In the hours after Thursday night's presidential debate, leaders of the nation's top businesses and labor unions expressed alarm, with some expressing concern about President Joe Biden's age and questioning former President Donald Trump's fitness to serve as president.
Prominent figures who were already skeptical of Biden seized on his performance in the debate to question whether he could live up to the demands of a second term. Even Biden's supporters, some of whom saw him as a possible replacement for Biden at the top of the Democratic field, had nothing but praise for his performance.
Meanwhile, business and labor leaders sharply criticized Trump for a lack of policy and a string of falsehoods during the 90-minute meeting, with some even reiterating their support for Biden.
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who attended a Biden fundraiser in March, said both candidates performed poorly in a statement to X. The event raised enough concerns about Biden that Cuban added he's open to discussing Biden's removal and said he would vote for him if Biden remains the nominee.
“His performance was terrible, but so was Trump's,” Cuban said. “Biden was weak. Trump couldn't answer one question directly.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment, nor did the Trump campaign.
Within 10 minutes of the debate starting, CEOs backing Biden began sending out panicked emails and text messages, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale University professor who is in close contact with the executives, told ABC News.
Some CEOs who spoke with Biden at a fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut, last month “found it completely odd” to see a candidate who seemed far less qualified, Sonnenfeld said.
Since the debate, Sonnenfeld said he had heard alarm from about 30 CEOs of private and public companies, using words like “horror, nausea and distress” about Biden's performance.
More than half of the CEOs said Biden should stop campaigning for president and let another Democrat run, and their sense of urgency stems in part from “distaste for Trump,” Sonnenfeld said.
“They were so intimidated by the intensity and volume of Trump's obvious lies,” Sonnenfeld said, “that it only made them even more hostile to his chances of reelection.”
Meanwhile, some Trump supporters in Silicon Valley and Wall Street said Biden's performance reaffirmed their loyalty.
“Tonight was an indictment on the Democratic Party,” billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said on X. “How could they do that? Did they think they could fool the American people?”
David Sachs, a prominent venture capitalist and Trump supporter, similarly questioned Biden's competency in a post on X.
“If Biden can't handle the debates, how can he handle the most dangerous foreign policy situation since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Sachs said. “It's time to get out of the crisis.”
In contrast, union leaders who support Biden did not praise his debate performance but instead highlighted Trump's shortcomings.
“Donald Trump has once again shown himself to be a strikebreaker, liar and billionaire who will never side with the working class,” Sean Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, which has endorsed Biden, told ABC News in a statement.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which also endorsed Biden, echoed similar criticism of Trump.
“Joe Biden's performance may not have been up to par as a president, but he set out the facts and attempted to lay out his vision for the country, while Donald Trump repeated the same lies over and over again and was rarely held accountable by the moderator,” Weingarten said.
During the election campaign, Biden and Trump promoted competing policies regarding the U.S. economy.
Biden has promised to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while Trump has pledged to restore tax cuts implemented during his first year in office to stimulate economic activity.
Trump has frequently criticized Biden for years of high inflation, while Biden has touted great progress in keeping inflation well below its peak, even as he acknowledges that prices remain too high.
In the debate's aftermath, many prominent CEOs and union leaders chose to refrain from speaking publicly.
Dean Phillips, an entrepreneur and Biden's Democratic primary opponent, drew attention for his muted response.
“I will only speak if it improves my silence,” Phillips said in a post on X, attributing the words to anti-colonial Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.
