Did a cold cause Biden’s nonsense? Trump won debate, but mostly, it made America sick | Opinion

Joe Biden and Donald Trump left lots of questions unanswered Thursday and opened more.

For example, who turned off Biden’s mind before he finished his answers?

And what was Trump talking about when he said immigrants are taking “Black jobs” or “Hispanic jobs” or that when he was president, “We had H2O”?

America woke up Friday with many more questions, mainly whether one of two men born during or right after World War II should be in office until 2029.

For most of the night, this rare midsummer debate was like a bull in a china shop against a deer in the headlights.

Trump started calm. Then he reverted to his old rambling mess.

But this was a much smaller audience than for a typical presidential debate.

For CNN and its shrinking news audience, “it was a horror show,” wrote Aaron Chimbel, a former TCU professor who now leads the journalism school at St. Bonaventure University in New York.

“Behind a slick and modern production was a debate that was awful for the American people,” he wrote by email.

The debate left deep concern about Biden. And Trump was Trump.

Moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper asked questions about the future, but the candidates “just wanted to talk about the past,” Chimbel wrote. “It was a success in that it happened and that it ended.”

It would have been a great night for a power outage.

Trump fans can be thrilled at the former president’s performance. At first, he stayed focused and destroyed the Democratic portrait of a dangerous madman.

But by the end of the night, he was ranting and repeating wild exaggerations like an eccentric uncle. He shouted over and over that foreigners are “destroying America.” But he also bragged that he just won two club golf tournaments.

“ ‘Articulate’ is not a word I would apply to either of these candidates,” wrote Amorette Hinderaker, an associate professor at TCU and director of the speech and debate team.

“As communicators, both were defensive, and one in particular looked weak. ... Both spent their 90 minutes addressing their opponent. Neither spoke to the millions of voters watching.”

Biden had to defend the status quo, she wrote. Trump had to say what he will do better.

“As a debate coach, I don’t believe either was particularly strong,” she wrote.

But debate coaches won’t settle Democrats’ new questions.

Supposedly, Biden came down with a common cold.

Somehow, that kept him from making sense — and that’s what will remain a focus, maybe onto the party convention floor Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.

“The key result of this first debate is the feeding frenzy of the Democrats in their massive internal fear of Biden’s miserable performance,” wrote Weatherford College professor Darrell Castillo, once a White House staffer under President Ronald Reagan.

In an overlooked part of the debate, Castillo agreed with Trump blaming Biden for mishandling both Ukraine and the Middle East and for giving China too much room.

University of Texas political scientist Eric McDaniel wrote: “This is what happens when people focus on personalities instead of policy.”

Biden did nothing to ease concerns, he wrote. But the debate overall was a “pitiful representation of democracy.”

University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus called the debate “messy.”

Trump was sharper and more personable, he wrote. Biden made points on jobs and abortion.

But it was June 27.

It’s not even July 4 yet.

“Most debates don’t matter, and this won’t be that much different,” he wrote.

This one made viewers sick.

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