Debate-watchers in the Biden and Trump camps seem to agree on something. Biden had a bad night

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By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — “Oh, Joe.”

That gasp, from patrons at a Chicago bar when President Joe Biden first stumbled verbally in his debate with Donald Trump, spoke for a lot of Americans on Thursday night.

In watch parties, bars, a bowling alley and other venues where people across the country gathered to tune in, Trump supporters, happily, and Biden supporters, in their angst if not dread, seemed to largely agree they had witnessed a lopsided showdown.

By the end of the 90-plus minutes, some Democrats were saying what partisans say to put the best face on things: It’s still early. One debate doesn’t necessarily sway the nation. Judge him by what he’s done and wants to do, not by how he says things.

But many were let down.

Biden “just didn’t have the spark that we needed tonight,” Rosemarie DeAngelus, a Democrat from South Portland, Maine, said from her watch party at Broadway Bowl. Trump, she said, showed “more spunk or more vigor” even if, in her view, he was telling a pack of lies.

Fellow Biden supporter and bowling alley attendee Lynn Miller, from nearby Old Orchard Beach, said: “It’s like somebody gave Trump an Adderall and I don’t think they gave Joe one.” (The drug is used for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.)

“I’ve never seen Trump seem so coherent,” Miller said. “And I hate to say this, but Joe seemed a little bit off. But I still support him over Trump because Trump lied about every single thing that happened.”

Trump supporters certainly agreed that the difference in energy and coherence between the candidates was striking. Wearing her red MAGA hat at a festive pro-Trump party in the Detroit suburb of Novi, Bonnie Call said of Biden: “He just cannot think on his feet at all. President Trump is just on.”

In McAllen, Texas, near the Mexico border, London’s Bar & Grill is normally loud on a day close to the weekend, but many patrons were quiet as they absorbed the debate from TV screens. Here, Biden supporters, Trump supporters and undecided voters mingled.

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Among them, Vance Gonzales, 40, a moderate Democrat, said the debate convinced him that “we need another Democratic candidate, to be honest, because this is not competitive.” He said of Biden: “He’s not on point with anything. I think it’s disappointing.”

Marco Perez, 53, voted for Biden in the last election and voiced frustration with what he was hearing and seeing. “I want to hear more facts, more action as opposed to more finger-pointing, more accusations or false accusations,” he said.

His friend Virginia Lopez, sitting with him, came away still not knowing whom she will support in November. She heard snappy but unsatisfying answers from the Republican. “Trump is just deflecting in all the answers and he’s just lying,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like a real debate.”

Biden? “I just feel like he’s too old,” she said.

Sitting up at the bar, Hector Mercado, 72, a veteran wearing a U.S. military beret, was a distinctive patron as he listened intently to the debate. Although he was a Democrat for several years, he switched parties under Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

Mercado heard Biden accuse Trump of making derogatory comments about veterans, but it didn’t sway his support for Trump. “Yeah, he said a few things bad about veterans at one point back in the early days,” he said of Trump. “But now he’s saying, ‘No, I back up the veterans and I never had any problems with him. I got a raise in my VA disability when Trump was president.”

Biden’s performance left him cold. “I think Trump is stronger,” he said, “and Biden is a little weak.”

In a Tijuana migrant shelter over the border in Mexico, people mainly from southern Mexico who are hoping to apply for asylum in the U.S. watched the debate in folding chairs in front of a screen on the wall.

The migrants, most of whom have been waiting for months for their appointments in that process, stared blankly at the screen as a Spanish-translated version of the debate played on. They watched an American democratic ritual in motion.

Andrea, who did not give her last name due to threats of violence back home, has lived at the shelter for nine months. Her debate takeaway: “Well, I feel that the people of the United States don’t love Mexicans now.”

At Hula Hula, a tiki bar in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, patrons cheered wildly as their city got a mention from Trump — even if it came up when the Republican was complaining about lawlessness. Biden supporter Amy Pottinger of Seattle said the Democratic president did best when Trump made him angry.

“Once he started talking about Roe v. Wade, it was like Biden woke up and was here,” she said.

At the same Chicago bar where patrons exclaimed about Biden’s stumbles — the M Lounge in the South Loop — the president scored with this zinger to Trump: “You have the morals of an alley cat.”

“Whoa!” the viewers there said.

But at a Democratic watch party in downtown Atlanta, it was a night of jitters.

“I’m so nervous, I feel like my kid is going onstage,” Georgia state Sen. Nikki Merritt said early on, patting her stomach as if she had butterflies.

Technicians struggled with sound and video. During one outage, the crowd chanted “Let’s Go Joe!”

“I want to hear Joe Biden talking to the voters and ignoring the crazy man in the room,” said Matthew Wilson, the Georgia Democratic Party’s vice chairman.

But there was no ignoring the man they called crazy.

