An ‘unmitigated disaster’: Local political experts weigh in on first Trump-Biden debate

U.S. President Joe Biden stumbled over his words repeatedly in his first presidential debate with former President Donald Trump leading up to the November election, and the Republican frontrunner responded to Biden’s verbal attacks with lies about his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection along with fibs about the economy.

The 90-minute debate drew anxiety from viewers around the world. People voiced concerns on the internet about the age of both presidential candidates, particularly that of 81-year-old Biden. Biden’s performance Thursday night sparked continued calls for the sitting president to step aside and leave room for a younger Democrat to represent the party in the presidential election.

After the debate, two separate Washington political science professors used the phrase “unmitigated disaster” when describing their reactions to Thursday night’s event, adding that responses by both candidates did next to nothing to inform viewers on each presidential contender’s policy platform.

“Biden was looking for this as an opportunity to shake up the race, and I think it was an unmitigated disaster from that perspective,” said James Long, a political science professor at the University of Washington. “I think Trump just needed to show up and kind of survive it … he sort of bombed at the end as well.”

The format of the debate was strange, Long added, noting that the lack of a live audience in the Atlanta studio appeared to be a disadvantage to both the candidates and the debate moderators.

“Jake Tapper and Dana Bash were exceptionally disappointing,” Long said. “I can’t think of debate moderators that have bombed and been that irrelevant to the conversation in a long time. I think maybe had they had a live audience, they would have been up to the job. After 90 minutes, the American people have absolutely learned nothing that will help them make a decision between these two men if they were previously undecided.”

Along with the lack of a live audience, the CNN-moderated debate strayed from the typical format by including two commercial breaks that featured campaign ads by both Trump and Biden. In previous election cycles, debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates did not include commercial breaks.

Trump, 78, and Biden spent some time during the debate quarreling over how far they can hit a golf ball and who has better stamina on the course. Trump mentioned trophies he’s won, and Biden claimed he’d been a “single-digit handicap.”

Both candidates were guilty of making misleading claims and falsehoods in Thursday night’s debate. Biden misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using bleach to address the COVID-19 pandemic, an analysis by the Associated Press found. And Trump falsely described the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol as a small number of people who were ushered in by police, and he misrepresented the strength of the economy during his four years in office.

Washington Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, said Thursday night that he thought Biden performed poorly in the debate and that Trump continues to have his support.

“I suppose to grade on a curve, Biden recovered a little bit through the course of the debate, but he stumbled out of a starting gate,” Walsh said. “And Trump was Trump.”

Both presidential candidates spent Thursday night’s debate reconfirming the biases and stereotypes voters already have about the candidates, said Patrick Schoettmer, a law professor at Seattle University. Schoettmer echoed Long’s description of the event being an “unmitigated disaster,” a phrase that repeatedly showed up in other reactions to the debate online.

“Biden came across frail but focused – he was able to talk about all the issues, but he didn’t dispel the questions about his age,” Schoettmer said. “He was able to talk about all the issues, but he didn’t dispel the questions and concerns people had about his age. Trump came across as much more robust, but he was rambling, dodged questions, and in general didn’t engage in anything with substance.”

Schoettmer added that he thinks it’s too early to assume reactions to this week’s debate will solidify any clear presidential winner come November, but that he didn’t believe the debate helped either campaign.