Awkward exchanges, personal jabs, and falsehoods dominated the first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
The evening featured Biden and Trump go back and forth on the topics on many Americans' minds—abortion, inflation, immigration, and climate, among others. The two men also took time to call each other “whiners” and “complainers,” while also trading jabs at their age, mental alertness, and even golf skills, on stage, News.Az reports citing Time.Here are the biggest moments from the night.
Biden’s stumbles
President Biden’s performance at the debate was the subject of much scrutiny. Just mere minutes after the debate started, Biden’s voice appeared raspy and at times he completely rambled off on a nonsensical tangent.
The 81-year-old Biden took a lengthy pause while talking about Medicare. At one point when moderators asked Biden questions on immigration and border security, he appeared to misspeak while concluding his statement, giving Trump an opportunity to retort: “I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don't think he knows what he said either.”
Biden and Trump, 78, are the two oldest major party candidates for U.S. president, and their ages have become liabilities, with some polls questioning their effectiveness as leaders, particularly Biden’s.
Trump and Biden clash over abortion
The candidates took swings at each other when asked where they stood on abortion. Biden committed to restoring Roe v. Wade—the landmark Supreme Court decision that gave Americans the constitutional right to an abortion in 1973 but was overturned in 2022. Trump, meanwhile, applauded the repeal of Roe, and falsely claimed that the Biden Administration would “take the life of the baby in the ninth month, and even after birth.”
Trump’s comments prompted outrage from reproductive rights advocates online, many of whom pointed out that abortions don’t happen “after birth”—that would be infanticide, a crime in every state. And abortions later in pregnancy are very rare.
Trump took credit for the overturning of Roe, pointing out that he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of repealing the ruling—which Biden lambasted him for. Trump also claimed that “everybody” wanted Roe to be overturned so that states could make their own laws on abortion—which Biden called “just ridiculous,” citing many scholars who supported Roe when it was first decided.
Criticism over CNN's lack of fact-checking
Throughout the 90-minute debate, the candidates lashed claims related to inflation, border crossings, and abortion policies—many of which were untrue or misleading. For instance, Trump said that “all of these people coming in,” in reference to migrants who have entered the U.S. through the Southern border, would “destroy Social Security.” Politifact previously fact-checked this claim, which Trump has mentioned on the campaign trail, as false. When asked about Trump’s plan to address the climate crisis, Trump also falsely said that he had the “best environmental numbers ever,” even though he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. Biden claimed that no troops died under his watch, although 13 U.S. service members died in a suicide bombing attack at the Kabul Airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
CNN had said before the debate that moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would not be providing real-time fact-checking, opting to let the candidates speak. But critics have taken to social media in a call for better fact-checking during the event to combat misinformation. “This debate is meaningless without fact-checking,” wrote one user on X. “It’s just a big, free national platform for Trump to spout whatever he wants with a veneer of respectability,” the user added in a follow-up tweet. Others said the lack of fact-checking was an “enormous disservice to democracy.”
Trump calls Biden a "bad Palestinian"
Moderators also pressed Biden about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than 20,000 children are missing, according to a recent report. Five Americans also remain under hostage control by Hamas. The U.S. has stood by Israel, which Biden pointed to when pressed about possible solutions to the end of the war. Trump was critical about the billions sent to Israel from the U.S. before claiming that Israel wants to continue the war. ”He's become like a Palestinian. They don't like him because he's a very bad Palestinian. He's a weak one,” Trump said during the debate.
The issue has been contentious among many Americans, prompting calls for a ceasefire and numerous student protests across numerous college campuses, while also generating conversations about anti-semitism in the country.
When asked whether Trump would support an independent Palestinian state, Trump simply said, “I’d have to see.”
Golf match
In an attempt to challenge the competency of his opponent, Trump questioned Biden’s golf abilities when asked about concerns on his own capability to serve.
“He can't hit a ball 50 yards,” Trump claimed, after saying he himself aced two cognitive tests. Biden responded by saying that he would be happy to compete against Trump, so long as he carried his own golf bag.
Trump, who was criticized during his presidency for the amount of time he spent at his golf courses, took to Truth Social to share a short clip of him playing the sport.
