‘Deeply disturbing’: What Texas media had to say about the Biden-Trump debate | Opinion

Texas political observers echoed what the nation saw in Thursday’s presidential debate: alarm about President Joe Biden’s halting performance and questions about what happens going forward. But there was also room for focus on issues where the Lone Star State is prominent, including immigration and abortion.

At the Houston Chronicle, the Editorial Board minced no words, framing Biden’s performance around two questions famously asked by James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992: “Who am I? Why am I here?”

“We saw little evidence of the capable president we believe Biden has been. Doddering onto the stage, his voice wispy and hard to understand, his responses halting and incoherent, the answer Americans got to that existential question — Who am I? — was deeply disturbing. Is he a president still capable of doing the job? Is he irrevocably diminished? Who is he?”

The second question, the board said, “disheartened Democrats are hoping their standard-bearer is asking post-debate. They’re hoping his advisers and his family are asking him to consider the question of stepping aside. They saw, certainly, that the Biden we have known from the presidential debates four years ago or even as recently as his State of the Union speech in March wasn’t onstage last night. He even looked different — older, befuddled, given to blank stares, his mouth hanging open.”

But the Chronicle minced no words on Trump, either: “Although better prepared and more disciplined than usual, he was the usual bombastic, self-aggrandizing bully the nation has come to know (and, the polls say, dislike). Almost every Trump response was larded with lies, untruths, evasions and broad, outrageous pronouncements.”

Biden’s performance led to immediate speculation that he would withdraw or somehow be replaced as the Democratic nominee. West Texas conservative talk radio host Chad Hasty wondered if that might have been the whole point.

Politics reporter Jeremy Wallace, who writes for the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, found several Texas takeaways from the debate — and not just on immigration.

“Trump specifically cited Texas getting to impose its own restrictions on the procedure, while others states like Ohio and Kansas have less restrictive laws in place,” Wallace wrote, adding: “Trump also separated himself from the Texas law, which bans abortion even in cases of rape and incest.”

The Houston Chronicle noted that a major part of the immigration conversation revolved around the recent rape and murder of a 12-year-old in Houston last week, a crime with which two Venezuelan men are charged.

Trump, the Chronicle said, recently spoke to Jocelyn Nungaray’s mother.

“They just had the funeral for this girl, 12 years old,” he said. “This is horrible what’s taking place in our country. We’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Cary Clack, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, framed the particular dilemma for Democrats in taking on Trump.

Not lost on Adam Loewy, an Austin lawyer, was that while Biden was down, Trump was up — way up, in his view.

Here at the Star-Telegram, columnist Bud Kennedy figures that if, as the Biden team said, the president has a cold, it’s the rest of us who are feeling sick.

“America woke up Friday with many more questions, mainly whether one of two men born during or right after World War II should be in office until 2029,” Kennedy wrote. “Trump reverted to his old rambling mess in the last half-hour of a rare midsummer presidential debate. But by then, most of America had looked away from Biden, either out of pity or in utter terror for the nation.”

I picked out some winners and losers as well, going beyond the obvious. For instance, the much-scrutinized rules and format worked better than expected:

“Debates in recent years, especially those involving Trump, were trending closer to Jerry Springer than Abraham Lincoln. By cutting mics, focusing questions with follow-ups and going without a live audience, CNN’s moderators charted a path to a real exchange between the candidates.”

The editorial board at the Dallas Express, a conservative-leaning online publication, also declared winners and losers and — hope you’re sitting down — found the debate doubly bad for Biden.

“The current president stumbled through several embarrassing moments of mumbled words and lost trains of thought, making him appear unfit to be elected a second time around,” board members wrote. But they added in Trump, too. “The sad truth? Both spouted false claims.”

Past incumbents have had terrible first debates and bounced back. Clack argued that for Biden, that might not be possible.

There’s also the impact on Texas elections to be considered. With four months to go to Election Day, a lot will change. But Quorum Report’s Scott Braddock, a veteran of Capitol politics, noted a trend.

Loewy found a big silver lining for one Texan, though.