A Raspy Biden Struggles in Prime Time

From the very first question, President Biden’s voice was a muted rasp.

“You’ve got to take a look at what I was left when I became president” — cough — “what Mr. Trump left me.”

Mr. Biden, the 46th president, entered Thursday’s debate with the 45th, Donald J. Trump, needing to calm concerns about his own age and mental acuity. Instead, Mr. Biden’s incoherent performance inflamed those fears, raising questions from the start about whether he would be able to carry on as the Democratic nominee.

Any talk of Mr. Biden’s relying on performance-enhancing drugs to survive the debate seemed quaint by the time he opened his mouth on the debate stage and suffered what seemed like a prime-time meltdown.

Even Mr. Trump looked almost taken aback as his adversary stumbled and struggled to get his words out. “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,” Mr. Trump said after Mr. Biden answered a question about border security not 10 minutes into their debate. “I don’t think he knew, either.”

It was all the more startling considering Mr. Biden had cleared his calendar and holed up at Camp David for days to prepare. (White House officials said that Mr. Biden had a cold.)

Mr. Trump’s message was often factually incorrect, but it was one communicated clearly, fiercely and impatiently. Mr. Biden, in contrast, stood slack-jawed, his eyes darting back and forth, while his opponent spoke.