What’s next after Biden’s debate horror show

Donald Trump must have that Friday feeling. It’s the morning after the night before, when his Democratic opponent disintegrated live on camera before an audience of millions. The purpose of President Biden agreeing to a first presidential debate so early in the cycle was to head off concerns about his frailty and mental acuity. His energetic State of the Union address in March exceeded admittedly low expectations — but Thursday’s bumbling and feeble performance had the exact opposite effect.

The entire op-ed page of the New York Times is begging the president to stand down. “I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep,” writes Thomas L. Friedman. “For most of the mere ninety minutes of the debate, Biden seemed to be grasping for something he couldn’t reach. I fear that’s a metaphor. I’m sure it’s a warning,” intoned Frank Bruni. Nicholas Kristof went even harder: “Mr. President, one way you can serve your country in 2024 is by announcing your retirement and calling on delegates to replace you, for that is the safest course for our nation.”

Perhaps after Maureen Dowd successfully lobbied Biden to acknowledge his seventh grandchild — the one Hunter fathered on a stripper — the Times columnists were hoping to be equally successful in convincing Joe — or Jill — that stepping down now is for the good of the country. According to a JLPartners poll, 62 percent of independents think he should be removed from the ticket.

Such pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears though, with a Biden advisor telling CNN that not only does the president not plan to drop out, he remains committed to a second debate in September.

Republican congressman Chip Roy announced plans to get Vice President Kamala Harris to enact the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and declare Biden mentally unfit for office, on the evidence of his performance. Such a move is unlikely to sway her — it would take a joint effort from the likes of Jill Biden, cabinet officials, senior congressional Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and veterans such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to persuade the president that stepping down and selecting a more capable nominee at a contested convention in August is the “safer” option for the party and the country.

Team Biden were hoping for an Aaron Sorkin-style evening, where the president could soberly intone about his first-term achievements and set out his stall in defense of honesty and integrity in politics. Instead we have the M. Night Shyamalan election, where Joe Biden will be the last one to realize that he’s been dead the whole time.

-Matt McDonald

On our radar

GO FISH The Supreme Court overturned the longstanding doctrine known as “Chevron deference” that gave wide berth to government agencies to interpret laws how they saw fit. The case brought before the court specifically challenged rules and regulations placed on the fishing industry. 

NFL SACKED A Los Angeles jury ordered the National Football League to pay $4.7 billion in damages for violating antitrust regulations with its “Sunday Ticket” programming. The NFL was accused of colluding with DirecTV to raise prices on consumers seeking to watch out-of-market games. 

‘IT DEFIES … UNDERSTANDING’ The Supreme Court ruled that government attorneys went beyond the scope of a federal obstruction law in prosecuting hundreds of January 6 protesters for obstruction of an official proceeding. 

Third parties react to Biden’s performance

Independent and third-party candidates joined me and my cohosts on the Hill’s Rising this morning to react to last night’s debate and pitch themselves to voters, the majority of whom are unhappy with the two major-party candidates. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who hosted his own version of the debate on X, said that he is open to replacing Biden as the Democratic Party nominee but that he’s not “holding [his] breath” for a call from party officials after their tireless work at trying to hamstring his campaign. 

“I wasn’t that surprised at his performance because we’ve seen that kind of frailty from him before, but I think that was a bad look for America, that whole debate,” Kennedy said. “It was a particularly bad night for President Biden.” 

Green Party nominee Jill Stein described Trump and Biden as “zombies” on the debate stage and accused both of them of failing to address the death toll in Palestine from Israel’s war against Hamas. 

“It’s not like one’s a better choice than the other. The American people should not be limited to these two candidates. One, a rather psychopathic xenophobe and demagogue, and the other something of a dementia patient,” Stein argued. 

Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party nominee, noted that he is under the age of forty and is capable of completing a sentence, which might be more than can be said for the major-party nominees. 

“I honestly went into this debate saying I think Republicans are making a mistake by lowering expectations so much that as long as Biden doesn’t trip over his own feet he’ll seem successful … he did not clear that bar,” Oliver asserted. “I think Democrats are panicking right now.” 

–Amber Duke

Pole position: debate night at the strip club

Where did you take in last night’s car crash of a presidential debate? Cockburn was holed up in his DC townhouse, washing away the night’s many embarrassments with a glass of Macallan 15. If only he’d known he could have enhanced the viewing experience by watching at a New York gentlemen’s club — as @botticellibimbo, who writes the Strippernomics newsletter on Substack, revealed.

“the worst thing about them playing the debate at the strip club rn is that neither sound nor subtitles are on so its just the vibe of the debate,” she tweeted. “the never ending loop of mindless edm playing over this… i imagine it’s what’s going inside their minds.”

“ok update at our back bar they do have the sound on! our manager is literally standing in front of the tv like a dad who gets captivated by what you’re watching,” she added.

Biden’s glazed-over expression looks all the more forlorn as he gazes out from the bar over the backlit liquor bottles. Trump… seems a bit more at home.

“At our main bar it was on with no sound, most customers were ambivalent; it played in between two screens showing a hockey and baseball game,” @botticellibimbo told Cockburn. “At the ‘restaurant’ bar in the back the sound was on. Mostly it was management and old customers watching.”

“Everyone was laughing,” she continued. “It was a joke to everyone involved, even bartenders, overwhelmingly pro-Trump, but more critical of Biden being clearly in a state of cognitive decline. Nobody seemed swayed in either direction.

“When I told our head manager it seemed like satire he agreed, which is kind of funny because I mean it from probably the opposite political side.”

Hey, it beats the spin room…

-Cockburn