Joe Biden's disastrous debate blamed on bad preparation, exhaustion

Joe Biden speaks at the grand opening ceremony for the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center. Picture: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

US president Joe Biden's train-wreck debate with Republican opponent Donald Trump followed a series of decisions by his most senior advisers that critics now point to as wrong-headed, interviews with Democratic allies, donors and former and current aides show.

Mr Trump, 78, repeated a series of well-worn, glaring falsehoods during the 90-minute debate on Thursday, including claims that he actually won the 2020 election.

Mr Biden, 81, failed to refute them and his fumbling, halting performance has sparked calls from Democrats for him to end his quest for a second term and for "soul-searching" or resignations among top aides.

"My only request was make sure he's rested before the debate, but he was exhausted. He was unwell," said one person who said they appealed to Biden's top aides in the days before, to no avail. 

What a bad decision to send him out looking sick and exhausted.

Others were even more pointed.

"It is my belief that he was over-coached, over-practiced. And I believe [senior aide] Anita Dunn... put him in a venue that was conducive for Trump and not for him,” said John Morgan, a Florida-based attorney and major Biden fundraiser.

Mr Morgan said Ms Dunn and her husband, Bob Bauer, the president’s attorney who played Mr Trump in pre-debate rehearsals, should "be fired forever and never let back anywhere near the campaign."

Biden's debate strategy was signed off on by campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, who helped him win in 2020 and was appointed in January to boost an uneven reelection campaign. 

Ms Dunn, a longtime Biden aide and former Barack Obama campaign strategist, backed that strategy.

Critics say now that the preparation should have focused on the bigger vision he needs to sell to the country, and that Biden had insufficient rest headed into the debate.

Run down, Mr Biden would also catch a small cold, White House aides said, as he has regularly during his term after long stretches of time zone-bending work

The result, critics say, was candidate Biden at his worst: He appeared on stage with his face wan, his hair straggly at his collar and his voice hoarse. He was frequently incoherent.

"I've never seen him perform that way before," said Michael LaRosa, former special assistant to Mr Biden and press secretary for first lady Jill Biden.

"He can run circles around most people on matters of complex policy," LaRosa said. 

"This was always going to be a matter of presentation and cosmetics, and superficial judgments that were going to be made about his performance. And he wasn't able to clear the bar."

Earlier this year, some Biden aides discussed whether he should debate at all, arguing that it could give Mr Trump a broad public platform that would disadvantage him.

Then in an April interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Mr Biden delivered a decision on debating Trump that was a surprise to some advisers. "I am, somewhere," he said.

The triumphant memory of his State of the Union address in March fresh in their minds, his team geared up to debate but took radical steps to control the terms.

They decided to reject three long-scheduled presidential debates in September and October organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, still smarting over the group's handling of the 2020 debates.

Mr Trump repeatedly violated the rules of what would be a chaotic first debate in 2020, showing up despite having tested positive for covid and talking over Mr Biden relentlessly.

His team tried to set the contest on their own terms, with what they saw as a more pliant host in CNN. 

No audience cheering Trump's invective. Networks and moderators inclined to challenge Trump. No Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A mute button.

The day after the debate, Mr Biden bounced back with a forceful speech in North Carolina, and a pledge to keep going. Many donors and Democrats are rallying around him.

But the damage has been done.