Biden officials were confident before the debate. Then the walls came crashing down

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

79% : He is the best person to take on Trump.
68% : It was white working-class men who got Trump his win 2016.
48% : Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat who was Director of Global Engagement in the White House, was acerbic in his analysis of what went wrong.
41% : There would be no raucous Trump cheering audience: moderators challenging Trump when necessary; and there would be a mute button.
36% : Now Trump is focusing on disaffected men, Black and Hispanic as well as white.
28% : John Morgan, a Florida based lawyer and important Biden fundraiser said: "He was over-coached and over-practised and put in a venue that was conductive for Trump, and not him.
22% : Morgan put the blame chiefly towards Anita Dunn, one of the president's senior advisors, and her husband Bob Bauer, the president's lawyer - and a supporter of holding the debate - who had played Trump in the rehearsals.
21% : The president had just come back from the D-Day anniversary in France showing leadership of the free world, an alliance which would be greatly at risk under Trump, it was to be forcefully pointed out.
12% : He said there would be another debate with Trump, that he would go on to beat Trump at the election.
11% : Biden's team rejected the plan set out by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which had allowed Trump to take part in the 2020 debate despite having Covid-19 and had been allowed to get away with repeatedly interrupting Biden.

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