It’s been exactly one year since Joe Biden threw down the gauntlet and challenged Donald Trump to a debate. What a difference a year makes.
At the time, the Biden campaign tried to spin it as a bold, calculated move: sidestepping the traditional Presidential Debates Commission, offering instead two debates on the candidates’ own terms. They wanted one in June and another in September. The left-wing media acted like this was a genius play. In reality, was the beginning of the end.
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Back then, Biden’s handlers insisted their candidate was sharp and ready to go. It was, to be honest, bizarre. Biden’s public appearances were dumpster fires. Even with the help of a teleprompter, he couldn’t seem to talk his way through a speech without humiliating himself, and when he went off script, it was like a train wreck you couldn’t look away from. Even his video challenge to Trump was bad.
Biden’s video challenge featured six jump cuts in just over 13 seconds. Why so many? Because even in that short of a clip, Biden couldn’t string together a coherent thought without needing a do-over. His handlers couldn’t trust him to speak clearly for half a minute but somehow expected the public to believe he could handle a 90-minute debate with Donald Trump.
The funniest thing to me at the time was how the Biden campaign acted like Trump didn’t want to debate Biden at all.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020,” Biden falsely claimed in the video. “Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”
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Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.
Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.
Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024
It was laughable then. It’s tragic in retrospect.
Trump, as expected, didn’t flinch. “I’m ready to go,” he told Fox News Digital, agreeing to the dates without hesitation. Trump had nothing to lose. Biden, on the other hand, had everything to lose — and did.
Then the June debate happened, and, of course, it was a disaster. Biden showed up looking tired, disoriented, and unprepared. The American people watched in stunned silence as the sitting president of the United States stumbled through basic answers, lost his train of thought, and froze more than once.
Related: Watch Hakeem Jeffries Squirm When Pressed on Biden Cover-Up
The media reaction was devastating. The man they’d been pretending was sharp as a tack has blown his own cover. Whatever illusions Democrats were clinging to about hiding Biden’s lack of fitness for office evaporated that night. The jig was up, and Democrats had a huge problem, with no good solution.
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The pressure campaign began almost immediately. Democratic donors panicked. Polls cratered. Editorial boards across the country suddenly admitted Biden’s decline was real. And just like that, the same party that mocked anyone who dared question Biden’s cognitive health scrambled to shove him aside.
The “debate challenge” wasn’t a display of strength. It was desperation dressed up as swagger. And one year later, it stands as a cautionary tale of hubris, media complicity, and a political party willing to gaslight an entire country rather than admit the obvious.
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