President Joe Biden wheezed his way through his response to the first question of Thursday’s president debate, and continued to sound croaky as the night went on. The reason? “President Biden has a cold,” two sources familiar with the situation told NBC News. Biden began coughing the moment he started speaking and, during other moments, he he lost his train of thought, had awkward pauses, or jumbled his sentences. Donald Trump, meanwhile, appeared comparatively more energetic as he spouted reams of falsehoods. Biden’s low-energy performance was a stark contrast to the intense preparation that went into it. He reportedly spent more than a week preparing for the debate, including rehearsing in an airplane hangar at Camp David that was outfitted to create a mock debate stage. A senior adviser to Trump’s campaign responded to NBC’s reporting by telling ABC: “How convenient. He spent the last ten days on vacation.”
