Democratic President Joe Biden delivered an uneven performance at Thursday’s debate, while his Republican rival Donald Trump rattled off a series of attacks that included numerous falsehoods, as the two oldest presidential candidates ever clashed on stage ahead of November’s US election.
The two men traded attacks on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and their handling of the economy as they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months.
The debate came at a pivotal juncture in their unpopular presidential rematch, a critical moment to make their cases before a national television audience. Biden’s uneven performance risked crystallizing voter concerns that at age 81 he is too old to serve as president, while Trump’s rhetoric offered a perhaps unwelcome reminder of the bombast he launched daily during his tumultuous four years in office.
Biden entered the debate looking to sharpen the choice voters will face in November. Trump, 78, looked for an opening to try to move past his felony conviction in New York and convince an audience of tens of millions that he is temperamentally suited to return to the Oval Office.
A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions during the debate’s first half-hour, but he found his footing at the halfway mark when he attacked Trump for 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.
“They know him well, they served with him,” he said. “Why are they not endorsing him?“
Two White House officials said Biden had a cold. But his up-and-down evening could deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another four-year term.
Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of criticisms, some of which were well-worn falsehoods he has repeated on the campaign trial, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave and that Democrats support infanticide.
Biden and Trump, 78, were under pressure to display their command of issues and avoid verbal gaffes as they sought a breakout moment in a race that opinion polls show has been deadlocked for months. Biden, in particular, has been dogged by questions about his age and sharpness, while Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and sprawling legal woes remain a vulnerability.
Trump was asked about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.
“On January 6, we were respected all over the world, all over the world we were respected. And then he comes in and we’re now laughed at,” Trump said.
After he was prompted by a moderator to answer whether he violated his oath of office that day by rallying his supporters seeking to block the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory and not doing enough to call them off as they stormed the Capitol, Trump sought to blame then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Biden said Trump encouraged the supporters to go to the Capitol and sat in the White House without taking action as they fought with police officers.
“He didn’t do a damn thing and these people should be in jail,” Biden said. “They should be the ones that are being held accountable. And he wants to let them all out. And now he says that if he loses again, such a whiner that he is, that this could be a ‘bloodbath’?”
Trump then defended the people convicted and imprisoned for their role in the insurrection, saying to Biden, “What they’ve done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“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 US Supreme Court, an issue that has bedeviled 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 US border, ushering in scores of criminals.
“I call it Biden migrant crime,” he said.
Biden replied, “Once again, he’s exaggerating, he’s lying.”
Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans. The televised clash on CNN was taking place far earlier than any modern presidential debate, more than four months before the Nov. 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.
As the debate began, the two men, who have made little secret of their mutual dislike, did not shake hands or acknowledge one another.
But there were plenty more moments in which their bad blood was evident. Each called the other the worst president in history; Biden referred to Trump as a “loser” and a “whiner,” while Trump called Biden a “disaster.”
At one point, the rivals bickered over their golf games, with Trump bragging about hitting the ball farther than Biden and Biden retorting that Trump would struggle to carry his own bag.
