It’s Not Too Late. Biden Should Step Aside.

Sifting through the wreckage of a historic trainwreck debate.

Well, guess we’d better talk about last night! Happy Friday.

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(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images.)

Four More Years?

Much of the commentary on last night’s disastrous debate has focused, quite reasonably, on the next four months and the question of whether Joe Biden can defeat Donald Trump.

The answer: probably not.

Yet it is critical that Donald Trump be defeated. And so there are calls—compelling calls, in my view—for Joe Biden to step aside.

But let’s be honest: Last night provided ample cause for concern, not just about the next four months, but about the next four years. Even were Biden to prove the doubters wrong and and defeat Trump again, it is difficult, after last night, to answer with conviction the obvious question, perhaps the most important one:

Is he up to the task of serving another full term as president?

Those of us who were enthusiastic 2020 Biden voters—as I was—have to ask ourselves this question.

Those of us among the 40 percent of Americans who approve of Joe Biden’s job performance so far—as I do—have to ask ourselves this question.

Those of us who believe the country owes Joe Biden a debt of gratitude, not just for defeating Trump in 2020 but for governing responsibly since then, have to ask ourselves this question.

And if the answer is that Joe Biden is not up to it, we have to be willing to say the difficult truth: We owe Joe Biden a debt of gratitude, but we do not owe him four more years.

How can we make the case to our fellow citizens for four more years if Joe Biden can’t make the case for four more years himself?

Of course we can and will make the case against Trump. But it’s hard to make the case against Trump without making the case, with some degree of conviction and credibility, for his opponent.

Biden deprived us of that last night.

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For Never Trumpers this is particularly tricky. 

How many times have we used this Orwell quotation against Trump, his apologists, and his enablers: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”?

We’ve been right to do so. As we saw and heard again last night, Donald Trump is a liar and demagogue. He is also an aspiring authoritarian. He is a dangerous and contemptible figure. He should never again be president.

But how can we deny the evidence of our eyes and ears when it comes to Joe Biden?

The evidence of our eyes and ears is that Biden should step aside.

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We will be accused of being handwringers. But it is not we who are wringing our hands in private while putting on a good front in public.

We will be accused of urging a risky course. But surely the greater risk is trying to persuade our fellow citizens to pretend all is well. A messy and unpredictable open Democratic convention would be risky. But that risk is better than an orderly march to a neat and predictable defeat.

We will be accused of being unrealistic. We will be told there’s no way Joe Biden will step aside. That will be the excuse of senior statesmen and prominent Democrats for not making a serious effort to persuade him to do so. But their “realism” is merely a cloak for fatalism and defeatism. It’s a form of apathy in the face of a crucial task. 

“Country First” is the motto that many of us opposed to Donald Trump have embraced. It’s not too much to ask of President Biden. 

—William Kristol

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Kamala’s Cleanup

After the candidates had left the stage last night and CNN’s in-house panel had offered their dazed analysis from the wreckage, CNN cut to an interview with Biden’s surrogate-in-chief: Vice President Kamala Harris. She didn’t have an easy job. 

“CNN’s John King has described panic in the Democratic party right now because of President Biden’s performance in tonight’s debate,” Anderson Cooper began. “Some within your own party are wondering if President Biden should even step aside. What do you say to that?”

Harris took a heroic swing at the question:

Listen—first of all, what we saw tonight is the president making a very clear contrast with Donald Trump on all the issues that matter to the American people. Yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong finish. . . . People can debate on style points. But ultimately this election and who is the president of the United States has to be about substance. And the contrast is clear. 

She then pivoted to hitting Trump’s performance: 

Look at what happened during the course of the debate. Donald Trump lied over and over and over again, as he is wont to do. He would not disavow what happened on January 6th. He would not give a clear answer on whether he would stand by the election results this November. He went back and forth about where he stands on one of the most critical issues of freedom in America, which is the right of women to make decisions about their own body. He has been completely ambiguous and all over the place about where he stands on that issue despite the fact that he hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade and that’s exactly what they did.

And she offered a loyal defense of Biden’s cognitive capabilities in the face of Cooper’s naked disbelief. 

“This was a debate that your campaign wanted,” Cooper said. “You pushed for this debate at this moment. I mean, you can’t honestly say—I mean, can you say that you are not concerned at all having watched the president’s performance tonight?”

“It was a slow start, that’s obvious to everyone,” Harris replied. “I’m not gonna debate that point. I’m talking about the choice in November.”

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Just two quick points on this.

