The debate was, to put it mildly, not exactly a showcase for the press, political debate, and especially not for President Joe Biden, who gave millions of Americans hoping for something to inspire confidence in him the image of a feeble and sick old man struggling to cope with a flood of lies from a smooth criminal with no shame.

Some quick takeaways given 20/20 hindsight:

1) CNN’s choice to do no fact-checking during the ‘debate’ was a gift to Donald Trump, who spent the entire session lying his ass off. He spouted an endless stream of his favorite talking points over and over. 

2) Dana  Bash and Jake Tapper repeatedly let Trump spew irrelevant ‘answers’ that ignored the questions they asked. (Some of which were actually quite good.) Eventually they started pressing him to respond to the questions — but too little, too late.

3) Biden should have come right out at the beginning and admitted he was dealing with a cold, apologizing that he might have trouble speaking. That could have reasonably lowered the bar from the start. As it was, he confirmed the fears of many about his age.

4) Whoever was in charge of Biden’s debate prep should be looking for another line of work. Biden was apparently expecting to be able to make a case based on facts and the records of the two men, not deal with a brutal assault of lies and slanders. Presumably someone played the role of Trump in rehearsals — apparently they weren’t deranged sufficiently enough to give Biden real practice.

5) Trump was very disciplined — for Trump. He stayed on message: attack, attack, attack, concede nothing. He avoided some of his crazier claims, but everything he said was a lie. 

6) Biden was too-fact oriented; instead of reciting a list of accomplishments — badly and incoherently at times — he should have told simple, positive stories that would connect with people on a gut level. Trump went for nothing but the gut, with claims intended to make people terrified and angry — all about the border, crime, terrorism, etc. etc. (He should also stop prefacing his remarks with numbers.)

7) Biden took too long to react to what Trump was doing. Calling out his lies could have been done more effectively. I would have loved to hear Biden add to his explanation of why he was running the very obvious zinger that Trump was running for only one reason — to stay out of jail.

8) The split screen was a distraction. While Biden was struggling to articulate his answers, Trump was busy smirking and making faces.

9) The longer the show went on, the more it became clear that Trump had nothing to offer but lies and slanders. He refused to answer questions, let alone answer honestly.

10) I was too exhausted by the spectacle to stick around for the belated fact-checking, but the fact checkers had more than enough material to work on. Unfortunately, they also had plenty of material to critique Biden’s performance for the mandatory “fair and balancing” act.

So now what?

Well, no one can claim that Biden came to the debate juiced to the gills with stimulants. On the down side, the right wing fake news media won’t need to keep using doctored videos to attack Biden’s mental and physical fitness — they have plenty of material to work with.

For the Biden campaign, they too have plenty of material to work with — and for once the public got to see just how vicious and mendacious Trump is. The media didn’t get to gloss over just how awful a person he is to deal with, or how detached from reality his speeches are. They can’t ignore the threats he was making.

The fact that this debate was so early in the campaign is a good thing. It gives Biden and Democrats time to recover. (Pro tip to Democrats — don’t be so eager to run to the press with stories about how you want Biden to step aside. (Like this.) Anyone on the GOP side who does that about Trump quickly becomes an unperson.)

There’s unlikely to be a second debate — Trump got everything he wanted. Biden found that it’s impossible to have an honest exchange with Trump. (Although well duh!)

People hoping for a decisive debate that would finally move the polls towards Biden did not get that — but while it’s early, the shitshow last night may have simply confirmed what people who have already made up their minds have decided. It may end up being a wash. That’s not the greatest outcome by any means.

Going forward, Biden will need to demonstrate that last night was the exception, not his norm. It would be a good move for the campaign to make this about more than just Trump versus Biden.

Democrats really need to make the case that the choice is much broader than that, that it’s not just about the two people at the top of ticket — it’s about the parties behind them and how radically different those choices are. (This is the story that doesn’t get enough attention.)

As noted above, there’s still plenty of time left to move the dial — although the media is already hard at work shoving it in the direction they want it to go.

The commentariat at The NY Times is unanimous this morning: Biden should step aside.

Missing: any clear and unambiguous statement that Trump should also remove himself from the race.

Democrats are always expected to “do the right thing.” Republicans are always expected…. to keep being Republicans.

Paul Krugman weighed in as well — although he did it before the debate. It’s the one positive piece about Biden at the Gray Lady today.

