Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) urged Democrats panicking about President Joe Biden’s rough debate performance against Donald Trump to chill out.
“I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate. No one knows more than me that a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record,” Fetterman said Friday on X, formerly Twitter.
Fetterman, who is 54, suffered a stroke while running for Senate in 2022 but later went on to debate his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz. It didn’t go well. He struggled to complete sentences, stumbling over words and pausing altogether as a result of the auditory processing disorder he suffered from the stroke.
Some Democrats expressed similar alarm at the time and wondered whether deciding to the debate had tanked Fetterman’s odds of winning the seat.
“Morning-after thermonuclear beat downs from my race from the debate and polling geniuses like 538 predicted l’d lose by 2. And what happened? The only seat to flip and won by a historic margin (+5),” Fetterman added. “Chill the fuck out.”
Biden, 81, delivered a tired and fumbling performance against Trump, 78, on Thursday night in Atlanta at the first and what might be the only 2024 presidential debate. He looked old and frail and sounded raspy. His campaign later said he had a cold.
More importantly, Biden failed to land big hits against Trump ― even when they were served up to him on a silver platter, such as on the topic of abortion. Biden did better as the debate dragged on, but the reviews afterward were brutal, including from fellow Democrats and even former Biden White House aides.
“It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden,” CNN analyst and former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said. “I don’t think there’s any other way to slice it. His biggest issue was to prove to the American people that he had the energy, the stamina ― and he didn’t do that.”
Some pundits and prominent New York Times columnists even called on Biden to step aside and allow his party to choose another presidential nominee ahead of the Democratic convention in August, a scenario that could be just as risky for the party as sticking with Biden.
Fetterman’s defense of Biden is notable for a few reasons other than also having a bad debate. He is the only Senate Democrat who has called for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign after being charged with bribery. He’s also been one of the Biden administration’s biggest Democratic thorns on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Still, voters might hold the office of the president to a higher standard than the office of one senator, and the questions about Biden’s age and capability to do the job will only intensify after this week’s debate.
