Rep. Jim Clyburn, who helped President Joe Biden secure the nomination four years ago, said Sunday the president’s poor debate performance Thursday was due to “preparation overload.”
“It was a bad performance. I’ve been around these things. I’ve been a part of debate preparation before, and I know when I see what I call preparation overload,” the South Carolina Democrat said to host Dana Bash in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And that’s exactly what was going on the other night.”
Clyburn added, “I saw Joe Biden repping for words and phrases, and even numbers that he was loaded up with. The next day, he gets to North Carolina. He’s freewheeling and he captivated the audience.”
Bash, who hosted the debate Thursday with Jake Tapper, noted that Biden had a teleprompter at the post-debate rally in North Carolina. But Clyburn continued to defend Biden, noting that it was a bad night for Biden but has been a great four years for the president. He also tried to draw a stark comparison between Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Clyburn blamed CNN for not fact-checking Trump, who CNN now says lied about 30 times during the debate on just about every conceivable topic.
“The debate I think it all depends upon what the rules are. I don’t like the debate where nobody will do any fact-checking. You just say what you want to say, you know it’s a lie — the guy told 30 some odd lies and nobody checked him on it and say that was up to Joe Biden to do. I’m not too sure,” Clyburn said.
“So that to me was not the way to plan the debate. And whoever did that agreed to that really should think about what they are doing.”
Bash noted that the Biden team agreed to the debate format.