First: It sure isn’t great when your sharpest advocate’s best defense of your debate performance boils down to “Yeah, it was a bad night, but . . .”

Second, look at how Harris talks about the issues here. Read her attack on Trump over abortion again. Here’s how Biden made that case on stage last night: 

The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe when it was decided. Supported Roe. And that was—that’s—this idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous. And this is the guy who says that states should be able to have it—we’re in a state where in six weeks, you don’t even know whether you’re pregnant or not, but you cannot see a doctor and have him decide on what your circumstances are, whether you need help. The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying we’re gonna turn civil rights back to the states. Let each state have a different rule. Look, there’s so many young women who have been—including a young women who just was murdered. And he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by an immigrant coming in. They talk about that. Here’s the deal. There’s a lot of young women being raped by their, by their in-laws. By their, by their spouses. Brothers and sisters. By—it’s just ridiculous. They can do nothing about it. And then they try to arrest them when they cross state lines.

For years now, the most common response to “Why doesn’t Joe step aside?” has been “for whom—Harris?” The basic premise of that question is that Harris is as unpopular a pol as Biden, if not more so. And a major supposed reason for that is Harris’s supposed poor rhetorical skills. 

But you tell me: Which of the two would’ve done a better job taking the fight to Trump last night?

—Andrew Egger

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Quick Hits

We’ve already got a few more assessments from around the Bulwark family up at the site today. 

Tim writes that “it is our obligation to be as forthright as possible about the threat a second Trump term poses, what we think is the best way to stop it, and when we think the current approach isn’t working”: 

Joe Biden needs to talk with his family.

And he needs to come out of that conversation either with a plan to pass the torch to a new generation or an unwavering commitment to change course.

Here’s what changing course looks like. He must summon an energy and a spirit and a forward-looking message that was absent in Atlanta. He must be committed to never letting what happened on Thursday night happen again—never putting on the kind of mumbling, robotic, incoherent performance that the whole world witnessed.

He must show that he is willing to do everything in his power to win this election. Go out and campaign among real Americans. Demonstrate that he has the vigor and will to earn their trust. He must take the fight to Donald Trump clearly and directly in interviews and on the stump. And he’s going to have to do so in the belly of the beast—on Fox News and in MAGA America to show that he is up for it.

Only he and Jill know whether he is capable of doing that.

The stakes require that they are honest with us about it. And that starts with President Biden being honest with himself.

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Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger writes that Biden still has his vote—but wonders whether others will reach the same conclusion: 

Biden missed so many opportunities to nail Trump to the wall—for January 6th, his disdain for democracy, and his insane foreign policy. Trump lied over and over, convincingly, and was met with silence—or, at one point, a polite and demure “Thank you” from moderator Jake Tapper.

Biden’s open-mouthed, confused look was not helpful. Listening to the two men, Biden sounded much older (his campaign announced that he had a cold). Looking at the two candidates reinforced the impression. At a time when literal democracy is at risk, the Democrats need to have a family meeting about the best way to defend this country, and what part Biden plays in that vital effort.

One of the advantages to Democrats of scheduling this debate historically early in the campaign cycle is that it gives their delegates time to take up the difficult question of whether to consider a different nominee in August, and who that might be. That is, after all, what the party conventions are nominally for, and almost anyone they’re likely to pick would be a better choice than Trump.

I still plan to vote for Biden. I endorsed him because of his character and his commitment to America’s enduring values—values that Trump has not only never shared, but finds incomprehensible and hateful. Nothing about Biden’s performance in the debate negated my reasons for voting for him.

But I’m concerned that others may have reached a different conclusion.

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And Nicholas Grossman writes that “this was the first presidential debate I’ve watched where I came away thinking neither candidate could hold an in-depth discussion of today’s important issues”:

Both got in some prepared talking points, but often jumped from one to another without really connecting them. I follow politics closely enough to pick up on the poorly articulated references to policy arguments, but I don’t know if anyone tuning in to the 2024 election for the first time could’ve come away with improved understanding. Someone else would have to explain what they meant. . . .

The American president is often treated like a cross between an elected emperor and the main character of a grand story, singlehandedly responsible for everything, but that’s not how it actually works. Voters pick administrations and policy programs, not really individuals. And this time, we’re choosing between historically different directions for the country. . . .

The pre-debate political wisdom said Biden needed to show voters who are undecided, unenthusiastic, and wavering that he is on top of things, in command, energetic—all ways of saying “not too old for the job.” In the State of the Union this January, he succeeded. In last night’s debate, he colossally failed.