Former President Biden's debate against Donald Trump in 2024 opened the floodgates to criticisms over his mental acuity. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
"I don't know what they've got in these performance enhancers, but I'm feeling pretty jacked up. Try it yourselves, folks. See you in a bit," the X post read, accompanied by a photo of Biden drinking a can of water that read "Get real, Jack. It's just water."
Just minutes later, Biden would deliver a failing debate performance that unleashed panic among the Democratic Party, as some rushed to defend Biden, and others broke with the man who had served in public office for more than 50 years to demand fresh leadership at the 11th hour of the campaign cycle.
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"I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don't think he knows what he said either," Trump shot at Biden at one point during the debate.
The viral moment followed Biden attempting to tout Congress' bipartisan border package that lawmakers had bucked earlier in 2023.
Biden said, "We find ourselves in a situation where when he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers put them in cages, making sure that the families were separated."
"That's not the right way to go. What I've done since I've changed the law, what's happened? I've changed it in a way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally, that's better than when he left office. And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers," Biden said, appearing to trail off.
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Overall, Biden's 90-minute performance was riddled with him tripping over his words, speaking in a far more subdued tenor than during his vice presidency, having a raspy and unsure voice, and losing his train of thought at times.
Donald Trump walks on stage to deliver the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Policy Conference in 2024, just days ahead of his debate against President Biden. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Biden and Trump also were both confronted over their ages during the debate, with the moderator saying Biden would be 86 by the end of a potential second term, and Trump 82.
Biden defended his age, saying he "spent half my career being criticized about being the youngest person in politics. I was the second-youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I’m the oldest. This guy is three years younger and a lot less competent."
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Trump, meanwhile, said he had taken cognitive tests and "aced them."
The debate unleashed panic among Democrat allies of the president and members of the media, as they remarked his performance was a failure that added fuel to the fire surrounding concerns over his mental acuity and age.
"My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic," then-MSNBC host Joy Reid, for example, said.
President Joe Biden during the presidential debate at CNN Studios in Atlanta June 27, 2024. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"My job now is to be really honest," former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said during an appearance on MSNBC after the debate. "Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn't do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight."
"I think the emotions of the night were basically disappointment, anger, and then, by the end, it was panic," one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital following the debate.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump during the presidential debate in Atlanta. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know," Obama said the day after the debate. "But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight – and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit."
"Absolutely not," then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared in a media briefing July 3, 2024, when asked if Biden had any plans to exit the 2024 race.
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Biden ultimately did drop out of the race on July 21, 2024, less than a month following the debate, as pressure from traditional allies grew. The president announced his departure in a Sunday afternoon message posted to his X account.
The announcement was soon followed by him endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take up the mantle, leaving her with just more than 100 days to launch her own presidential campaign against Trump.
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