President Joe Biden stumbled over his words and trailed off before he was cut by CNN anchor Jake Tapper during a rocky moment at the start of Thursday’s debate—as his age and mental acuity are being closely scrutinized amid concerns he is too old to serve as president.
Biden, speaking with a hoarse voice throughout the debate, became unintelligible at the tail end of his answer to a question about the national debt.
“We’d be able to wipe out” debt accumulated during Trump’s presidency, Biden said while speaking about his tax plans, before trailing off: “Making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person . . . eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the uh, with the COVID, excuse me, with um dealing with everything we have to do with uh. Look, if we finally beat Medicare.”
CNN anchor Jake Tapper then cut Biden off and pivoted to asking Trump a question.
In several other moments, Biden misspoke and corrected himself, referring to “trillionaires” instead of “billionaires.”
Biden’s verbal flubs and physical appearance during the debate prompted widespread criticism from both sides of the aisle, including some of Trump’s staunchest foes, journalists and pundits. Some, such as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, suggested Biden should drop out of the race and allow another Democrat to run in his place. CNN reported Democrats are privately raising questions about whether Biden should drop out, with Chief National Correspondent John King saying “there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic party.”
Biden’s physical and mental health was expected to be closely scrutinized in Thursday’s debate amid concerns the 81-year-old president is too old to serve another term. Biden has faced repeated criticism of his mental state in recent months, including in a Wall Street Journal report that concluded Biden has shown signs of slipping mentally. The report was based on interviews with 45 people who participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them, with most of the criticism coming from anonymous Republicans, though some unnamed Democrats also said Biden’s mental faculties appear to have slowed, according to the Journal. The White House dismissed the criticism as “false” claims by Republicans and pointed to Biden’s legislative accomplishments in response to the report. Special Counsel Robert Hur’s description of Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” based on his interview with the president in his investigation into his handling of classified documents. Biden has also seemingly appeared awkward or frozen in public on several occasions recently—moments the Trump campaign has turned into viral videos, capitalizing on concerns about Biden’s age.
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