.
By Ray Hanania
.
I covered the debate in Atlanta between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. I was shocked at Biden’s performance.
CNN had done everything to help Biden by curtailing Trump’s rambunctious style, preventing him from “interrupting” the debate with Biden as he did 190 times when they met four years before.
They implemented a system that automatically turned off microphones to prevent candidates from interrupting each other. And Biden and Trump debated in a closed studio, but the 800 reporters from 34 countries and campaign staff and supporters were housed at the Yellow Jackets Stadium at Georgia Tech University, a mile away from the debate.
That was intended to reduce audience distractions that might break Biden’s concentration and allow him to better focus.
But rather than helping, however, CNN’s manipulations actually hurt Biden, while making Trump look “tame.” CNN’s manipulation and sleight-of-partisan-hand backfired badly.
Instead of focusing on Trump, the American public was free to witness the shocking performance of a weak President, Joe Biden.
Free of media cover and favoritism, the public could see a president burdened by unavoidable aging issues. Biden looked shell shocked, like a deer in the headlights. He was often incoherent, mumbling at times.
At one point, Trump expressed the concern of nearly every one of the 800 reporters when he said, “I really don’t know what he (Biden) said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said.”
CNN’s debate rigidness helped Trump, restraining his rambunctious and disruptive style. Trump’s aggressive disruptive style cost him the debate when he first faced off with Biden four years ago in 2020.
CNN also blocked independent candidates from participating and creating a confused political circus. CNN argued neither Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nor Dr. Jill Stein was on any state ballots.
But neither Biden nor Trump are on any of state ballots, either. They haven’t been officially nominated as their party’s candidate, which won’t happen until the conventions in July in Milwaukee and in August in Chicago.
Rather than produce a debate that focused on issues, the CNN debate accidentally allowed the American public to see the real problem we face. Biden is a weak president. His weakness contributed to the decisions of international tyrants and terrorists like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hamas to launch wars. Russia invaded Ukraine and Hamas attacked Israel because they knew America would not stop them.
Even if the wars started on their own, a strong American president would have brought them to a quick end.
After the debate, the Democrats who came to speak to reporters were shellshocked, too. They told reporters they would not accept questions and issued generic statements that tried to spin the issue back on Trump, accusing him of making lies. Democrats rushed out.
Republicans stayed the entire evening after the debate to take questions and express their views.
What America witnessed is not encouraging at all.
Sane Democrats and sane Republicans — not those driven by selfish greed like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney — need to come together in the middle and let go of the anger and desire for revenge and redefine American politics, before insane political fanaticism redefines it for us.
Even worse was CNN’s failure to create a national discussion about the major challenges facing the American people. The economy is on the rocks because of inflation, dramatically rising costs for food and gasoline. Care and home insurance costs are doubling, and property taxes are skyrocketing.
Unless you are wealthy, like most members of Congress, you can’t afford today’s life.
America needs strong quality leadership now, someone to restore America’s role as “Leader of the Free World.” The world is less free today and in danger.
Biden needs to step aside, and Democrats need a new candidate. Maybe former First Lady Michelle Obama. Maybe Senator Joe Manchin. But not someone like Gov. JB Pritzker.
We also need a news media that returns to reporting news and not converting their news reporting into deceptive opinion-driven reporting.
Blame the national media for where we are at. They are actively manipulating us behind a near catatonic president because they hate the other guy so much.
Read more on this at Hanania.com.