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      With Macron and Biden Vulnerable, So Is Europe

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      The U.S. presidential debate and Sunday’s snap election in France have emboldened nationalist forces that could challenge NATO and undo the defense of Ukraine.This month, President Biden, flanked by President Emmanuel Macron of France, stood on the Normandy bluffs to commemorate the young men who clambered ashore 80 years ago into a hail of Nazi gunfire because “they knew beyond any doubt there are things worth fighting and dying for.”Among those things, Mr. Biden said, were freedom, democracy, America and the world, “then, now and always.” It was a moving moment as Mr. Macron spoke of the “bond of blood” between France and America, but just a few weeks later, the ability of either leader to hold the line in defense of their values appears more fragile.The United States and France — pillars of the NATO alliance, of the defense of Ukraine’s freedom against Russia and of the postwar construction of a united Europe — face nationalist forces that could undo those international commitments and pitch the world into uncharted territory.A wobbly, wavering debate performance by Mr. Biden, in which he struggled to counter the dishonest bluster of former President Donald J. Trump, has spread panic among Democrats and raised doubts about whether he should even be on the ticket for the Nov. 5 election.Uncertainty is at a new high in the United States, as well as in a shaken, startled France.The country votes on Sunday in the first round of parliamentary elections called by Mr. Macron to the widespread astonishment of his compatriots. He had no obligation to do so at a time when the far-right National Rally, triumphant in recent European Parliament elections, seems likely to repeat that performance and so perhaps attain the once unthinkable: control of the French prime minister’s office and with it, cabinet seats.Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of the National Rally in Marseille in March. Mr. Bardella is likely to become prime minister if National Rally wins the election. Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Is This Seriously the Best We Have?’: Readers Discuss the Debate

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      Did Thursday’s debate change voters’ minds about who should be president? Did it sway the undecided? Times Opinion asked our columnists and contributors to weigh in on who won and lost Thursday night, and we’ve asked our readers to do the same.“If the purpose was to talk policy and answer the moderators’ questions, Biden won. If the goal was to show vigor, energy and the ability to finish the term, then Trump won,” wrote Travis Brodbeck, a reader in Scotia, N.Y. “But America lost in this debate.”While many conceded that Donald Trump came out on top and thought it was time for President Biden to bow out, some said there was no real winner and questioned how we wound up with the choices before us in this election.“Is this seriously the best we have? A convicted felon and an old guy who has a bad cold and looks exhausted?” asked Danielle Aiko Werts of Socorro, N.M. “Who let this go forward? They should have postponed this mess.”More analysis from our readers follows. Their comments have been edited for length and clarity.Who won and whyMike Fietz, Charlottesville, Va.: Trump won the debate. Not on the merits, since everything he says is a nonsensical lie, but by TKO while his opponent was tangled in the ropes. There is a very small chance that America won this debate if Democrats band together in its wake and get Joe Biden off the ticket. I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but it’s the only way that anything good comes out of this depressing night.Leland Burke, Tiverton, R.I.: Trump won. Mostly because Biden lost. This is a sad and frightening day for our future. There is no do over, Joe. Walk away with dignity, while you still can. Do the right thing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats: Stop Panicking

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      As a former Republican who spent decades pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party, I watch the current Democratic panic over President Biden’s debate performance with a mix of bafflement and nostalgia.It’s baffling that so many Democrats are failing to rally around a wildly successful president after one bad night. But it does remind me of why Republicans defeated Democrats in so many races Republicans should have lost.Donald Trump has won one presidential election. He did so with about 46 percent of the popular vote. (Mitt Romney lost with about 47 percent.) The Republican Party lost its mind and decided that this one victory negated everything we know about politics. But it didn’t.One debate does not change the structure of this presidential campaign. For all the talk of Mr. Biden’s off night, what is lost is that Mr. Trump missed a great opportunity to reset his candidacy and greatly strengthen his position.Mr. Trump lost the popular vote by a margin of seven million and needs new customers. He could have laid out a positive economic plan to appeal to middle-class voters feeling economic pressure. Instead, he celebrated his tax cuts for billionaires.He could have reassured voters who are horrified, in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise, by the stories of young girls who become pregnant by rape and then must endure extremist politicians eager to criminalize what was a constitutional right for two generations. But Mr. Trump bizarrely asserted that a majority pro-abortion-rights country hated Roe v. Wade and celebrated his role in replacing individual choice with the heavy hand of government.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Ghastly vs. the Ghostly

