I’ll never forget my first earthquake.

I was staying at the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles in 2009 and at 8:30 one night, my suite suddenly began to rock wildly.

Chairs flew across the room; the minibar rattled furiously, then burst open, sending bottles flying; my clothes tumbled out of the closet; and for 20 seconds, it felt like the world was about to end.

The whole experience was so shocking to my system that it took me many hours to get over it and I barely slept.

President Biden at the debate with Donald Trump on June 27, 2024. Jack Gruber-USA TODAY

The US presidential debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump had much the same effect on me, but the repercussions are likely to be far more profound.

This wasn’t a mere car crash or train wreck, as some are saying.

It was a political earthquake of biblical-level proportions.

Only this quake lasted just 16 seconds.

That’s how long it took Joe Biden to show horrified Americans, and the watching world, he is no longer fit to serve as president of the United States.

The debate between Presidents Biden and Trump had much the same effect on me, but the repercussions are likely to be far more profound, says Piers Morgan. Getty Images

His rambling, nonsensical, dithering attempt to explain what he’d do about the out-of-control illegal immigration border crisis that he’s fueled was excruciating enough.

But it was Trump’s response that was the kill shot.

“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,” the former president said, with unusual calmness. “I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”

It was a devastating riposte, because it was what we were all thinking.

And from that moment, which came just a few minutes into the 90-minute debate, Biden was a dead man walking, both metaphorically and, sadly, almost literally.

I say sadly because nobody wants to see an old man humiliated live on television like that in front of tens of millions of people.

It was so shudderingly painful to watch that I felt the same sharp pangs of discomforting anxiety I felt when going through that actual earthquake 15 years ago.

They should have stopped the debate right then and there.

That would have been the kind, humane thing to do.

But of course, it continued, and Biden stumbled on like a guy with senile dementia who’s escaped from his caregiver — and gotten lost in a hospital corridor.

Trump didn’t even have to go full Trump to win.

In fact, I’ve never seen him more restrained.

Piers Morgan says Biden showed Americans he “is no longer fit to serve as president of the United States.” REUTERS

He was even entirely respectful to the CNN moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who I thought did an excellent job with a revised debate format — featuring mute buttons and no audience — that was powerfully effective in exposing the brutal reality of this race.

Trump’s bemused and half-smiling facial expressions as Biden self-imploded with croaky, monotone, drone-like, incomprehensible verbal diarrhea said it all.

At one stage, it looked like the Republican nominee was even feeling a tiny sliver of sympathy for his opponent.

We all did, didn’t we?

Trump defended his views against President Biden during the presidential debate on June 27. AFP via Getty Images

Setting aside political partisanship, this was a desperately sad moment for America.

It was the eye-popping, jaw-dropping public confirmation of what many of us have been saying for the past year: Joe Biden, both mentally and physically, is a busted flush.

Honestly, there were more than a few times when I either held my head in my hands or wanted to run and hide behind my sofa, such was the agonizing spectacle unfurling before our eyes.

Follow the latest on Trump and Biden’s 2024 debate:

And lest there be any doubt about what we witnessed, CNN’s post-debate reaction show reaffirmed it had been a political immolation.

To see former colleagues of mine like John King and Van Jones, and Democratic grandees like David Axelrod, queue up to denounce it as an unmitigated catastrophe was truly startling to behold given how savagely critical they’ve been of Trump for so long.

But what else could they say?

For several years now, Biden supporters have tried desperately to pretend he’s not the man we’ve all seen constantly falling over, freezing or speaking gobbledygook.

Morgan says he has never seen Trump more restrained than during the debate. AP

Just two weeks ago, when Barack Obama was seen at a fundraiser taking his former vice president’s wrist to guide him off stage, I posted on X: “So embarrassing. The Democrats can’t let this go on, surely?”

My view was shared by billionaire US hedge fund tycoon Bill Ackman, who replied to me: “The Democratic Party is destroying itself by advancing Biden for a second term. This is the Emperor’s New Clothes in real life. But it is not a children’s book or a joke. The world is at great risk, and a Biden second term is a grave threat to global security and prosperity.”

This enraged another billionaire entrepreneur, Mark Cuban, who raged at us: “You guys both, are so consumed with pandering to your twitter followers, you have lost all objectivity.”

He then insisted Biden was no more age-frail than Trump.

“Nobody wants to see an old man humiliated live on television like that in front of tens of millions of people,” Morgan writes of Biden. AFP via Getty Images

To which I replied: “I think Bill and I are more consumed with reality than you seem to be, Mr. Cuban!”

He retorted: “What matters to me is the ability to understand and deal with concepts, strategy … to have leadership skills, even if you do them while in a rocking chair.”

Well, now it’s been proven beyond any lingering doubt that Bill Ackman and I were right, and Mark Cuban was embarrassingly delusional.

What to know about the planned debates between President Biden and former President Trump:

• President Biden and former President Donald Trump have tentatively agreed to two presidential debates ahead of the Nov. 5. election.
• Biden released a video telling Trump to “make my day, pal” and debate him. The president noted that Trump has previously asked to debate “anytime, anyplace and anywhere.” 
• Trump accepted Biden’s challenge and wrote on Truth Social that he would be open to having even more debates with large, live crowds.
• The first debate will be hosted by CNN at the company’s Atlanta headquarters at 9 p.m. ET Thursday, June 27. There will not be a live audience, and moderators will be announced later.
• The second debate will be hosted by ABC News on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
• The Commission on Presidential Debates — which has organized debates since the 1988 election — will not be involved in either debate.
• Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not invited to join the debates. Kennedy accused the other candidates of “colluding” to keep him out of the events.

Frankly, I wouldn’t trust Joe Biden to even sit in a rocking chair without tumbling out of it, let alone have his supposed commander-in-chief fingers anywhere near a nuclear trigger.

And shame on the first lady, Jill Biden, for not stepping in before to save her husband from himself and such hideous ignominy. Instead, she was seen after the debate congratulating him on “answering all the questions” and leading a chant of “Four more years.”

The fallout from this unedifying debacle will be fast and ruthless.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden leave the presidential debate. AP

Biden will inevitably be forced to resign from office to allow someone younger and more dynamic to replace him as the Democrat nominee before it’s too late.

And it won’t be Republicans, or people like Bill Ackman and me, who will have forced him to quit.

It will be the very same Democrats who disgracefully tried to pretend their emperor had new clothes, when they all knew he had none.

Source link: https://nypost.com/2024/06/28/opinion/biden-cant-survive-this-career-ending-earthquake-and-shame-on-those-who-led-him-to-this-catastrophe/