memeorandum: In Post-Debate Poll, Voters Think Biden Is Too Old to Be President Yet Alternative Candidates Perform Similarly Against Trump (Lew Blank/Data For Progress)

3:10 PM ET, June 30, 2024

Top Items:

Increasing numbers of voters don't think Biden should be running after debate with Trump — CBS News poll — For months before the first debate, the nation's voters repeatedly expressed doubts over whether President Biden had the cognitive health enough to serve.

Discussion: Washington Examiner, NBC News, CNBC, USA Today, The Hill, Democracy Corps, Semafor, New York Post, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, PoliticusUSA, RedState and Mother Jones, more at Mediagazer »

Karissa Waddick / USA Today:

Historian who predicted 9 of the last 10 election results says Democrats shouldn't drop Joe Biden — WASHINGTON - Allan Lichtman, the historian who has correctly forecast the results of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections argued on Saturday that replacing President Joe Biden could cost Democrats the 2024 election.

Discussion: NPR

NBC News:

'It's a mess': Biden turns to family on his path forward after his disastrous debate — Democratic leaders have stood by the president as he faces questions about his ability to defeat Trump in November. But privately, many are expressing concern. — WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden …

Axios:

Behind the Curtain: What scares Democrats most … A Democratic official talked us through the gentle approach to getting Biden to end his run on his terms. This official, who demanded anonymity for self-evident reasons, said Biden's sister, Valerie Biden, and longtime friend, Ted Kaufman, should make this case to the president:

Discussion: DNyuz, Mediaite, The Sun, The Daily Beast and KARE-TV

Alex Thompson / Axios:

Top aides shielded Biden from staff, but couldn't hide the debate … - “It's time for Joe to go.” … - “I know many of these people and how the White House operates. … - Reached by phone, West said he wrote the post because “the debate was not the first bad day, and it's not gonna be the last.”

Discussion: Power Line and New Jersey Online

New York Times:

48 Hours to Fix a 90-Minute Mess: Inside the Biden Camp's Post-Debate Frenzy — With countless calls and a rush of campaign events, the president's team began a damage-control effort to pressure and plead with anxious Democratic lawmakers, surrogates, activists and donors.

Discussion: Axios, Politico and DNyuz

David Remnick / New Yorker:

The Reckoning of Joe Biden — For the President to insist on remaining the Democratic candidate would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment. — There is an immense bounty of bunk about the wisdom of age available to all of us who require it from time to time …

Discussion: New York Times, Fox News, Althouse, Mediaite and The Daily Beast

ABC News:

Biden campaign argues president dropping out would ‘lead to weeks of chaos’ — The president has spent Friday and Saturday fundraising, vowing to fight harder. — President Joe Biden participates in the CNN Presidential Debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta.

Discussion: The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali, CBS News, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, The Gateway Pundit and The Guardian

Marc A. Caputo / The Bulwark:
‘Mental Masturbation’: Trump Camp Dismisses Dem Talk of Shoving Biden Aside

Discussion: CBS News and Fox News

Tara Suter / The Hill:
Pelosi on Democrats calling for Biden to step down: 'I'm not doing it'

Discussion: ABC News

Lew Blank / Data For Progress:
In Post-Debate Poll, Voters Think Biden Is Too Old to Be President Yet Alternative Candidates Perform Similarly Against Trump

Discussion: Politico, OutsideTheBeltway, The Guardian and Rolling Stone

Alex Thompson / Axios:
Two Joe Bidens: The night America saw the other one

Discussion: HotAir, RedState, New York Post, The Daily Caller, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Gateway Pundit, Public, Twitchy, Associated Press, Washington Examiner, Mediaite, The Post Millennial, Fox News, Raw Story, New York Times and Politico

Rebecca Picciotto / CNBC:
Biden campaign fundraises $27 million after first debate

Discussion: Breitbart, Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, Bloomberg, The Post Millennial, Fox News and New York Post

Stuart Stevens / New York Times:
Democrats: Stop Panicking

Discussion: Raw Story, Sputnik News, The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali, Balloon Juice and Wall Street Journal

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the raceBoard — President Joe Biden's debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump's usual bombastic litany of lies …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Raw Story, Fox News, The Moderate Voice, NewsNation, Daily Kos, Lawyers, Guns & Money and New Jersey Online

Tyler Pager / Washington Post:

Biden aides plotted debate strategy for months. Then it all collapsed. — The Biden team gambled on an early debate and prepared intensively at Camp David, but they could not prevent their candidate's stumbles onstage. — CAMP DAVID, Md. — President Biden's debate prep went fine.

emptywheel:

The “Wow, Pictures!” Tabloid Coverage of Trump's Stolen Documents Is as Bad as Conspiracy Mongering — The other day, I mined the documents and photographs released in the government's response to Trump's bid to throw out his indictment based on a complaint that the FBI failed to preserve the order of documents in boxes.

Dave Philipps / New York Times:

Pattern of Brain Damage Is Pervasive in Navy SEALs Who Died by Suicide … Longtime Navy SEALs like David Metcalf, shown with teammates in a photo from a personal collection, are exposed repeatedly in training to the blasts from detonating explosives and firing weapons.

Discussion: Digby's Hullabaloo

Amichai Lau-Lavie / New York Times:

The Pride March Doesn't Have a Place for Me — I've been marching in Pride parades since 1995, but I won't be marching this year in New York, where I live. — Pride Month has always been about a political and progressive embrace of our rainbow of choices.

Discussion: DNyuz, Raw Story, New York Daily News and Althouse

Gilad Edelman / The Atlantic:

Donald Trump's Theory of Everything — At Thursday's debate, while Joe Biden struggled to put a sentence together, Donald Trump struggled to utter any sentence that wasn't about illegal immigrants destroying the country. — Harsh rhetoric—and policy—on migrants and the border has long …