Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough slammed former Vice President Joe Biden for his lackluster debate performance a night earlier, comparing it to the first debate former President Ronald Reagan participated in during the 1984 presidential election.
Scarborough said the question is if Biden can make a comeback, one which donors and supporters are highly concerned about.
“This is one of the things people don’t like talking about,” Scarborough said. “Joe Biden had a bad night last night. He reminded me of Ronald Reagan in 1984, losing his place at times, not being able to carry out a cogent thought through the course of a two-minute answer. Reagan won, but he won not because of the first debate. He won because of the second debate. The question is: Can Joe Biden bounce back? A lot of Democratic donors and supporters who were already nervous before last night are a hell of a lot more nervous.”
Scarborough took particular issue with the embattled Biden’s use of a states’ rights argument to defend his position.
“I’ve got to say he ceded his time, which was unbelievable,” Scarborough added. “But also, there were about 10 different things he could have said, 10 different ways he could have responded to Kamala. Every one of them would have been the right answer. Instead, Joe Biden did something he would have never done when he was on top of his game: He resorted to states’ rights. No, you don’t do that. At a Democratic primary — you don’t do that in a Republican primary when you’re talking about race issues when you’re talking about integration because that is what segregationists in the Deep South talked about in the ’50s, the ’60s, and the early 70s.”
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