It's The End of The World As We Know It, But Joe Feels Fine

Joe Biden's shaky debate performance has reignited Democratic fears that he's losing ground to Donald Trump, just months before the election.

The alarm bells started ringing the moment Biden began speaking in a haltingly hoarse voice. Minutes into the debate, he struggled to defend his economic record and flubbed key health initiatives, mistakenly saying "we finally beat Medicare" and incorrectly stating how much his administration had lowered the price of insulin. He talked himself into a corner on Afghanistan, bringing up the botched withdrawal unprompted, and repeatedly mixed up "billion" and "million," spending much of the 90-minute debate on the defensive.

When he wasn't speaking, he stood frozen behind his podium, mouth agape, eyes wide and unblinking for long stretches.

"He's toast — calling it now," said Jay Surdukowski, a Democratic activist from New Hampshire. Democrats expressed confusion and concern, with one former Biden aide calling it “terrible” and repeatedly asking, "What did he just say? This is crazy." "Not good," wrote Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).

Biden’s team quickly defended his performance, first saying he had a cold and was negative for Covid-19, then insisting Trump was hurting himself by attacking Biden's record.

Biden did grow stronger throughout the night, seizing on Trump’s reported dismissal of fallen soldiers as “suckers and losers” and hammering Trump’s criminal conviction in New York.

“The only person on this stage who’s a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” Biden said.

But first impressions matter, especially to voters just tuning into the election who were more likely to watch the first debate than the second. Instead of setting the tone for the next phase of the campaign, Biden’s shaky performance reignited fears among Democrats that the octogenarian might not be able to carry the party through to November.