United States President Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump exchanged personal insults at the presidential debate on Thursday night ahead of the November 5, 2024, election.
Biden delivered a shaky and halting performance while Trump battered his successor with a series of often false attacks at the debate.
The two oldest presidential candidates ever traded barbs on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, their handling of the economy, and their golf games as they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months.
Biden’s allies tried to put a brave face on the evening, and two White House officials said Biden had a cold.
But the president’s poor performance rattled his fellow Democrats and will likely deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another four-year term.
One top Biden donor, who did not want to be identified while criticizing the president, called his performance “disqualifying” and said he expected a fresh round of calls for him to step aside ahead of the party’s national convention in August.
Vice President Kamala Harris, appearing on CNN after the debate, acknowledged what she called Biden’s “slow start” but argued that voters should judge him and Trump based on their years in office.
“I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I’ve been watching the last three-and-a-half years of performance,” Harris told CNN host Anderson Cooper.
Trump: I’ll give green cards to foreign graduates as U.S. president
A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions during the debate’s first half-hour, Reuters reports.
He, however, found his footing at the halfway mark when he attacked Trump over his conviction for covering up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, calling him a “felon”.
In response, Trump brought up the recent conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter, for lying about his drug use to buy a gun.
Moments later, Biden noted that almost all of Trump’s former cabinet members, including former Vice President Mike Pence, have not endorsed his campaign.
He said: “They know him well, they served with him. Why are they not endorsing him?”
Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of criticisms, many of which were well-worn falsehoods he has long repeated, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave, that Democrats support infanticide and that he actually won the 2020 election.
Asked about the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, the former president refused to accept any responsibility and claimed that many of those arrested were innocent.
“This guy has no sense of American democracy,” Biden scoffed in response.
Biden also blamed Trump for enabling the elimination of a nationwide right to abortion by appointing conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court, an issue that has bedevilled Republicans since 2022.
Trump countered that Biden would not support any limits on abortions and said that returning the issue to the states was the right course of action.
Trump said Biden had failed to secure the southern U.S. border, ushering in scores of criminals.
“I call it Biden migrant crime,” he said.
“Once again, he’s exaggerating, he’s lying,” Biden replied.
Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
The televised 90-minute clash on CNN took place far earlier than any modern presidential debate, more than four months before the November 5 Election Day.
The two candidates appeared with no live audience, and their microphones automatically cut off when it was not their turn to speak – both atypical rules imposed to avoid the chaos that derailed their first debate in 2020 when Trump interrupted Biden repeatedly.
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