Your Kansas City Star Opinion team weighs in on the Biden-Trump debate | Opinion

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump squared off head-to-head in a wide-ranging question-and-answer session Thursday night moderated by CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. The debate was generally calm with spurts of anger from the candidates. Biden, in particular, was taken aback by many of the claims Trump made: “The idea!” he exclaimed at one point.

The Kansas City Star Editorial Board and friends watched, took notes and provided our individual assessments of the onstage performance of Biden and Trump.

Frightening night of no fact checks

For anyone who fears that we’re fully capable of returning a morally MIA aspiring autocrat to the White House in November, Thursday night’s presidential debate was a full-on horror show.

Joe Biden had a cold, OK, and his voice was barely audible. But the truth stated haltingly is no match for a cascade of full-throated lies.

Donald Trump’s torrent of twaddle never stopped, or even slowed. The CNN moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, challenged nothing, and should have. But it was Biden’s job to set the record straight, and for the most part, he did not.

Debates turn on big moments, and Biden never summoned one.

True, some of Trump’s statements were so otherworldly that no one could possibly have been fooled: Everywhere on Earth, he said, “they can’t stand this guy and they like me. That’s based on every bit of information.” Vladimir Putin would certainly agree.

On abortion rights, he claimed that “every legal scholar wanted it brought back to the states … including the founders, if they knew about this issue.” Which, as he acknowledged, they didn’t. You’d think that antiabortion rights activists would say that’s not how they remember their 51-year fight to overturn Roe.

But Biden’s answer on “this idea that states are able to do it” wound up upside down in a ditch, with him saying something incomprehensible about all of the young women being “raped by their sisters.”

On Jan. 6, Biden got the words right, but where was the music? He completely lacked the tone and timbre to refute Trump’s lie that he was so worried about political violence even before that day dawned that he offered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “10,000 soldiers and she turned it down.”

As usual, Trump’s most flamboyant and pernicious lies centered on the supposed millions of immigrants turning this country “into a rat’s nest” and “killing our citizens at a level we’ve never seen before. … We’re an uncivilized country now” with migrants “living in luxury hotels” and stealing “Black jobs.”

None of this is true, but Biden never took a deep breath and backed up his correct assertion that “every single thing he said is a lie” and “I never heard so much malarkey in my life.”

I also kept waiting for him to say that inflation has been up all over the world since the pandemic, that we’ve contained it better than other countries have, and maybe even that thanks in part to corporate greed, prices aren’t going back down. But he never did that, either.

Trump’s claim that if elected, he’ll end Russia’s war on Ukraine before he’s even sworn in could actually be true, but only if he lets Russia “do whatever the hell it wants,” as he’s said he might.

So yes, it was a frightening night, not because Trump said anything remotely surprising, but because Biden failed to forcefully respond. All the fact checks in the world can’t correct the impression that the president lost the debate.

- Melinda Henneberger, Metro columnist and editorial board member

No clear winners in this dud

In terms of performance, this debate was dreadful. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump failed to inspire my confidence that either is up to the task of leading this great country.

Several times Biden lived up to one of the unflattering monikers associated with his name: Sleepy Joe. At times, Biden’s answers on such issues as abortion and what policy he’s put in place to boost Black Americans failed to impress me at all.

And Trump hemmed and hawed around direct answers related to the Jan. 6 riots at the U. S. Capitol and the results of this upcoming presidential election. It shouldn’t be all that difficult to say with certainty that you will accept the results of this election without protest.

Trump’s false assertions that his loss to Biden in 2020 was somehow rigged led to one of the darkest days in modern American history — Jan. 6 was a direct assault on our democracy. We don’t need a repeat of that day.

During this debate, I waited for Trump to denounce the actions of Jan. 6 protesters. He didn’t. I wanted him to be truthful to the American people about what role, if any, his words and behavior played in the insurrection. Based on his responses, I won’t twiddle my thumbs.

From the start, Biden struggled to separate himself from Trump in terms of personality.

But at least he tried to be truthful with his responses. Oratory may not be Biden’s strong suit but I will give him credit — he appeared credible as opposed to Trump, who I’d say was less than forthright throughout the debate.

This debate was a dud. If you ask me, there were no clear winners here. And that should concern every American citizen.

- Toriano Porter, Columnist and editorial board member

A strong voice, spouting lies

Donald J. Trump said one thing during the first presidential debate Thursday night that I heartily agreed with.

“We’re wasting our time up here.”

It was a time-waster because Americans desperately needed to have questions and concerns answered instead of coming away from nearly two hours of televised nonsense scratching their collective head.

Who to believe? Biden’s quiet performance certainly was more credible, but I needed a real-time fact-checker to catch all of the slipups, misinformation and the outright lies, mostly out of the mouth of Trump.

Well, there is such a thing — it’s called Politfact, and I was checking it all night long. See for yourself, but it found multiple issues with Trump’s message — on claims about Biden, abortion, immigration and Jan. 6. But not letting Biden off, Politfact reporters found a few things questionable with what the president said.

Funny, I counted more. Perhaps that’s because both men repeated themselves ad nauseum.

Why did the CNN anchors have to keep reminding Trump to answer the questions posed and to stay on topic?

Why did both men use answer time, not response time, to get in digs at the other candidate? All I heard and saw were gums flapping and assertions thrown back and forth.

Cringe factor: Biden’s small, mumbling voice and some false starts.

Outrageous statement of the night: Trump daring to point out all the “good things” happening on Jan. 6 instead of addressing the question asked on democracy.

