Joe Biden Sets All the Rules in the 2024 Presidential Debate — and Still Gets Beaten by Donald Trump

It was a terrible night.

Donald Trump is an aspiring dictator, a liar, a bigot, a criminal—not to mention a fool. His presidency has been an unmitigated disaster. But most people knew that going into Thursday night’s debate. The question of the evening was whether President Joe Biden could overcome the lingering concerns that have clouded his campaign: poor poll numbers, divisions within the party, and of course his age and health.

Unfortunately, that last part was the story of Thursday night. Biden struggled. His voice was hoarse. He struggled to make an impression. Trump lied and lied and lied, spewing bullshit and bullshit and more bullshit—but Biden couldn’t seem to block the attacks, let alone make any haymakers of his own. The closest he came? “You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden said as he ticked off some of Trump’s civil and legal woes, including the 34 felonies for which he was recently convicted.

But by then, the damage had been done. Trump was as dishonest and menacing as ever—and looked like he was 78, under the heavy makeup and weird braids. But he came out of the gate with more energy than Biden, and that energy overwhelmed the 81-year-old president’s attempts to bring him back to reality. “I don’t really know what he said,” Trump said after an attack on Biden. “I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Biden was able to fend off such criticism when the two met on the debate stage four years ago. “Will you shut up, buddy?” an exasperated Biden asked at the time, en route to a 2020 victory that ended Trump’s chaotic four years in office and brought about key policy changes on several fronts.

But this time, the president has difficulty taking that positive stance for his presidency, and one can imagine many people representing him – from the Vice President. Kamala Harris from above—could do better. Biden reportedly had a cold during the proceedings, which explains the hoarseness in his voice. But plenty of Democrats will criticize Trump when the former president claims, for example, that “we have H20, the best numbers ever” in a typically inane response to a question about climate change. Biden found himself in litigation over Trump’s height and was cut off “by the way…” after violating the rules his own campaign had put in place.

The mic cutoff and lack of a crowd were supposed to allow Biden to focus on substance, keeping Trump from being overwhelmed, as well as the former president’s preferred debate style. But he still let Trump crush him, sidetracked by the debate over how many presidential historians rank his predecessor as the worst of all time. “Look it up, go online,” Biden said. “159, 158—I don’t know the exact number—presidential historians, they met and voted. ‘Who is the worst president in American history?’ From best to worst. They say he’s the worst person in the entire history of the United States.”