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Biden-Trump debate triggers alarm among top business leaders: ‘Horrible’
Some of the country’s main companies and workers leaders the alarm sounded in the hours following the presidential debate on Thursday night, as some raised concerns about President Joe Biden’s age and others questioned former President Donald Trump’s fitness for office.
Prominent figures who already had doubts about Biden seized on his debate performance and doubt that Biden can handle the demands of a second term. Even Biden’s allies stopped praising his performance, including some who considered the possibility of replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Some business and union leaders, on the other hand, sharply criticized the dearth of policies and a series of falsehoods issued by Trump during the 90-minute event. Among them, some reaffirmed their support for Biden.
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, who attended a fundraiser for Biden in March, he said in a statement on X that both candidates performed poorly. The showing raised enough concern about Biden that Cuban is now open to a discussion about his departure, Cuban added, noting that he would vote for Biden if he remained the nominee.
“His performance was terrible. But so was Trump’s,” Cuban said. “Biden was weak. Trump couldn’t directly answer a single question.”
In response to a request for comment, Biden’s campaign said it received an increase in financial contributions on Thursday.
“Our supporters stand with President Biden. The campaign had its best fundraising day and hour since launching yesterday, and we are working every day to reach the voters who will truly decide this election – which is exactly what the president did today in North Carolina,” Biden campaign spokesman Seth Schuster told ABC News in a statement.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Ten minutes into the debate, Biden-friendly CEOs began sending panicked emails and text messages, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale University professor who is in close contact with the president. contact with executives, he told ABC News.
Some CEOs, who spoke with Biden last month at a fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut, felt “completely strange” seeing a candidate who seemed much less capable, Sonnenfeld said.
In all, Sonnenfeld said he has heard the alarm from about 30 CEOs of public and private companies since the debate, saying they have used terms like “fear, nausea and distress” in response to Biden’s performance.
More than half of the CEOs said Biden should end his presidential campaign and allow another Democrat to run, Sonnenfeld said, noting that the urgency among them was fueled in part by “disgust with Trump.”
“They were so horrified by the strength and volume of Trump’s demonstrable lies,” Sonnenfeld said. “It only intensified their hostility toward the prospect of a second Trump candidacy.”
Meanwhile, some Trump supporters in Silicon Valley and Wall Street said Biden’s performance reaffirmed their loyalty.
“Tonight was an indictment of the Democratic Party,” said Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager. he said in X. “How could they? Did they think they could deceive the American people?”
David Saks, a high-profile venture capitalist who supported Trump, similarly questioned Biden’s ability in an X post.
“If Biden can’t handle a debate, how can he handle the most dangerous foreign policy situation since the Cuban missile crisis?” Saks he said“It’s time to step back from the abyss.”
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban celebrates after a 124-103 victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center in Minneapolis, MN, May 30, 2024.David Berding/Getty Images
In contrast, labor leaders supporting Biden stopped short of praising his debate performance but emphasized Trump’s shortcomings.
“Donald Trump has once again shown himself to be a strikebreaker, a liar and a billionaire who will never support the working class,” said Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, which supported Biden, in a statement to ABC News.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who also supported Biden, echoed such criticism of Trump.
“Joe Biden’s performance may not have matched his performance as president, but he tried to state the facts and lay out his vision for the country — while Donald Trump told the same lies over and over again and was rarely held accountable by the moderators,” Weingarten said.
In the election campaign, Biden and Trump have promoted competing agendas for the US economy.
Biden has promised to raise taxes on big companies and wealthy people, while Trump has promised to renew a tax cut measure from his first term in an effort to stimulate economic activity.
Trump has frequently criticized Biden for the country’s years of high inflation. For his part, Biden acknowledged that price increases remain too high, but praised significant progress in reducing inflation well below its peak.
In the aftermath of the debate, many prominent CEOs and labor leaders chose to forgo public statements.
Dean Phillips, a businessman and Biden opponent in the Democratic primary, drew attention to his own muffled response.
“Speak only if it improves the silence,” Phillips he said in a post on X, attributing the phrase to anti-colonial Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.