One of the last questions asked by the moderators had to do with the candidates themselves, and it can’t be denied that Biden did look tired. His glassy stare and flubbed lines in the beginning moments were very disconcerting. Reporters commenting on the night called it a “missed opportunity” for the Biden campaign.

Trump, on the other hand, looked tougher than Biden and certainly had a stronger voice. But a voice that lies, that spews disgusting statements — strong or not — is not suited to speak for America.

– Yvette Walker, Opinion editor

A vivid study in contrasts

If there’s one thing the American left knows how to do, it’s kick itself when it’s up. And all the very online Democrats’ hand-wringing about President Joe Biden’s performance at Thursday night’s debate were engaging in a classic bit of pouting around like Winnie-the-Pooh’s pal Eeyore, while their guy did just fine.

Biden had two jobs: 1) Dispel the idea that he’d be hopped up on goofballs, as Donald Trump and his surrogates have been insisting. 2) Simply remind voters that he’s a normal human being. Mission accomplished.

Has Biden the lifelong stutterer and self-proclaimed “gaffe machine” ever been known for his verbal acuity? No. And I’d bet the more sedate version we got at the debate, versus the spicy scrapper we saw at the State of the Union, was an intentional choice in the face of Trump’s nonstop doping charges.

In my lifetime, just three great orators have made it to the Oval Office: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The others have ranged from serviceable in their speeches (Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush) to frequently painful (George W. Bush, Trump). Americans don’t elect a spellbinder in chief. They elect a president who makes them feel good about their country and their future possibilities.

What patriots dislike most about Trump is that he’s just. so. exhausting. And his Thursday night fire hose of lies, whining and open contempt for the “disaster” of a country he wants to take control of were as tiresome as his worst excesses in the White House.

What we saw at the debate was Trump vividly reenacting the adolescent doom and drama we all endured from 2016 to 2020. He showed no remorse for the coup attempt he incited, and told us directly he wouldn’t accept another loss.

There was not on that Atlanta stage, and there never will be, a different Donald Trump. And the late-night online freakout by some Dems was gross overreaction. “Don’t day trade politics,” Mitt Romney’s 2012 chief strategist Stuart Stevens posted that evening. “It’s a sucker’s game.”

He’s right. I don’t think debates even matter anymore, and those in this race in particular will move no needles.

Biden drew us a study in contrasts. He didn’t match Trump’s bombast, but that would have been a foolish and pointless gamble. And he was clearly under the weather. But I’ll take boring over wild, childish theatrics and lies, lies, lies any day.

- Derek Donovan, Deputy opinion editor

Biden’s not up to the task

President Joe Biden was a feeble, stumbling mess trying to stand against a hurricane of lies delivered with the patina of competence that only a sociopath like former president Donald Trump can affect.

Among Trump’s most outrageous fabulisms is that before COVID-19, “We were ready to start paying down the debt,” insisting that even liberals wanted to return abortion policy to the states, and the claim that under Biden the cost of food tripled or quadrupled. Trump has not a shred of respect for reality.

Biden, when he was coherent, delivered some more typical political lies like the canard that Trump wants to get rid of Social Security and the math-challenged assertion that a $500 billion over ten years tax increase on the rich would wipe out the $8 trillion in debt Trump accumulated during his presidency.

But the clearest sign that Biden wasn’t up to the task of confronting Trump became obvious in his closing argument, as the old codger started talking about removing lead pipes and increasing child care subsidies like it was still 2012 and he was having a polite policy debate with Mitt Romney instead of a hair-on-fire confrontation with the most soulless conman to ever win the Republican Party’s nomination for president.

Trump talked about America as a “failing nation” where “we’re living in hell,” not backing down an inch from his unconstitutional effort to overthrow the 2020 election while Biden blithely talked about tweaking Social Security to keep it solvent.

After tonight’s debate, it is clear that Biden is not up to the task of the 2024 election. We can only hope it is not too late to replace him. Democrats have until their August convention to get it done.

– David Mastio, Regular opinion correspondent

Ridiculous arguments over trivial topics

They may be the oldest possible candidates to hold office, but President Joe Biden and Donald Trump displayed nothing less than juvenile behavior.

“Let’s not act like children,” Trump said.

“You are a child,” Biden replied.

The exchange of petty insults about mental capabilities and physical appearances was not just disappointing, but unsettling for those concerned about the future of our country’s leadership. But even more shocking was how they spoke of real people involved in the serious issues they debated.

“He’s become like a Palestinian,” Trump said, criticizing Biden’s inability to end the Israel-Hamas war.

This comment, following Biden’s remarks on the aid his administration provided, was appalling. The use of innocent civilians as an insult undermined any shred of substance in his words. Trump continued this disgraceful pattern, using groups of people and identities with negative connotations.

Trump used abortion to launch attacks on Biden’s inability to secure the southern border from people entering illegally.

He portrayed terrorists coming into the United States as people “not just in South America, all over the world, they come from the Middle East, everywhere,” perpetuating harmful stereotypes that plague our country.

Despite confidently spreading falsehoods about infanticide and jobs for illegal immigrants, Trump’s clarity and forceful delivery managed to overshadow Biden.

After many false claims and blank stares, the debate devolved into a ridiculous argument about golf skills and the ability to carry a golf bag. We need leaders who show genuine respect for all people and who can ignore antics from opponents. Politics might really be transforming into a reality show, and it’s terrifying to remember this is the future of our country.

- Divya Gupta, Opinion intern