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      He’s being selfish. He’s putting himself ahead of the country. He’s surrounded by opportunistic enablers. He has created a reality distortion field where we’re told not to believe what we’ve plainly seen. His hubris is infuriating. He says he’s doing this for us, but he’s really doing it for himself.I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about the other president.In Washington, people often become what they start out scorning. This has happened to Joe Biden. In his misguided quest for a second term that would end when he’s 86, he has succumbed to behavior redolent of Trump. And he is jeopardizing the democracy he says he wants to save.I got to know Biden in 1987 when he was running for president. He was hailed then as a leading orator of the Democratic Party, even though he could be windy. I knocked him out of that race when I wrote about how he cloaked himself in the life of Neil Kinnock, the British Labour leader who was a soaring speaker, and how he gave speeches that borrowed, probably unwittingly, from Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.I ran into Biden in a Senate stairwell on his way to make a speech dropping out. He was alone, studying his script. We looked at each other in silence — struck by the weight of the moment — then went our separate ways to the same news conference.Biden was a buoyant soul who had been told he should be president since he was elected to the Senate at 29. And he wasn’t going to let the plagiarism scandal, or his pursuant health problems, stop him. He had two aneurysms in 1988 and later said his doctors told him he wouldn’t be alive if his campaign had continued, and he kidded me that I’d saved his life. He also did not let the other tragedies that scarred his life drag him down.I marveled at the fact that Biden forgave me. He told me that it was better that we stay on good terms. He did not get mad, even when I joked that his new hair plugs looked like a field of okra during the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. He called to chastise me, with good humor, but I hid under my desk, afraid to take the call.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Democrats Got Here With Biden

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      What Kamala Harris, Jaime Harrison, Ron Klain and other party leaders have said about the liabilities of their candidate’s age.Listen to and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeListen: How Democrats Got Here With BidenProminent party members on concerns about age.As you may have heard, Thursday night was the first debate between President Biden and former president Donald J. Trump. In short, it was not a great night for Mr. Biden.The president’s debate performance triggered significant panic among top Democrats, who for months have been dismissing concerns about Mr. Biden’s age.So, how is this happening? Despite all the concerns polls showed about age, how has the Democratic Party arrived at this moment?That’s a line of inquiry The Run-Up has been putting to senior Democratic leaders for the past 18 months. And we wanted to revisit some of those conversations now in a special episode.They include our interviews with Vice President Harris, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison and Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former White House chief of staff.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAbout ‘The Run-Up’“The Run-Up” is your guide to understanding the 2024 election. Through on-the-ground reporting and conversations with colleagues from The New York Times, newsmakers and voters across the country, our host, Astead W. Herndon, takes us beyond the horse race to explore how we came to this moment in American politics. New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      Who Might Replace Biden on the Top of the Ticket?

