"It was not a great performance by Biden, but it was not out of character either" - Lester Munson 

Part 7: After President Biden's debate performance, is there anything he can do to regain the confidence of his party and voters?
USSC Non-Resident Fellow Lester Munson talks about why this performance was not out of character for President Biden and why it wasn't particularly surprising. This is an excerpt of the USSC Briefing Room episode: A DC insider on the post-debate pathways for Democrats. Listen to the full episode here:
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TRANSCRIPT
And the interesting thing is, and I think there's a larger story here that needs to be told, none of this is new. Everyone knew that Joe Biden was 81 years old. He's going to be 86 if he completes a second term. You know, he's clearly lost a step or two mentally, in his various public appearances he's not done terrifically well. So this is not new, but now all of the reaction seems to be coming at once and it's a bit of a tidal wave. And so I am surprised by that, frankly, I didn't think we saw anything in the debate that was totally surprising. It was not a great performance by Biden, but it was not out of character either.
But I think this thing has been building for a while. And these concerns that everyone's kind of had in the back of their head are now in front of their head.