Trump: Ukraine would not have been invaded if I were President
More than two years since Russia first invaded Ukraine, with deaths in the hundreds of thousands, moderators asked Trump if he agrees with the conditions Russian President Vladimir Putin set—Ukraine abandoning its NATO bid and Russia keeping four of the Ukrainian territories it has annexed—before Moscow stops its assault on the eastern European state.
Trump said those conditions were “not acceptable,” but argued that he would have settled if he were President while not providing specifics. Trump also suggested that the chaotic end of the U.S.' occupation in Afghanistan—which saw thousands of Afghans trying to escape from the Taliban and U.S. service members killed outside the Kabul airport during the exodus—encouraged Putin to start the war in Ukraine.
“If we had a real President, a President that was respected by Putin, he would have never invaded Ukraine,” Trump said. “The difference is [Putin] never would have invaded Ukraine, never, just like Israel would have never been invaded in a million years by Hamas. You know why? Because Iran was broke with me.”
Biden—whose administration has backed Ukraine through consistent military aid packages—stood firm against Putin: “The fact is that Putin is a war criminal. He's killed thousands and thousands of people, and he has made one thing clear, he wants to reestablish what was part of the Soviet empire, not just a piece. He wants all of Ukraine. That's what he wants. And then you think he'll stop if he takes Ukraine?”
The legacy of Jan. 6
Former President Trump evaded questions about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, downplaying his role in the devastating 2021 riot and whether he did not uphold his oath to defend the Constitution.
“On Jan. 6 we had a great border…On Jan. 6 we were energy independent, we had the lowest taxes ever, we had the lowest regulation ever,” Trump said, followed by claims that the U.S. was “respected all over the world.”Trump then doubled down on claims that the reputation of the U.S. has been tarnished under Biden’s leadership, before claiming that he wanted his supporters to act “peacefully and patriotically” on Jan. 6.
Biden responded by saying that Trump encouraged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol.
"I could see what was happening. Everybody was saying they’re going to be there on Jan. 6, they’re going to be there. And I said, 'You know what? There’s a lot of people coming.' You could feel it," Trump said. "You could feel it, too, and you could feel it. And I said they ought to have some National Guard or whatever."
Trump is currently facing four federal charges for his involvement to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Trump will accept the results “if it’s a fair and legal and good election”
Moderators asked Trump about a “specific concern” that many voters have regarding him—whether he would pledge to accept the results of the 2024 election, regardless of the winner, and condemn “political violence in any form.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have to say that, but of course, I believe that it’s totally unacceptable,” Trump replied. “But the answer is—if the election is fair, free, and I want that more than anybody.”
The former president went on a long tangent about how he wished Biden was “a great president,” because then he wouldn’t have to be on the debate stage running for election again. He said Biden is “so bad as a president” that America is “a failing nation,” criticizing Biden’s military policies and accusing him of dragging the U.S. “closer to World War III.” The two candidates traded jabs back and forth, prompting moderators to intervene and repeatedly press Trump on whether he would accept the results of the election.
“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely. I would have much rather accepted these, but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous,” Trump asserted. “There’s nothing I’d rather do. It would be much easier for me to do that than running again. I wasn’t really going to run until I saw the horrible job he did. He’s destroying our country. I would be very happy to be someplace else.”
Mentions of Trump’s criminal conviction—and Hunter Biden’s
Trump’s recent fraud conviction in relation to hush money payments made to adult-film actor Stormy Daniels—the first criminal conviction of any former U.S. President—was brought up several times during the debate, both by Trump and by Biden.
“The only person in this stage [who’s] a convicted felon is the man I'm looking at right now,” said Biden, in the first mention of Trump’s conviction, as the two candidates accused each other of having poor responses to the violence during the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots and the protests that broke out after the killing of George Floyd.
“When he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon at a very high level,” Trump responded, referencing Hunter Biden, who was found guilty earlier this month on three counts of felony for lying about his drug use when buying a gun in 2018.
When Biden later brought up Trump’s legal battles, including his affair with Daniels, Trump denied having “sex with a porn star” after and said that his hush money case, which he claimed was presided over by a “terrible judge” who’s a Democrat, would be “appealed and won.”
These Are the Biggest Moments in the First Presidential #Debate pic.twitter.com/oJKbFUjXny
— News.Az (@news_az) June 28, 2024
