President Biden’s debate performance from last week has been one of the most heavily discussed topics in the news cycle. The president’s showing against former president Donald Trump appeared to corroborate many of the concerns raised by American voters throughout his term that he may not be cognitively fit to serve as the commander-in-chief.
In the aftermath of the debacle, Biden sat down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopolous, during which the controversial debate was discussed. However, the president expressed uncertainty over whether he had watched the debate. Subsequently, social media called out President Biden, questioning how he could possibly be uncertain as to whether he had watched the debate or not.
During the interview on ABC’s “World News Tonight” Stephanopolous questioned Biden if he understood the ramifications of his poor debate performance against his Republican challenger. “Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?” the host asked. Biden paused for a second and said, “I don’t think I did, no.” This clip of the interview quickly went viral, gaining substantial traction.
Fox News reported on a slew of conservative reactions to the segment. “Biden looks terrible and sounds terrible in the clip @ABC showed at 630… Oof. He doesn’t even remember if he watched the debate later. My god,” CNN contributor Scott Jennings said. “Biden still looked bad and sounded confused in the excerpt ABC aired. Maybe not quite as bad as 8 days ago, but definitely nothing there that says ‘I got this,’” journalist Josh Barro added.
“The debate was a week ago and he can’t remember if he watched a replay,” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine posted. “If Biden hasn’t seen the debate himself, how can he know exactly what other Dems and voters are seeing?” CBS News reporter Kathryn Watson questioned. “It was pretty memorable for those who watched,” FOX 11 LA anchor Elex Michaelson said. “He doesn’t know???” Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen exclaimed.
Biden ultimately maintained that he simply had a “bad night,” resulting in the lackluster performance on the debate stage. Stephanopolous continued probing Biden about his perception of his showing against Trump. “Well, what I want to get at is, what were you experiencing as you were going through debate. did you know how badly it was going?” the host asked. Biden responded, “Yeah, look, the whole way I prepared. nobody’s fault but mine, nobody’s fault but mine. I prepared, but I usually would do sitting down, as I did come back as foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail,” before the clip cut off.
In the aftermath of the first presidential debate, Democrats in the mainstream media seemingly retreated from attempting to defend Biden’s cognitive health from the onslaught of criticism from American voters. Many left-leaning media outlets began reporting that there were discussions in the Democratic Party to replace Biden. While the president may have concluded that his performance was the result of a “bad night,” such an explanation ignores the plethora of other incidents throughout his term that have demonstrated the same concerns. Watch the interview with Stephanopolous below:
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