(Tribune News Service) — Democrats were hoping for a repeat of President Joe Biden’s energetic State of the Union address to counter stubborn questions about his health and mental fitness.

Instead, Biden delivered a fumbling and, at times, incoherent debate in Atlanta that has only magnified questions about whether the 81-year-old is capable of serving another four years as commander-in-chief.

The Democrat’s disjointed performance played directly into the hands of former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who have long painted Biden as a doddering dolt.

After the 90-minute debate, it was Democrats who suddenly confronted the question that has long been the center of speculation in Republican circles: Should he be replaced on the party’s ticket?

No less than Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed on that question minutes after she was rushed on CNN’s air by the campaign, a telling sign of how a scenario once laughed off by party leaders was now front-and-center.

Harris acknowledged Biden’s “slow start” but said the president offered a “very clear contrast with Donald Trump on all the issues.” Left unanswered was the part of the query seeking her message to Democrats calling for the president to step aside.

Video from CNN Presidential Debate

Trump didn’t have a stellar showing himself, with rambling and sometimes unintelligible answers of his own, along with a steady stream of falsehoods and misleading statements about Biden’s agenda and Trump’s own tenure in office.

But those swipes routinely went unchecked by Biden or the moderators. And Trump was allowed to deflect many of the toughest questions, sometimes by simply ignoring them. Trump’s detractors begrudgingly conceded he projected a sense of energy Biden lacked.

“They’re three years apart. They seemed about 30 years apart tonight,” said David Plouffe, a former Barack Obama adviser, on MSNBC. “And I think that’s going to be the thing that voters really wrestle with coming out of this.”

The damage inflicted by Biden’s debate flop was hard to immediately determine, though worry – and even panic – seeped into different factions of his coalition.

Plouffe compared the showdown to a “DEFCON 1 moment,” while Van Jones pondered on CNN whether there was time to “figure out a different way forward.”

Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist who is backing the president, wondered aloud why Biden and his staff would have pushed for the earliest debate in modern U.S. history despite how “limited Biden’s toolbox now is due to age.”

“My only guess: Biden drove the whole thing,” he said. “Otherwise it’s the biggest blunder in presidential political history.”

Others offered private recriminations. Some noted that rather than allay concerns about his health, the president assured it remain at the heart of the 2024 race. One Democratic donor texted three-word advice to the party: “Get someone else.”

‘Indisputable fact’

That’s not easily done. No incumbent president has quit the race at this late stage in the campaign cycle, with about four months until the vote. There’s no consensus around replacing him with Harris or another party leader, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

And party rules are designed to insulate nominees from outside challenges, meaning that Biden would only be replaced if he consented to it – a notion he has unerringly rejected.

With almost 99% of delegates and one win over Trump already, Biden argues that he’s the party’s overwhelming choice and has the best shot at defeating the former president. Newsom told reporters after the debate that’s still the case.

“I would never turn my back on President Biden’s record,” he said in the “spin room” at the McCamish Pavilion. “I would never turn my back on President Biden. And I don’t know a Democrat in my party who would do so – especially after tonight.”

Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who has taken to calling Trump a “plague,” used much the same tactic he employed on the 2022 campaign trail to defend Biden. The Georgia Democrat characterized the criticism as petty punditry not focused on real-world problems.

“You all are talking about style,” Warnock told reporters. “The people I’m talking to in the state of Georgia, they’re not focused on style. They’re thinking about their families. They’re thinking about whether or not they can afford child care so they can get to work.”

And Biden, who said a sore throat accounted for his raspy delivery, suggested that one poor night shouldn’t erase decades of public service. Besides, he told reporters at a late-night Waffle House stop, “it’s hard to debate a liar.”

But internal divisions over Biden’s health may sharpen as Democrats prepare for the party’s four-day convention in Chicago. Biden’s next chance to redeem himself on the debate stage isn’t slated until Sept. 10 – if it happens at all.

There was already rampant talk that Trump skip the second debate, particularly if his polling leads in Georgia and other battleground states hold steady. With his base all but secure, Trump could shift resources to winning over swing voters uneasy with Biden’s health by bringing up global crises.

“I’m worried that we have a situation in the world where the president seems to be compromised,” said Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “What we saw tonight was a man who was more confused than not. The bad guys are watching, too.”

Georgia Senate GOP Leader Steve Gooch senses that the trajectory of the race has irrevocably changed.

“Joe Biden is not mentally fit to serve as president,” he said. “That is not a political statement. It is an indisputable fact proved on live TV tonight.”

Staff writers Taylor Croft and Maya T. Prabhu contributed to this report.

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