Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump (L) looks at U.S. President Joe Biden during the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. President Biden and former President Trump are facing off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON — The United States has been on a political rollercoaster over the past week after President Joe Biden’s debate performance threw his race against Donald Trump — at least for now — into tumult.
Last Thursday night, millions of Americans tuned in to the first televised debate of the 2024 campaign, with Biden and Trump going head-to-head without an audience at CNN studios in Atlanta.
For Biden, it was meant to be a prime opportunity to reassure voters that at 81 years old, he could still execute a vigorous campaign against Trump, who himself was facing political problems over his criminal conviction.
READ: A raspy Biden tries at debate to confront Trump, who responds with falsehoods
The president had spent a week holed up at Camp David, the presidential retreat, with advisers to prepare for the debate.
But on stage, he appeared flustered and fatigued, frequently mixing up his words and losing his train of thought.
Trump meanwhile presented his usual self-confidence, while laying out a string of falsehoods.
READ: VP Harris on Biden’s debate performance: slow start, strong finish
No sooner had the debate ended than a torrent of panicked messages from anonymous Democrats spread through the press, with some commentators publicly urging the president to step aside.
Dam breaks
Biden attended a campaign rally the next day and, in a scripted speech, admitted he doesn’t “speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.”
“But I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job,” he added to cheers.
But some wealthy Democratic Party donors were unconvinced, worried about the president’s ability to perform not only through November, but another four-year term.
Some demanded on social media that Biden produce concrete proof of his vitality — which the White House has repeatedly defended — through more unscripted public engagements.
After fundraisers in New York and New Jersey, Biden returned to Camp David for a pre-planned family gathering, hoping the storm would pass.
But the first dam broke on Tuesday.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, still an influential leader in her party, said it was “legitimate” to question his health.
The first elected Democrat, Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas, called on the president to abandon his bid for a second term, urging him not to “deliver us to Trump in 2024.”
A second House member followed suit a day later, while a handful of others expressed, for the first time publicly, strong reservations about their flag-bearer’s age.
Bombarded by reporters’ questions, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre tried on Tuesday and again on Wednesday to tamp down the flames, pointing to “a cold” and “jet lag” from international travel to justify her boss’s poor performance.
On Wednesday, Biden told staff working on his reelection bid that he’s “in this race to the end and we’re going to win,” according to a source close to the campaign.
He also won the backing of Democratic governors, who gathered for an emergency meeting at the White House with Biden.
“We said that we would stand with him,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore said afterward.
Trump glee
The storm clouds over Biden have largely averted attention from Donald Trump’s judicial saga, despite the Republican facing a possible prison sentence for his New York criminal conviction related to hush money payments in 2016 to a porn star.
READ: Who could replace Biden if he withdraws from race?
For the past seven days, Washington has been buzzing with rumors about a possible switch-up on the top of the Democratic ticket.
On social networks and at social gatherings, everyone is theorizing about who, if anyone, could replace the president at a moment’s notice: Vice President Kamala Harris, or maybe a prominent governor?
Trump’s campaign is reveling in the “total collapse of the Democrat Party,” as one press release said.
It’s also raving after the Supreme Court on Monday handed Trump a partial victory on his claims of presidential immunity, with one immediate consequence being the delay of his sentencing in New York by several months.
“If I’m the Trump campaign, I’m watching this Democratic show and just eating popcorn, thinking this is great, I don’t have to defend my boss who’s indicted for paying off a porn star,” Peter Loge, a political scientist at George Washington University, told AFP.
Trump, who was expected to announce the name of his vice presidential pick at any minute, has stayed relatively silent throughout the Democratic disarray.