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How a Weekend of Media and Memes Shaped Six Voters’ Thoughts About the Debate

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How a Weekend of Media and Memes Shaped Six Voters’ Thoughts About the Debate

The first presidential debate served as a flashpoint for an election season that was hurtling toward a showdown between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Many were excited for the bout, others dreaded it and some were not sure it would even happen.

We wanted to understand voters’ reflections on the debate through the lens of their weekend news consumption. To do this, we asked six voters around the country to log all the debate-related media they saw or heard in the days after the event.

Aaron Hernandez

26

Democrat

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California

Lauren Waits

56

Democrat

Georgia

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Arina Trotter

20

Independent

Indiana

Jonathon Ballard

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35

Independent

Wisconsin

Jim Hauersberger

71

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Independent

Iowa

David Carlson

21

Republican

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Georgia

During the weekend, they noted news articles, social media posts on X, Instagram and Reddit, podcasts on YouTube, newsletters, clips from broadcast TV, and even texts with friends. They didn’t report seeing vastly different sentiments across these platforms and outlets — instead, there was somewhat remarkable unity over just how bad it all felt.

Here are the themes that emerged after a weekend of scrolling.

Biden’s Poor Performance

All six voters said they felt confronted with the reality of the president’s age in the content they saw.

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Lauren Waits, a member of the state committee for the Democratic Party of Georgia, realized through her weekend reading how broadly her concerns about Mr. Biden’s performance were shared among fellow Democrats.

Most of her media consumption centers around reading articles from local and national news outlets on her phone. She also reads three or four politics-focused newsletters almost every day.

What stood out most to David Carlson, the treasurer of the Georgia Young Republicans, was the mainstream media’s reaction to Mr. Biden’s performance.

“Their shock comes as a surprise,” he said. “It’s not like they weren’t aware of the alleged health problems for President Biden.” What he saw after the debate only deepened his belief that the mainstream media is a “deeply unserious enterprise.”

Most of Mr. Carlson’s news comes from X, not from official news outlets, but from individuals whose analysis and commentary he trusts. He regularly watches podcast shows from Breaking Point and The People’s Pundit on Youtube.

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Distaste for Both Choices, and Despair

Social media posts that expressed distaste for both candidates resonated especially with the younger voters in our group who plan to vote Biden.

Aaron Hernandez, a California voter, said that even though Trump performed better, he would not change his mind.

“I feel like I have a good grasp of his true character and dark agenda if he got a second term,” he said. “Both parties made poor choices with their nominees.”

“I would describe the Democratic establishment as frantic, in frenzy, in panic,” he added, after a weekend of seeing dozens of memes about the debate. “This is really bad because it seems like they don’t know what they’re doing. And they’re scrambling to come up with Plan B since they didn’t have one in place. I think they’ll be trying to convince Biden to step out but if he doesn’t, then what?”

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Arina Trotter, a 20-year-old student from Bloomington, Ind., who is registered as an independent, tuned into the debate feeling fairly sure she would vote for Mr. Biden, but with little enthusiasm. She was surprised that she ended up feeling even more disappointed with the choices than she had been previously.

“I haven’t seen anything positive really,” she said. Instead, there were many posts about “a lack of faith in our democracy” and the “two-party system altogether, specifically because of the age of the two candidates and the repeat lineup, and a lot of disappointment with Biden’s performance.”

Jim Hauersperger, 71, of Unionville, Iowa, voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, but quickly soured on him, and was appalled by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Now, he said, “I don’t want to join the Democratic Party, but I left the Republican Party.”

A retired auto-manufacturing plant employee, Mr. Hauersperger gets nearly all of his news from network television. He doesn’t have cable T.V. or a smartphone. He has had only an internet connection at his house since December, and he does not read news online. “I don’t use it for anything other than if I need to go on and figure out how to fix my mower — stuff like that,” he said.

Over the three days immediately following the debate, he watched several network news segments. The coverage had left him more or less where he started. “I’m wishy-washy either way,” he said. “I’m not going to vote for Trump. But I don’t think I can vote for Biden either” — unless the race was close, in which case he thought he would vote for Biden. “What can you do?”

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Few Issues, Many Memes

With focus on Biden’s poor performance, few issues or policies that came up during the debate surfaced in our voters’ media diets. The younger voters in our group saw many memes and jokes that entertained them.

Jonathon Ballard, 35, an assisted living facility staff coordinator from Green Bay, Wis., voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but has since turned against him, mostly on account of inflation and, later, immigration. Mr. Ballard said he plans to vote for Mr. Trump this year. He went to a Trump rally for the first time this spring. Still, he said, “I’m not that much into politics.”

Mr. Ballard saw only the last half-hour of the debate, and missed the next-day coverage on the evening news because he got home late from his job on Friday. What he saw about the debate over the weekend consisted of a handful of pro-Trump memes and videos he came across while scrolling through his mostly apolitical Facebook and Instagram feeds, or in texts from friends.

The videos — from a conservative religious account, a right-wing meme maker with a large online following, and a Republican congressman from Alabama — all focused on Mr. Biden’s visible struggles in the debate, with only one touching briefly on a policy issue, immigration.

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“I already had my mind set on Trump” before the debate, Mr. Ballard said. “But coming out of it, I was like, ‘Biden’s done.’”

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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