Joe Biden showed up late to his disastrous debate with Donald Trump, and then his staff bungled the days after so badly that it became a snowballing crisis.
The president went from being a good debate away from resurgence against his bitter rival, to having Democratic lawmakers openly calling on him to quit.
Biden blamed a cold and a generally ‘bad night’ for looking frail, confused, and struggling to finish sentences during the debate.
He may have been able to convince politicians, donors, and the American voters of this as polls barely moved in the hours after.
But instead a series of bungles by both his staff and Biden himself threatens to make his ‘bad night’ an unrecoverable disaster that hands Trump the White House.
Mistakes began before the debate itself. Biden was too confident in his skills having won many debates before, including against Trump.
He left his hotel in Atlanta 27 minutes late and arrived with less than half an hour to spare, with no time to learn where to look when Trump was talking, the Washington Post reported.
As a result, he often looked in the wrong direction and appeared like he was staring into space, barely aware of what was going on.
Tens of millions saw the debate meltdown and reacted with shock, sadness, and fear of what it meant – and even Trump was among those in disbelief.
‘No one was more shocked at Biden’s performance than Donald Trump,’ one of his advisers said.
Trump skipped the spin room after the debate because he thought Biden performed so badly he would look like he was kicking him when he was down.
Biden’s staff devised a plan to brush the debate off as a blip: A huge show of force at a big rally.
‘I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. ‘But I know what I do know… I know how to do this job,’ he said.
‘When you get knocked down, you get back up.’
Biden’s performance at Raleigh, North Carolina, was how he should have sounded at the debate – loud, confident, articulate, and energetic.
The key difference was he was reading from a teleprompter after practicing a pre-written speech, not answering an off-the-cuff question.
Raleigh was step in the right direction, but for donors, staff, lawmakers, and allies it was also evidence of the stark contrast in setting.
Many had seen him not walking as easily or speaking as smoothly for years, he lost his train of thought more and more, and his energy was lacking.
His supporters had reassured them he would show up in the big moments, and keep quietly getting the job done behind the scenes.
But his debate performance shattered that façade for many, and suddenly every move he made was under a microscope, every misstep magnified.
Biden shocked donors by only speaking for just six minutes at a fundraiser on June 29, still making a gaffe, and bailing without taking questions.
Next he went to New Jersey to speak at Governor Phil Murphy’s private villa, but spoke so softly, like at the start of the debate, the room of 50 struggled to hear him.
Again, his speech was soft like at the debate, and he sometimes lost his train of thought even when using a teleprompter.
But the main problem was that these were the only events he was doing, instead of following up Raleigh with a media blitz to show he still had it.
Biden spoke for just 32 minutes in public – all of them scripted remarks – over the next five days of private fundraisers and a family retreat.
His Raleigh speech delayed true disaster, his absence created a vacuum his opponents, and worried Democrats, filled with drama.
By Monday, the crisis was spiraling – his camp was leaking discontent, Democrats were discussing replacing him, and as it went on openly calling on him to step aside.
‘Everyone lost confidence by Monday. I started hearing from donors, members, everyone on Monday. It was only getting worse,’ one Democratic congressmember said.
‘The talking points suck, totally suck. They did a terrible job after the debate. Terrible.’
The situation created a mood of doom and despair, egged on by major newspaper editorials urging Biden to pass the torch for the good of the country.
‘I would have been more aggressive if I was them. ‘They needed to have him out earlier, to show there was nothing,’ Biden ally Al Sharpton told the Post.
‘The White House seemed surprised at the reaction. They should have fired right back. You don’t give your enemies the chance to set your narrative. They let their enemies set the narrative.’
Biden was forced to call his staff to reassure them they weren’t to blame for the debate, and try to hose down reports of fraction between them and his family.
Democratic governors demanded a sit-down with Biden and met with him on Wednesday at the White House.
They made a public show of support afterwards, but privately told the president they were worried about losing Maine, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Vice President Kamala Harris, barely used in the campaign, was suddenly being considered as she would legally be allowed to use Biden’s campaign war chest.
But she angrily shot down the idea at the governors meeting, declaring, ‘This is about our f**king democracy’ and demanding the back Biden.
The same day, Biden made another gaffe in a radio interview, calling Harris ‘the first black woman to serve with a black president’.
His flub was despite the question being on of four his campaign sent to WURD host Andrea Lawful-Sanders in Philadelphia ahead of time, that she used in the interview.
But instead a series of bungles by both his staff and Biden himself threatens to make his ‘bad night’ an unrecoverable disaster that hands Trump the White House.
Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign lead consultant, said Biden should have immediately gone on a press blitz after the debate with town halls, interviews, and late-night rallies to make everyone forget the debate.
‘There is a very simple path to this. You just have to go out and do it,’ she said.
‘If you can’t do it, that is a different thing.’
The stumble during the radio interview showed perhaps that qualifier was the central issue all along.
Biden at 81, almost 82, is a different proposition than the 2020 campaign. He needs more sleep, different shoes, and even the steps to Air Force One are shorter.
His rally on Friday in Madison, Wisconsin, followed by a 22-minute radio interview on ABC was a chance to stop the bleeding.
Biden defiantly declared he would contest the November 5 election and win at a much more lively speech with the same energy as Raleigh.
But while the interview was far better than the debate, Biden still lost his train of thought at times, appeared less sure of himself, and made factual errors.
Unless Biden can pull his campaign out of a tailspin, things could get very ugly this week as Congress returns to session and Democrats squabble about whether he should stay or go from the race.
‘This Democratic circular firing squad will continue, but it will also end,’ Dmitri Mehlhorn, a donor adviser to LinkedIn co-founder and key Biden supporter Reid Hoffman, told the Post.
‘The question is: Does it end in a couple weeks, which is manageable, or does it end in a couple months, which will be a disaster.
‘It’s a self-inflicted wound, and the question is: Do we keep shooting ourselves?’