At another point, when the moderator Chris Wallace was ending a segment, Biden asked sarcastically, “That was really a productive segment, wasn’t it?” and said to Trump, “Keep yapping, man.”

Biden successfully used the chaos Trump caused during the debate against him. By chiding Trump’s intemperance in those simple, crude terms, he made him look childish and volatile.

We saw flashes of the combative Biden in his fiery speech in Philadelphia last year when he addressed the outrages of voter suppression and attacks on the totality of the electoral process, saying:

The assault on free and fair elections is just such a threat, literally. I’ve said it before: We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on Jan. 6. I’m not saying this to alarm you; I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.

Combat Joe appears periodically, and now is another of those periods. His strong warning against Trump and his followers — whose philosophy Biden said is a form of “semi-fascism” and poses a threat to the country — was a welcome stand, a stiffening of the spine in a time when only stiffened spines can prevail.

Yes, Biden tried to soften his latest comments and walk them back a bit in the face of criticism, but what was said could not be unsaid.

And just last week, Biden returned to the vocal, public condemnation of white supremacy — part of his stump speech — after a State of the Union speech this year when he eschewed any mention of racism or white supremacy.

At a summit convened at the White House last Thursday, Biden condemned white supremacy and other forms of bias, saying, according to The New York Times, “In America, evil will not win, will not prevail.”