Joe Biden's speech at debates worries Democrats - media

Supporters of US President Joseph Biden hoped his first debates with Donald Trump on Thursday would dispel fears that the 81-year-old candidate is too old to seek a second term. However, Biden's husky voice and sometimes uncertain speech led to the opposite.

This was reported by the Voice of America publication.

So, both Biden and Trump, who is 78, have faced concerns from voters about their age and physical fitness, but for Biden they matter more.

On Thursday, June 27, Biden, hoarse from a cold, rushed through his arguments on the debates stage. He stumbled on some answers and lost his thoughts on others.

The publication writes that around the middle of the debateы, a political strategist of the Democratic Party, who worked with Biden's staff in 2020, called it a "disaster."

At the same time, Trump hurled a barrage of criticism at his opponent, including the well-known false claims that migrants allegedly bring a wave of crime, and Democrats allegedly support infanticide, the publication writes.

At the start of the debate, Biden paused as he pondered the Medicare program for the elderly and tax reform and seemed to lose the thread of his reasoning.

"[Tax reform will find the money to] strengthen our health care system, make sure that every person has the opportunity to receive what I did ... during the time of covid ... sorry ... with all that we had to face it. In the end, we defeated Medicare," Biden said.

Trump described Biden's comments as "incoherent."

"I really don't understand what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he understands it himself," Trump said.

"Biden doesn't speak well, he looks like he's fumbling for words," said Ray La Raja, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The publication points out that before the debates, Biden spent almost a week with top advisers in a "debates camp" at the Camp David country residence in Maryland, which shows how much importance his staff attached to Thursday's debate. However, according to critics, this did not affect his performance.

"Trump is Trump and every word that comes out of his mouth is nonsense. But Biden sounds old and lost and that will matter more than anything else. And so far it's an absolute nightmare for Biden," Republican Joe Walsh, who was running for president in 2020 and who is critical of Trump, said this on X social network.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, a CNN poll showed that Trump outperformed Biden in the debates. 67% of viewers share this opinion.

Before the debates, the same voters said they expected a better performance from Trump than from Biden, 55% to 45%.

And in 2020, viewers thought Biden outperformed Trump in both presidential debates.