‘10 minutes to destroy a presidency’: how US and global media reviewed the Biden-Trump debate

US voters woke up to post-debate reviews of the first Biden-Trump debate with headlines that echoed Democrats’ anxiety that the incumbent president is too cognitively weak and physically frail to sustain another five months of political campaigning or another term in office.

Those anxieties, multiple outlets reported, were being reflected in pressure from Democratic donors and former Democratic officials who are now openly talking about replacing Biden with an alternative presidential candidate at the party’s convention in Chicago in August.

“A Fumbling Performance, and a Panicking Party”, said the New York Times on its front page. Columnist Nicholas Kristof, a centrist Democrat, said that Biden is a “good man” who had capped his political career with a successful presidential term, before adding “but I hope he reviews his debate performance Thursday evening and withdraws from the race”.

Kristof floated Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Gina Raimondo, the US secretary of commerce, as potential candidates “in a good position to defeat Trump in November”.

The Washington Post headlined: “Biden stumbles as Trump spreads falsehoods” , noting that Biden had “struggled through a raspy voice and uneven delivery” while former president Trump had responded to Biden’s “charged and deeply personal attacks” with “a blizzard of personal gibes and falsehoods”.

The Wall Street Journal said: “Democrats Privately Discuss Replacing Biden on Presidential Ticket”, and noted that Biden’s “halting performance left the Democratic Party in turmoil, with officials trying to sort through the president’s prospects after an appearance in which he stumbled over words, stammered through many answers and elevated widespread voter concerns that he is too old to serve”.

The Los Angeles Times was kinder. Under the headline “Biden’s verbal stumbles, Trump’s ‘morals of an alley cat’”, the west coast newspaper said November’s candidates “called each other criminals and liars and looked at each other with open disdain”. But, the paper said: “Biden’s early struggles with his words and the lack of timbre in his voice have instead created panic among Democrats”.

The Guardian reported: “‘Defcon 1 moment’: Biden’s debate performance sends Democrats into panic”, while internationally the headlines were scarcely different. Left-leaning Israeli paper Haaretz said: “Meandering Biden, Pathological Trump: The Worst Possible Presidential Debate Was a Sad Night for America”.

“Last night, Biden lost. Trump lost. American democracy lost. And although televised presidential debates rarely change the trajectory of an election, for Democrats, the spectacle on CNN was the sum of all their fears,” Haaretz said.

The South China Morning Post led on what the candidates positions’ meant for China, noting that Biden “took aim” at Trump’s proposed tariff hikes while Trump accused his rival of being “afraid to deal with China and raising the risk of global conflict”.

The Australian said that Democrats are in a “tailspin” and “furious” at Biden’s “poor performance” as “attention quickly turned to whether there needed to be a new candidate selected for the party at its August convention”.

El Pais said: “Biden’s misfortune brought CNN and Fox News together”, adding that “the president’s poor performance gives way to Democratic voices calling for an urgent replacement before the elections”.

In France, Le Monde described “the sinking of Joe Biden during the televised debate against Donald Trump” – a debate that had “turned into a disaster for the Democratic president, who appeared on several occasions overwhelmed, stumbling over words, unable to follow his train of thought”.

The BBC headlined: “Biden’s incoherent debate performance heightens fears over his age.” Correspondent Anthony Zurcher wrote that US voter concerns about Biden’s age and fitness for office heading into the debate had been exacerbated. “To say that this debate did not put those concerns to rest may be one of the greatest understatements of the year,” Zurcher wrote.

But CNN, which hosted the debate and had come under intense political pressure over fears that the moderators would slip into political bias over its handling of the candidates, was perhaps clearest of all.

“Biden’s disastrous debate pitches his reelection bid into crisis,” it said, noting that if Biden loses his bid for re-election in November, “history will record that it took just 10 minutes to destroy a presidency”.

“It was clear a political disaster was about to unfold as soon as the 81-year-old commander in chief stiffly shuffled on stage in Atlanta to stand eight feet from ex-president Donald Trump at what may turn into the most fateful presidential debate in history,” the cable news outlet said. In a snap poll of viewers, 67% said the former president was the winner.

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