Joe Biden’s Thursday night debate performance was unspinnable. The only way to cope is to pretend it didn’t happen. The debate was on CNN, which was friendly territory for Democrats, with debate rules the Biden team thought would benefit them. Instead, it blew up in their faces, with Joe Biden being kicked in his dentures for 90 minutes in a national political slaughter where Trump didn’t need to do much heavy lifting. That’s one of the most damning aspects—all Trump had to do was not bully Biden and deliver his lines without entering a brain fog. The former president did that, but Biden failed miserably.
Democratic donors, lawmakers, and other bigwigs are freaking out. However, the Biden campaign is still trotting out the ‘don’t believe your lying eyes’ line, and it’s insulting to the American voter, especially to supporters of the president—all of whom know that Biden got steamrolled. The talk about replacing Biden on the ticket has reached a fever pitch, but I doubt this will happen. There’s no time realistically; Democrats are stuck with Drool McCool, and this latest email captured those sentiments along with it being a Chernobyl-style meltdown. There’s no other way to interpret it: this operation is melting down.
The Biden campaign sent a fundraising email to supporters with a list of talking points for them to share with “panicked” friends and family: pic.twitter.com/nO7lFK99hO
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) June 30, 2024
I just noticed that this email begins with a mention of “self-important podcasters.”
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 30, 2024
This is likely, in part, a reference to the Pod Save America hosts who have expressed grave concern about Biden as a candidate in recent days. https://t.co/qhxj27yVJT pic.twitter.com/GGf1vlfFl4
Biden campaign fundraising email:
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 30, 2024
“The bedwetting brigade is calling for Joe Biden to "drop out." That is the best possible way for Donald Trump to win and us to lose.
First of all: Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, period. End of story. Voters voted. He won… pic.twitter.com/y4iEvegTRE
Lol holy shit this email from the Biden campaign acknowledging supporters are panicking, polls are to be ignored, Biden is old, but too bad you’re stuck with him pic.twitter.com/sVOm9pCH77
— Sunny (@sunnyright) June 30, 2024
Lol holy shit this email from the Biden campaign acknowledging supporters are panicking, polls are to be ignored, Biden is old, but too bad you’re stuck with him pic.twitter.com/sVOm9pCH77
— Sunny (@sunnyright) June 30, 2024
Literally all of the Democrats in this poll are actually doing >= than Biden despite being much less well-known, which generally tends to depress your polling. That this is the best talking point they can come up with indicates how poor their argument is. https://t.co/7mmstaTI6h
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 30, 2024
Can the bleeding be stopped? Sure, but it takes someone who can remain coherent for more than six hours. Another horrifying aspect, though one that confirmed our suspicions about the president’s mental health, is that Biden can only function between 10 am and 4 pm. After that six-hour window, Biden becomes fatigued and mentally weak to do the job.
Telling supporters that ‘you’re stuck with this decrepit old man, so deal with it’ when the Democratic Party base is fractured and bleeding support across the board is a recipe for defeat. Black voters under 50 are fleeing Biden, union workers, Hispanics, and now Muslim voters over the war in Gaza. Biden’s debate performance and this insane fundraising email all suggest that the people this president hired to keep his job have no clue what they’re doing. Or maybe they do, but they can’t rework anything into a winning messaging strategy. It’s an absolute mess, and it’s one the Democrats deserve.