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      President Biden’s stumbling performance in the debate against former President Donald J. Trump has some Democrats raising the possibility of nominating an alternative candidate and mulling over a roster of names. High on the list is, of course, Vice President Kamala Harris, whose status as Mr. Biden’s running mate might make her an easy candidate for delegates to turn to during a difficult moment. But a crop of Democratic governors and other figures are often mentioned, too.A candidate switch would most likely require Mr. Biden to step out of the race, something his campaign says he has no intention of doing. And the risks are real. Some of the highest-profile potential stand-ins listed below have never endured the vetting and road test of a presidential race. There is a long list of candidates who looked great on paper and withered on the campaign trail.“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” said Barbara Boxer, the former senator from California. “Being vetted for president is like no other vetting. We don’t know how these people would do.”Here are a few of the contenders being discussed:Doug Mills/The New York TimesKamala HarrisVice President Harris, a former prosecutor and senator of California, has at times struggled to define her role at Mr. Biden’s side. Initially charged with addressing polarizing and intractable issues like illegal migration and voting rights, she has been viewed by Democratic donors and supporters of Mr. Biden as a potential political liability. Though those concerns have eased, she has been weighed down by low approval ratings that are barely higher than the president’s.Still, Ms. Harris has for months stumped for the president as one of his main campaign surrogates. She has recently become the White House’s lead voice as a defender of abortion rights. In March, she met with abortion providers at a clinic in St. Paul, Minn., in what is believed to be the first visit by a president or vice president to an abortion clinic. And Ms. Harris, the nation’s first Black vice president, has worked to shore up Mr. Biden’s vulnerabilities with Black and young voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Gleeful Trump, Fresh From the Debate, Rallies in Virginia

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      The day after a presidential debate in which his opponent’s stumbles took the focus, former President Donald J. Trump returned to the campaign trail on Friday afternoon, clearly gleeful as he strode onstage in front of thousands of people in a field in Virginia and gloated about his performance.Fresh off a debate in which his attacks, falsehoods and exaggerations largely went unchecked in the face of a halting performance by President Biden, Mr. Trump used the rally to bolster now familiar arguments that Mr. Biden was not fit to remain in office.“The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance,” Mr. Trump said, “but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden in the White House.”Seizing on reports that Democrats panicking about the debate were eager to push Mr. Biden off the ticket, Mr. Trump opined that Democrats had no better candidates than his opponent, with whom he has been engaged in yearslong hostility and whom he confidently says he will defeat despite his loss to him in 2020.And Mr. Trump seemed equally buoyed by the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday that federal prosecutors misused an obstruction law to prosecute some of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory and keep Mr. Trump in the White House.To Mr. Trump, the court’s decision — facilitated in part, he pointed out, by the justices he appointed — lent credence to his frequent insistence that his supporters who marched on the Capitol, some of them turning to violence, were engaging in a political protest and were now being wrongfully prosecuted solely because they backed him over Mr. Biden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden debería poner fin a su candidatura

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      Varias veces y de manera acertada, el presidente Joe Biden ha dicho que lo que está en juego en las elecciones presidenciales de noviembre es nada menos que el futuro de la democracia estadounidense.Donald Trump ha demostrado ser un peligro significativo para esa democracia, una figura errática e interesada que es indigna de la confianza pública. Ha atentado de manera sistemática contra la integridad de las elecciones. Sus partidarios han descrito públicamente una agenda para 2025 que le daría poder para llevar a cabo sus promesas y amenazas más extremas. Si vuelve a ocupar el cargo, ha prometido ser un presidente diferente, sin las restricciones que imponen los controles de poderes del sistema político de Estados Unidos.Biden ha dicho que es el candidato con más posibilidades de enfrentarse a esta amenaza de tiranía y vencerla. Su argumento se basa en gran medida en el hecho de que derrotó a Trump en 2020. Esa ya no es una justificación suficiente para que Biden sea el candidato demócrata este año.En el debate del jueves, el presidente necesitaba convencer a los estadounidenses de que está a la altura de las exigencias extraordinarias del cargo que busca ocupar por otro periodo. Sin embargo, no se puede esperar que los votantes ignoren lo que fue evidente: Biden no es el hombre que era hace cuatro años.El jueves por la noche, el presidente se presentó como la sombra de un gran servidor público. Batalló por explicar lo que lograría en un segundo mandato. Le costó responder a las provocaciones de Trump. Tuvo dificultad para responsabilizar a Trump por sus mentiras, fracasos y planes escalofriantes. Más de una vez le costó trabajo llegar al final de una frase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More