(Reuters) – Supporters of U.S. President Joe Biden had hoped Thursday night’s debate would allay concerns that the 81-year-old was too old to serve another term, but his hoarse voice and at times hesitant performance against his Republican rival Donald Trump had the opposite effect.
Both Biden and 78-year-old Trump faced concerns about their age and fitness ahead of the November 5 election, but these weighed more heavily on Biden.
On Thursday, Biden, his voice hoarse from a cold, rushed to rattle off some of his talking points on the debate stage, stumbling over some answers and falling silent on others.
About halfway through the debate, a Democratic strategist who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign called it a “disaster.”
Trump unleashed a barrage of criticism, including hackneyed falsehoods like that immigrants would spark a crime wave or that Democrats supported infanticide. Early in the debate, Biden paused while making a point about Medicare and tax reform, then seemed to lose his thread.
Tax reform would create money to “strengthen our health care system and make sure that we are able to provide to every single person what I was able to do with the COVID pandemic, excuse me, with everything we had to deal with,” Biden said, pausing. “We finally beat Medicare.”
Trump accused Biden of expressing himself incoherently, saying at one point: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said.”
“Biden doesn’t speak carefully and seems to be searching for words,” said Ray La Raja, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Before the debate, Biden limited himself to a nearly week-long “debate camp” with his top advisers at the presidential resort of Camp David in the mountains of western Maryland, an indication of how important his campaign was Thursday night. Critics said it had no impact on his performance.
“Trump is Trump, every word out of his mouth is bullshit. But Biden sounds old. And lost. And that’s going to matter more than anything else. So far, this is an absolute nightmare for Biden,” Joe Walsh, a former 2020 Republican presidential candidate who has been critical of Trump, said on X.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly. Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Jeff Mason. Editing by Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)
