ATLANTA: President Joe Biden delivered a rough presentation at Thursday’s debate, while his Republican rival Donald Trump rattled off a series of attacks that included many lies, as the two aged presidential candidates ever clashed on stage ahead of November’s US elections.
The two men exchanges harsh words 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 almost tied race for months.
The discussion came at a pivotal juncture in their unpopular presidential rematch, a critical moment to make their cases before a national television audience. Biden’s imbalanced performance risked crystallizing voter affairs 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 unrestrained four years in office.
Biden entered the discussion 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 a spectator of tens of millions that he is unreliably suited to return to the Oval Office.
A hoarse-sounding Biden blunders over his words on numerous times during the debate’s first half-hour, but he found his footing at the centrally mark when he attacked Trump for his conviction for covering up hush money payments to star Stormy Daniels, calling him a “felon”. In response, Trump brought up the latest conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter, for dishonesty 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 validated his campaign. “They know him well, they served with him,” he said. “Why are they not endorsing him?”
Two White House officers said Biden had a cold. But his up-and-down evening could deepen voter affairs that the 81-year-old is too old to perform another four-year term. Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a storm of criticisms, some of which were well-worn lies he has reiterated on the campaign trial, including claims that refugees have carried out a crime wave and that Democrats support infanticide.
Biden and Trump, 78, were under pressure to display their command of deliveries 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 quickness, while Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and sprawling legal trails remain a vulnerability.
Trump was asked about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters captured the US Capitol to try to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden. “On Jan. 6, we were respected all over the world, all over the world we were respected,” Trump said.
After he was prompted by a mediator 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 accuse then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Biden said Trump boosted the supporters to go to the Capitol and sat in the White House without taking action as they attacked 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 mocked in response.
Biden also accused Trump for enabling the removal 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 answered that Trump Once again, overstating and lying.
Research 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 latest presidential debate, more than four months before the Nov. 5 Election Day.
The two candidates appeared with no live audience, and their mikes 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 disrupted Biden repeatedly.
As the debate started, the two men — who have made little private of their mutual dislike — did not shake hands or recognized one another.
But there were lots of moments in which their bad blood was evident. Biden and Trump called each other the worst president in history; Biden mentioned 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 arrogant about hitting the ball farther than Biden and Biden retorting that Trump would fight to carry his own bag. Biden said that on health care, we finally beat Medicare, as his time ran out on his answer.
Trump catch up on it, saying, “That’s right, he did beat Medicaid, he beat it to death. And he’s finishing Medicare.”
Trump wrongly suggested Biden was weakening the social service program because of refuges coming into the country illegally.
Polarized Nation
The first questions firm on the economy, as polls show Americans are displeased with Biden’s performance despite wage growth and low unemployment. Biden acknowledged that inflation had driven prices considerably higher than at the start of his term but said he deserves credit for putting “things back together again” following the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump stressed that he had overseen “the greatest economy in the history of our country” before the pandemic hit and said he took action to prevent the economic freefall from deepening even further.
The debate stage at a time of profound polarization and deep-seated nervousness among voters about the state of American politics. Two-thirds of voters said in a May that they were concerned aggression could follow the polls, nearly four years after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Trump took the stage as a felon who still faces a trio of criminal cases, including to his efforts to abolish the 2020 election. The former president, who persists in falsely claiming his loss was the result of fraud, has suggested he will penalize his political enemies if return to power, but he will need to motivate undecided voters that he does not pose a mortal threat to democracy, as Biden affirms.
Biden’s challenge was to deliver a forceful occurrence after months of Republican declaration that his faculties have dulled with age. While national polls show a tied race, Biden has trailed Trump in elections of most frontline states that usually decide presidential elections. Neither Biden nor Trump is popular and many Americans remain extremely ambivalent about their choices. About a fifth of voters say they have not picked a contender, are leaning toward a third-party contender or may sit the election out, the poll showed.
Trump’s niece Mary Trump, who has been serious of her uncle, will join Biden’s campaign in its media spin room following the debate, a campaign official said.
Several contenders to be Trump’s vice-presidential pick — North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and US senators J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio — traveled to Atlanta and were awaited to make Trump’s case in the post-debate spin room. The second and final debate in this year’s campaign is planned for September. See a Reuters photo slide show of earlier debates.