Associated Press journalists Charlie Arbogast in Chicago; Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Gregory Bull in Tijuana, Mexico; Mike Householder in Detroit; Robert Bukaty in South Portland, Maine; Mike Pesoli in Washington, D.C.; and Lindsey Wasson in Seattle contributed to this report.

Nolan Finley: Biden lost more than the debate to a predictable Trump

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The energetic, focused Joe Biden who showed up at the State of the Union address in March to push back against depictions of him as a doddering old man was not the Joe Biden who walked on to the debate stage in Atlanta Thursday night hoping to again reassure voters he has the acuity and endurance to serve four more years as president.

Instead, what Americans saw was a weak and struggling old man.

Biden, who spent a full week prepping for the face-off, could barely raise his voice above a raspy whisper, a sharp contrast to the high-volume anger he brought to the March address.

His strategy was to attack former President Donald Trump nonstop, but he lacked the vigor and vehemence to pull it off. He could barely muster an effective sneer, and too often, the camera caught him with his mouth hanging open. He was not nimble enough to pivot from the talking points that had been drilled into his head to exploit the many opportunities Trump gave him to deliver a haymaker.

Given the chance to present his vision on the critical issues that will decide this election and reassure the country that he is still in command, Biden fumbled and mumbled through repeated rehearsed insults and accusations aimed at his opponent.

Had anyone but Trump been next to him on the Atlanta stage, this reelection campaign would be over for Biden. Democrats would be scrambling to find a replacement before they get to their August convention in Chicago. But Trump was Trump. He was no more prepared for this debate than he was four years ago when he met Biden for the first face-off of the 2020 election and got pummelled. He was lucky Biden was in no shape to pummel anyone.

When he had a chance to defend his record on issues such as immigration and the economy, Trump defaulted to his usual hyperbole and egomania. Think along the lines of, “When I pass gas, everyone says it’s the greatest thing they’ve ever smelled.” It was that absurd.

Trump could have scored with solid facts about his accomplishments and Biden’s failures; instead, he rambled. He missed the opportunity to look more presidential than the feeble incumbent.

The nation was failed by this debacle. There were so many distortions and outright lies coming from that stage fact-checkers might as well give five pinocchios to the entire performance. It was unquestionably the worst debate in presidential history. It was a long night of “I’m the best, he’s the worst” “No he’s the worst, I’m the best” and little else.

In typical geezer fashion, they even sparred over their golf handicap. That must have the Russians shaking in their boots.

The entire 90 minutes were spent convincing voters that these two men are unfit for office. It worked.

It’s no wonder 25% of Americans say they won’t vote for either one and three-quarters wished they had another choice.

But everyone knew who Trump was coming into the debate. He didn’t disappoint. The big question was whether Biden could rise to the moment. He didn’t. To steal a phrase Biden used incessantly, “the idea” that Joe Biden can do this very hard job for another four years is preposterous.

Trump didn’t win the debate, but Biden lost it.

Nolan Finley writes a column for the Detroit News.

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Thomas Friedman: Joe Biden is a good man and good president. He must bow out of the race.

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I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon, Portugal, hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime, precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for reelection. And Donald Trump, a malicious man and a petty president, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He is the same firehose of lies he always was, obsessed with his grievances — nowhere close to what it will take for America to lead in the 21st century.

The Biden family and political team must gather quickly and have the hardest of conversations with the president, a conversation of love and clarity and resolve. To give America the greatest shot possible of deterring the Trump threat in November, the president has to come forward and declare that he will not be running for reelection and is releasing all of his delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

The Republican Party — if its leaders had an ounce of integrity — would demand the same, but it won’t, because they don’t. That makes it all the more important that Democrats put the country’s interests first and announce that a public process will begin for different Democratic candidates to compete for the nomination — town halls, debates, meetings with donors, you name it. Yes, it could be chaotic and messy when the Democratic convention starts on Aug. 19 in Chicago, but I think the Trump threat is sufficiently grave that delegates could quickly rally around and nominate a consensus candidate.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wants to compete, she should. But voters deserve an open process in search of a Democratic presidential nominee who can unite not only the party but also the country, by offering something neither man on that Atlanta stage did Thursday night: a compelling description of where the world is right now and a compelling vision for what America can and must do to keep leading it — morally, economically and diplomatically.

Because this is no ordinary hinge of history we are at. We are at the start of the biggest technological disruptions and the biggest climate disruption in human history. We are at the dawn of an artificial intelligence revolution that is going to change EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE — how we work, how we learn, how we teach, how we trade, how we invent, how we collaborate, how we fight wars, how we commit crimes and how we fight crimes. Maybe I missed it, but I did not hear the phrase “artificial intelligence” mentioned by either man at the debate.

If there was ever a time that the world needs an America at its best, led by its best, it is now — for great dangers and opportunities are now upon us. A younger Joe Biden could have been that leader, but time has finally caught up with him. And that was painfully and inescapably obvious Thursday.

