Mordecai Lee on the First Biden and Trump Debate of 2024

Frederica Freyberg:
In the moment reaction from debate watchers.
And now, after a day of reflection, expert analysis on performance and the stakes. UW-Milwaukee professor emeritus, political scientist Mordecai Lee joins us. And thanks a lot for being here, Mordecai.

Mordecai Lee:
Glad to be here. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what was your first reaction when Joe Biden started speaking?

Mordecai Lee:
I didn’t understand why he was speaking so softly and he was mumbling and he sort of wasn’t finishing sentences. I initially thought that maybe this was some impact of the fact that he’s been a stutterer all his life, and all his life he’s had to overcome stuttering and I thought, well, maybe that’s it. But as the hour and a half rolled on, it really didn’t change.

Frederica Freyberg:
Does this go down as much more than a missed opportunity for Joe Biden?

Mordecai Lee:
Well, I think the debate was a train wreck for both of them because you had Trump blustering and you had Biden mumbling. And, for those of us who care about the substance of government, we sort of walked out of there like it’s a soccer match. There was zero-zero. Nobody scored. Trump was sort of fact free and Biden was fact heavy. So I think it was a huge, missed opportunity for both candidates because for Biden, I think the, the score for him is pretty obvious. For Trump, I think the negative was that while he had really good presence and a good voice and real confidence, he really projected, but he had two or three soundbites and punchlines that he kept repeating through the entire hour and a half. It was a major disappointment it seems to me, in terms of the benefit to the viewers.

Frederica Freyberg:
So Donald Trump packed so many things, including as you’ve said, falsehoods into each response and then often non-responses to the question. It’s like it left Biden spinning, but shouldn’t Joe Biden, with all his people, have been prepared for that kind of thing?

Mordecai Lee:
I’m really surprised. You know, there’s a certain rule of political debates that the incumbent always does poorly in the first round. Baldwin did poorly six years ago. Ronald Reagan did poorly against Mondale. Maybe it’s the fact that when you’re the incumbent, you just don’t have quite as much sort of interaction and high-speed input and then statement. So maybe Biden would be better the second time around. But still, he was trying to say so many facts and he trailed off so many times. Or when he’d say, well, first of all and then second of all, it really didn’t cohere. He had a lot to say, but he really never packaged it for the audience.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you feel as though Joe Biden, candidate Joe Biden, can recover from this?

Mordecai Lee:
I imagine that he really, really wants to continue and is going to have to somehow negate the impression that he left. In other words, he’s going to have to do a lot of town hall meetings where it’s back and forth with the questioners. He’s going to have to do a lot of press conferences where it’s back and forth with challenging questions. He really has to show that he’s got it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Did you hear anything in the debate last night that would have resonated one way or the other with Wisconsin voters?

Mordecai Lee:
I didn’t hear anything last night that would resonate with Wisconsin voters because they were always talking in generalities. They were never really talking about the issues that would be of concern to the half dozen states that are in play, including Wisconsin. So I think that was a letdown. You would normally expect in a debate that there would be a couple of throwaway lines where they’re sort of suddenly addressing Pennsylvanians, Michiganians, Wisconsinites, but neither of them really did that.

Frederica Freyberg:
What happens if Joe Biden did step aside, as some even Democrats, are now suggesting? I mean, what happens then?

Mordecai Lee:
If he were to withdraw, you’d have a wide-open convention and that you’d have a couple of governors who have been in waiting for the last three years who are going to jump in and then it’s going to be a delegate hunting one by one, trying to persuade these former delegates to vote for them.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll see what happens. Mordecai Lee, thank you very much.

Mordecai Lee:
You’re welcome.