As the debate performance of US President Joe Biden continues to send shockwaves through the Democratic Party, former Irish Ambassador to the US, Daniel Mulhall, believes that Biden must recover from the underwhelming performance by giving a series of strong interviews and public appearances. Mulhall, who served as the ambassador from September 2017 to August 2022, thinks that Biden’s 90-minute debate performance, watched by over 50 million Americans, has raised doubts about his ability to continue as a viable candidate, especially considering his age.
Biden’s debate performance was marked by his apparent confusion, which Mulhall believes may have confirmed the fears that people have about Biden’s age. The former ambassador pointed out that replacing a candidate, especially an incumbent president, just four months out from a presidential election would be very difficult. Mulhall emphasized that Biden has won the primary election and is the presumptive Democratic nominee, making it a challenging task to change the situation unless Biden decides to step aside.
However, Mulhall notes that even if Biden were to step aside, the selection of a replacement candidate would be quite challenging. He believes that the obvious replacement would be Vice President Kamala Harris, but her popularity is not high with the electorate. Mulhall highlighted the difficulty of swapping state politics for a national campaign, citing the example of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination.
Mulhall believes that the most likely outcome if Biden were to step aside would be Kamala Harris ending up as the candidate, but that is not guaranteed to change the outcome of the election, which is currently looking bad for the Democrats. The former ambassador emphasized that while the polls suggest Trump is ahead, it is always within the margin of error, and a couple of percentage points can change the possible outcome.
US President Joe Biden (Via Joe Biden/Twitter)
Mulhall also suggested that the Democrats need to focus on setting out their own stall and warning about the downsides of a second Trump presidency. He believes that the only way for Biden to prove his debate performance was a “blip” is by embracing the public eye and conducting more interviews with TV stations and media outlets.
Mulhall thinks that positive Joe Biden has to be shown to the public in the next three months, and the only way to do this is by putting him out for interviews with various news channels. He emphasized that the election remains a cliffhanger and is likely to be decided by relatively small margins in a number of states.
The two candidates are scheduled to meet on the debate stage again in September, and Mulhall believes that this debate will go ahead. He thinks that the Biden campaign may try to avoid another debate, but Donald Trump’s campaign may want to take advantage of their perceived windfall and secure another win.
In the end, Mulhall predicts that the Biden campaign will continue to frame the 2024 election as a fight to protect democracy, warning about what a second Trump term would mean for the US and the world.