I won’t waste gift links on the above — it’s what the Times has been shoveling out for months. Krugman apparently doesn’t hew to the Times reporting standard that it’s not their job to say good things about Biden; he has a story that should be getting more traction, especially after Trump’s apocalyptic version of America last night.

Paul Krugman: Biden Ended the Trump Crime Wave (full access link)

Schedules being what they are, this column was written before the first Biden-Trump debate. So if you’re looking for savvy takes on the effectiveness of various strategies and tactics, you’re in the wrong place.

It seems safe to predict, however, that Donald Trump — a felon who has been found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation — will try to make a good bit of the debate about crime. It also seems safe to predict that almost everything he says about crime (and other subjects, like the economy) will be deeply misleading, if not outright lies, despite the prospect of real-time and post hoc fact-checking.

Nailed it.

...Here’s what actually happened: We experienced a substantial rise in homicides in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Trump was in the White House. After Biden took his place, the homicide rate first plateaued, then began a steep decline that seems to be continuing. Murders, in particular, dropped rapidly in 2023 and seem to have plunged further this year. It seems quite likely that the homicide rate in 2024 will turn out to be lower than it was in any year of the Trump presidency.

...The important thing to remember is that the decline in the violent crime rate is in fact a huge Biden-era success story. And the president probably deserves some credit for that success — among other things, the American Rescue Plan included a lot of aid to state and local governments, which may have encouraged additional spending on law enforcement. But no matter how you cut it, crime should be considered one of Biden’s strengths, not a weak point.

Read the whole thing, because the reality is going to be swept aside by the ongoing shitstorm. It's one more Biden accomplishment the press is largely ignoring.

One More Thing: Trump is a reality show candidate

Digby had a really perceptive post on June 26 that does as much as anything to explain how Trump gets away with what he does. Remember the old saying, “Politics is show business for ugly people”? It’s not as funny as it used to be. 

...The publication of new book “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass” by co-editor in chief of the Hollywood Reporter, Ramin Setoodeh offers a unique perspective on Trump’s post White House years and a long article in Slate by a former Apprentice producer named Bill Pruitt gives an inside look at the phoniness of reality television and how it perfectly fit Trump’s already well-developed phony persona.

Politics in America these days is far more about style than substance. People have become disengaged and ready to change channels in an instant — until politics hits them where they live. (John Oliver’s referring to the MILF Manor reality tv show while tacking Project 2025 is actually more apt than it might seem at first glance.)

This from Digby really gets into explaining the unsettling appeal of Trump to so many, and how he has been able to pull off the scam that his political career has always been.

...Reality TV is essentially a lie. It maintains the pretense of authentic documentary filming of real life but it is actually a phony, manipulated narrative that tells the story the producers want to tell. (It’s like professional wrestling, another Trump obsession.) Trump discovered that his fame and access to media allowed him to literally create a new reality for millions of people through the simple act of manipulating the narrative with lies and repeating it over and over again. I don’t know if he even realizes what’s real and what’s not. At this point his very survival is on the line.

This week we are all on tenterhooks waiting for the presidential debate on Thursday and Trump is doing his usual promotional teases to get those all-important ratings up. He’s quite talented at that. Recall that in 2016, he staged a press conference and planted women that Bill Clinton had allegedly had affairs with in the front row of the presidential debate as a stunt to rattle Clinton and get the press buzzing. This year he’s demanding President Biden take a drug test to prove he isn’t going to be “jacked up” on something. Some of that’s just trying to psych out the opponent and playing the expectations game. But really, he’s just setting up a scenario for the press and his fan base: could Joe Biden really be on drugs? Is he senile or is he “jacked up”? Will Trump be “tough and nasty” or will he be calm and disciplined? Stay tuned.

That’s all politics is to Donald Trump — another reality show in which he is the star. It’s the only way he can understand it. Unfortunately, his massive fame and power have managed to convince almost half the country that it’s an actual reality. The rest of us are desperately clinging to facts and truth, dismayed and unnerved that so many around us are susceptible to such an obvious fraud. If only it really was a TV show that we could just turn off or change the channel. Unfortunately, it’s all too real.

emphasis added

That was on full display last night. Trump’s been honing that act for 8 years now and last night was one of his better performances. It’s past time to cancel his show — while we still can.

In the meantime, never give up, never surrender. Forward momentum.