'A Naked Emperor Problem': Biden Debate Performance Exposed Unhidable Problems, Says Charles Lipson

6 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," political scientist Charles Lipson weighed in on the Democratic response to President Biden's debate performance.

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Transcript

00:00I want to talk about the reaction to the debate, because afterwards, historically in a debate,

00:06when the debate's over, surrogates will go out and they will say, hey, my candidate won,

00:12here's how they won, and your candidate lost.

00:15We didn't really hear resounding praise for President Biden, aside from his wife, Dr.

00:20Jill Biden, at an after party.

00:22We did hear from two people, Vice President Kamala Harris, who I found her response very

00:27interesting because she should be Biden's biggest cheerleader.

00:30She's on the ticket, and she said that the debate was off to a slow start.

00:34She agreed there, but Biden ended it well, and instead of looking at the debate, people

00:39should look at the past three and a half years.

00:41Another name floated as a possible replacement for Biden is the governor of California, Gavin

00:46Newsom, and he said this, quote, you don't turn your back because of one performance.

00:51What kind of party does that?

00:53And quote, the president has delivered.

00:55We need to deliver for him at this moment.

00:57What do you make of their reactions there?

01:01Frankly, I don't think there's anybody who could say that Biden won that debate.

01:11But that's not the problem.

01:13The problem is not that he lost this time but could come back with such a much better

01:21performance in September.

01:23The problem is that he lost for reasons that are permanent and that will get worse.

01:33This is a naked emperor problem, but they've hidden him for a long time.

01:38They don't let him answer questions in public.

01:41He spends a lot of time at the beach house in Delaware and so forth.

01:48It's just clear that there's not just physical frailty.

01:53There's not just age, but there's increasing cognitive problems.

01:59I'm not a doctor.

02:00I can't tell you what those are.

02:02But he didn't assuage any of those.

02:04He compounded those in the performance last night.

02:10And people just know these are not problems that get better and they're not temporary

02:16problems.

02:17They're problems that get worse.

02:20And the party now has a big problem because of this.

'A Naked Emperor Problem': Biden Debate Performance Exposed Unhidable Problems, Says Charles Lipson

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