Biden has been a friend of mine since we traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan together after 9/11, when he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so I say all of the above with great sadness.

But if he caps his presidency now, by acknowledging that because of age he is not up to a second term, his first and only term will be remembered as among the better presidencies in our history. He saved us from a second Trump term and for that alone he deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but he also enacted important legislation crucial to confronting the climate and technology revolutions now upon us.

I had been ready to give Biden the benefit of the doubt up to now, because during the times I engaged with him one on one, I found him up to the job. He clearly is not any longer. His family and his staff had to have known that. They have been holed up at Camp David preparing for this momentous debate for days now. If that is the best performance they could summon from him, it’s time for him to keep the dignity he deserves and leave the stage at the end of this term.

If he does, everyday Americans will hail Joe Biden for doing what Donald Trump would never do — put the country before himself.

If he insists on running and he loses to Trump, Biden and his family — and his staff and party members who enabled him — will not be able to show their faces.

They deserve better. America needs better. The world needs better.

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.

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Opinion: NYC’s Budget Must Include Immigrants for the Success of Our City

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“With legal services to obtain work authorizations, language access so they can navigate our government bureaucracy, childcare so they can go to work, and education so their kids can get on the pathway to future success, immigrant families will be able to contribute even more to our city.”

Jeff Reed/NYC Council

Advocates and elected officials at a rally for immigrant New Yorkers in 2018.

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

It’s been almost two years since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott started sending asylum seekers on buses to New York City. Since that time, New York has welcomed and integrated thousands of new arrivals—people seeking safety and opportunity, ready and willing to work.

It’s not easy to adjust to a new city, especially when Mayor Eric Adams continues to scapegoat immigrants for ills that they had no hand in creating. He even went so far as to claim that recent immigrants will “destroy our city.” That statement has not—and will not—become our reality. We know from previous generations that our newest neighbors have so much to offer to revitalize New York’s economy and culture.

Think about the massive economic contributions that immigrants already make here. Almost a third of all businesses in New York are owned by immigrants. Can anyone imagine a New York City without our rich culture of bodegas and neighborhood restaurants? With nearly 3 million immigrants in our workforce, immigrant New Yorkers contribute over $68 billion in taxes— which help pay for our schools, hospitals and roadways—and have a spending power of over $153 billion. 

Now, think about how we can support immigrant New Yorkers to multiply these contributions. With legal services to obtain work authorizations, language access so they can navigate our government bureaucracy, childcare so they can go to work, and education so their kids can get on the pathway to future success, immigrant families will be able to contribute even more to our city.

Navigating our country’s immigration system is complicated. Without access to a lawyer, it can be a near-impossible task for newcomers to apply for asylum and Temporary Protective Status and receive their work authorizations. An unprecedented half of all New York City immigration cases had no legal representation in 2022 and 2023. By investing $109 million in immigration legal services, recent arrivals can begin working the jobs that our city desperately needs filled and longtime New Yorkers can get the help they need to manage immigration status changes or other issues. With over 150,000 people moving out of the five boroughs and the State Department of Labor identifying nearly 50,000 jobs available specifically to asylum seekers, it is clear this investment would be a huge benefit to New York. 

All families need a safe place to leave their kids while they work. The Promise NYC program has been successful in providing childcare for immigrant New Yorkers, but there is more work to be done to expand its reach. For instance, we’ve heard from some families that selling candy in the subways is their only feasible option because they need to watch their kids while they’re working. By investing $25 million in Promise NYC, we can ensure that more families have a safe and affordable place for their young children to go while their parents work. For school-age kids, investing $800,000 for the First Step and Project Soaring programs to support English Language Learners will mean the difference between thriving at school, or fumbling through classes not catered to their needs.

Many of the programs New York City has in place to support low-income New Yorkers are inaccessible to people who speak little or no English. We have already seen amazing success in the city’s recent investments in language access, in which expert community translators who speak a range of Latin America, Asian and African languages are able to help make sure all New Yorkers can receive information from city agencies. We must invest $5 million in language access to continue this vital work and ensure that government services and information continue to be accessible to all New Yorkers.

New York City must build an infrastructure for the success of all families, no matter how long they’ve been here or how much money they make. If the city makes investments now, all New Yorkers will have the basic building blocks they need to begin contributing to our city’s economy. Immigrants have long been the defining characteristic of New York City—tourists come here to experience cultures from around the world and sample the restaurants, theater, and concerts that have been shaped by the contributions of immigrant New Yorkers. 

We call on the mayor and New York City Council to recognize this fact by investing in the future success of our city and our immigrant neighbors. As our elected leaders hash out next year’s budget with the mayor, the City Council must continue to fight for a New York where all families can thrive.

Murad Awawdeh is the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition.