The debate on Thursday between the president Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump was full of surprises, revelations and disappointments.
The first, most important revelation: It only took 10 minutes to realize that Biden is not fit to be commander in chief for another term.
With a gravelly, soft voice, Biden struggled to speak in coherent sentences. As I predicted in a column published before the debate, he was incoherent. Often he babbled, mumbled and misspoke (“We finally beat Medicare,” he said at one point). In fact, the most articulate part of the debate was when the two men argued about their golf handicaps. Unreal.
Biden is not qualified to be president
Biden’s disastrous performance immediately raised questions about his well-being. By contrast, even if you don’t like Trump — and I’m a Republican who doesn’t — anyone with eyes and ears could see and hear that he was at least energetic and able to get his point across.
Yes, he lied. So did Biden. Both men running for president gave dishonest answers to the American public. Unfortunately, we may have even worse problems to deal with right now.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted on X that he plans to introduce a resolution calling on the government to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare that the president “is unable to successfully discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Who won the debate? Biden has nothing to do with the presidency. The debate proved it.
On Friday, The New York Times, a bastion of liberal opinion, published not one, not two, but multiple columns from progressives, including Frank Bruni, Thomas Friedman, Michelle Goldberg and Nicholas Kristof, expressing disappointment in Biden’s performance. Multiple writers said Biden should withdraw.
Biden’s inner circle in his administration must have been aware of the president’s physical and mental decline. It’s clear he’s struggling, and has been for months. Video footage shot in the CNN studio after the debate and posted to Politico and other news sites shows First Lady Jill Biden escorting the seemingly bewildered, elderly president off the stage in the same way a gentle mother might help a toddler up a flight of stairs.
As I said before, people get older. Biden is 81. I’ll be lucky to be that age if I know what I did a week ago. But I’m not running for president, and Biden’s mental and physical health clearly disqualifies him from this important role. He’s running for president of the United States, not world’s greatest grandpa.
Americans deserve answers to their questions
Biden’s poor performance raises important questions about the integrity of the Democratic Party and its inner circle, and the consequences for our country’s future of their decision to hide Biden’s condition from the American people.
Republicans have been raising concerns about Biden’s well-being since at least 2022. Yet conservatives’ questions have been met with indifference, contempt and smears. The Biden administration even told concerned observers that Trump campaign videos showing Biden’s poor cognitive abilities were “cheap fakes.”
Even now, the White House claims Biden simply had a cold night on Thursday night.
The Democratic Party must think Americans are stupid.
So I have questions for Democratic leaders and for journalists who regularly cover the White House: When did you first know that Biden was in decline? Why didn’t you say anything? Why wait to acknowledge the truth until it is clear to the whole world? Who makes the day-to-day decisions for the executive branch and for our nation in the place of a president who has difficulty walking and speaking?
Will Democrats Replace Biden? These governors are strong options to defeat Trump.
Is this why the debate was held in late June, months before most presidential debates take place? When Mitt Romney ran against Barack Obama in 2012, the first debate took place in the fall. Same with the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The same applies again to the first Biden-Trump debate in 2020.
Americans deserve answers.
It now seems clear that the Democratic Party leadership lied to the American people, and to members of their own party who could have chosen an alternative candidate during the primaries. They told Americans to doubt what they saw and heard with their own eyes and ears. They gaslighted Americans and told them Biden was fine when people started asking questions. Democratic leaders must have known long before the debate that Biden was in cognitive decline and chose not to tell us. They should be held accountable for their lies.
Even the timing of liberal columnists calling on Biden to resign raises cynical questions: It’s rare that liberals would say something like that about their nominee, let alone all at once. After Republicans spent months questioning Biden’s competency, only to be brushed off or told we were too mean, are prominent left-wingers in the news media now simultaneously suggesting that he is unfit and should even resign after a 90-minute debate performance?
It’s not brave to call on Biden to resign the day after the debate when everyone else is doing so if you suspected six months ago that he was unfit for the presidency. That’s not courage, that’s complacency. Some would even call it a cover-up.
For Democrats who flippantly suggest, “Well, at least our nominee isn’t a convicted felon.” We know. I don’t like that fact either. But at least we do know Trump is a convicted felon and a delusional narcissist. At this point, everything related to Trump’s character flaws appears to be a diversionary technique to avoid accountability for foisting America on a nominee who can’t walk down the stairs alone.
America’s future is at stake
Americans have a choice about who governs our country. It is a beautiful but heavy responsibility that we all bear. We are not a monarchy or a dictatorship that must tolerate an aging, ailing leader. We can choose differently. We can demand better.
But party leaders also play an important role. How will the Democrats find a replacement? How can an alternate candidate organize a national campaign just four months before the election? Would dropping the Biden campaign this late in the game essentially forfeit Trump’s election? Is this all too late?
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If Americans want to elect Trump, that is their prerogative. But they should not do so because he is the lesser of two terrible candidates. They should not do so because the other cannot make a coherent sentence.
Americans deserve better.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist at USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four children. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it in your inbox.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is Biden fit to be president? Debate exposed voters to the truth
