellwether Midwestern state of Ohio requires party candidates to be determined. It had been assumed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris would again be at the top of the Democrat’s ticket.

Ohio has long favored incumbent presidents seeking another term, but Trump was victorious there in the last two elections.

It has been exactly a century since the Democrats held a convention that was truly an open contest, nominating James W. Davis as their presidential candidate after more than 100 ballots. Davis, a rather obscure former congressman, lost the general election to Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge in a landslide.

The last time there was significant drama at a Democratic Party convention was in 1968 in Chicago, months after President Lyndon Johnson dropped his reelection bid.

Division in the party grew after one of the leading contenders, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated amid pandemonium inside and outside of the convention hall. Humphrey was defeated by Republican Richard Nixon in the general election.

Looking ahead to another possibly disruptive convention in Chicago, Democrats on Friday began speculating about who might step forward to try to replace Biden, if the president were to bow out. Besides Harris, among those on the short list are four state governors: California’s Gavin Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper.

All have been viewed as likely presidential primary contenders for the party in 2028.

Some Democrats are having none of it — at least not yet.

“Democrats are historically prone to panic, even though their presidential candidates normally fumble the first debate — Barack Obama in 2012 is a great example. The answer isn’t to replace Biden, but to take a very critical eye to what didn’t work about his debate prep,” veteran party strategist Max Burns told VOA.

“Biden is still the best messenger Democrats have for the message they are campaigning on, but there’s clearly work to be done. Their success in November will depend on their ability to honestly assess their weak spots and quickly course-correct,” added Burns, who runs Third Degrees Strategies, a strategic communications and consulting firm.

“I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate,” Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, posted on social media on Friday morning. “No one knows more than me that a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record.”

Fetterman, a survivor of a stroke which compromised his speech processing capabilities, struggled on the debate stage two years ago before defeating his Republican opponent in the general election.

Biden’s physician in February declared him fit for duty, despite being treated for multiple medical conditions, non-valvular atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies and sensory peripheral neuropathy of both feet. Dr. Kevin O’Conner also wrote that the president’s stiff gait and obstructive sleep apnea remained stable.

As a senator in the late 1980s, Biden was treated for two brain aneurysms.

The president, during a midnight visit to a Waffle House restaurant in Atlanta following his face-off with the 78-year-old Trump, was asked by a reporter how he thought he performed during the debate in which each candidate peppered the other with caustic remarks.

“I think we did well,” Biden responded.

He appears to be a lone voice making that assessment.

“I know I’m not a young man,” said a somewhat rejuvenated Biden at a Friday afternoon rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. “I don’t debate as well as I used to” but “I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.”

Biden coughed occasionally, still showing the effects of what campaign officials said was a cold that affected his debate performance the previous evening. His remarks were interrupted several times by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Trump “is literally a threat for everything America stands for” and is motivated by revenge and retribution,” added Biden. “Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”

Trump is to hold his first post-debate rally mid-afternoon Friday at a large farm and nursery in Chesapeake, Virginia.
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Voters react to first presidential debate

On Thursday night, Americans across the country gathered to watch the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign season. VOA’s Dora Mekouar has reaction from voters.
Camera: Genia Dulot, Angelina Bagdasaryan, Michael Eckels
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Biden, Trump clash in first presidential debate of 2024

US presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump had their first debate of this election cycle Thursday. From Atlanta, VOA’s Calla Yu has our story.
Camera: Yiyi Yang  
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Biden’s debate performance spurs Democratic panic about his ability to win

ATLANTA — Above all, Joe Biden ‘s allies wanted him to demonstrate strength and energy on the debate stage Thursday night to help put to rest questions about the 81-year-old Democrat’s physical and mental acuity.

But on the biggest stage in U.S. politics, Biden did not meet their modest expectations.

And by the end of the 90-minute showdown, the Democratic president’s allies — party strategists and rank-and-file voters alike — descended into panic following a debate performance punctuated by stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.

Publicly and privately, Democrats questioned whether the party could or should replace him as the party’s presidential nominee against the 78-year-old former President Donald Trump this fall.

“I’m not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There’s a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden,” former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC. “I don’t know if things can be done to fix this.”

For now, the biggest question for Biden is whether the damage is permanent. Many voters have not yet tuned into an election that’s still more than four months away. The president and his allies are sitting on millions of dollars that have yet to be spent on advertising and swing-state infrastructure.

And there’s precedent for recovering from rough debate performances, including Barack Obama ‘s rebound from an uneven encounter with Mitt Romney in 2012. Democrat John Fetterman went on to defeat a Republican rival in 2022 after struggling through a debate several months after experiencing a stroke.

Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign has been based on a gamble that voters would ultimately support an 81-year-old lifelong politician with weak approval ratings in a rematch that few Americans want. Despite such liabilities, Biden’s team insisted that he was uniquely positioned to stop Trump from returning to the White House — just as he did four years ago.

They have long predicted that Biden’s winning political coalition would eventually embrace the Democratic president after being sufficiently reminded of Trump’s chaotic leadership. But there were little signs of such confidence in the wake of Biden’s underwhelming debate performance.

“It was a slow start. That’s obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point,” Vice President Kamala Harris said on CNN after the debate. “I’m talking about the choice in November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime.”

Biden’s surrogates were slow to enter the post-debate spin room in Atlanta. And when they emerged, they largely avoided questions from the press. Instead, they railed against Trump’s long list of falsehoods during the debate. Among other things, Trump didn’t disavow those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential future presidential candidate who was Biden’s most prominent surrogate in the Atlanta spin room, urged Democrats not to panic.

“I think it’s unhelpful. And I think it’s unnecessary. We’ve got to go in, we’ve got to keep our heads high,” Newsom said in an interview on MSNBC. “We’ve got to have the back of this president. You don’t turn back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”

Still, signs of anxiety were apparent as Democrats began to openly encourage the party to find an alternative to Biden. Some party officials pointed to a social media post from former Obama campaign aide Ravi Gupta.

“Every Democrat I know is texting that this is bad,” Gupta wrote on X. “Just say it publicly and begin the hard work of creating space in the convention for a selection process. I’ll vote for a corpse over Trump, but this is a suicide mission.”

Under current Democratic Party rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without the party officials being willing to rewrite its rules at the August national convention.

The president won the overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates during the state-by-state primary process. And party rules state that, “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

Republicans, meanwhile, were giddy about Biden’s lackluster performance. But Trump co-campaign chief dismissed chatter about whether Democrats would try to nominate someone other than Biden.

“There’s so many political experts on X, so we’ll hear a lot from them, I’m sure, in the next few days because they’ve all run so many campaigns,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said sarcastically. “But the only way that happens is if Joe Biden voluntarily steps down, and he’s not going to do that.”

Thursday’s debate may be imprinted on voters’ minds for the foreseeable future with Biden and Trump not scheduled to meet on the debate stage again for another 75 days.
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Biden, Trump blame each other over immigration issues

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CNN bans White House pool reporters from debate room 

washington — The White House Correspondents’ Association said Thursday that CNN had rejected multiple requests to include White House pool reporters inside the studio during the first presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump. 

The press pool, made up of representatives of major news organizations, accompanies the president on foreign and domestic trips and normally has access to any event where he speaks or appears in public, with the goal of keeping the U.S. public informed. 

It is extremely rare for it to be barred from an event in the United States. 

“WHCA is deeply concerned that CNN has rejected our repeated requests to include the White House travel pool inside the studio,” Kelly O’Donnell, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said in a statement. 

“The pool is there for the ‘what ifs?’ in a world where the unexpected does happen,” she said, and to provide “context and insight by direct observation and not through the lens of the television production.” 

These reporters are there to see what is said and done when the microphones and cameras are off, and provide independent observation, she wrote, with duties “separate from the production of the debate as a news event.” 

O’Donnell said both the Biden and Trump campaigns agreed to the WHCA’s request. 

CNN has agreed to allow only one White House print pool reporter to enter the studio during a commercial break to “briefly observe the setting.” 

The network will also allow still photographers from other outlets to cover the candidates inside the studio and will provide a television feed of the debate to other networks. 

CNN has put in place many other rules for the first showdown, including two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when the candidates are recognized to speak. The network did not respond to a request for comment. 

“Precedent matters for future debates,” O’Donnell said, alluding to the next Biden-Trump face-off in September. 

The National Association of Black Journalists also asked CNN to accredit reporters from local Black-owned news organizations, after none of Atlanta’s Black news groups got credentials to be on-site for the debate.
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Live Blog: Biden-Trump Debate

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Front-runners emerge in contest for Trump vice president

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Famous US presidential debate moments

Public debates between presidential candidates have become a mainstay of American elections, though this wasn’t always the case. Sometimes amusing and sometimes shocking, presidential debates have been full of key moments shaping the way the public perceives the candidates and the issues.
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Biden, Trump set to debate in Atlanta 

U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off in their first debate of this election cycle Thursday. From Atlanta, VOA’s Calla Yu tells us what to expect. Contributor: Scott Stearns; Videographer: Yiyi Yang
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Biden, Trump to square off in 90-minute presidential debate

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Ahead of Thursday presidential debate, a look back to 2020

The first debate of the 2024 U.S. presidential election takes place on Thursday. But it isn’t the candidates’ first time debated each other. VOA’s senior Washington correspondent, Carolyn Presutti, looks back to 2020 for some clues about what we will see and hear in the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
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