Biden Should Withdraw From Race

Early on the morning of June 28, as I was preparing to drop my daughter at school, I received a WhatsApp call from an old friend in Washington, DC.

- Sachin Kalbag

“We are ****ed, Sachin, we are ****ed,” he screamed on the phone, and then, as dramatically, hung up the call. Hundreds of thousands of Americans said the exact same thing after watching the CNN-hosted first presidential debate between current White House resident Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, both of whom are pitted against each other for the second time this November.

US presidential debates have always been acrimonious, but they were also always theatre. TV hosts asked both hard and soft questions, and candidates were forced to respond. Yesterday’s confrontation, on the other hand, not only lacked theatre, it was plain boring and had zero substance. It was embarrassing to even watch. On the one hand, there was Trump — his lies and prevarications are no longer a surprise — who had nothing to offer to the country’s political discourse apart from illogical and falsehoods-filled rants. His opponent, the 81-year-old Biden, amplified every fear that has been expressed about him during this campaign — he is old, incoherent, tired, and he has nothing new to offer to a country in dire need of overhaul across some of the most important issues affecting it.