Thursday night’s CNN presidential debate featured a heated exchange between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, as the two went head-to-head in their second debate since 2020.
The main topics discussed at the debate included illegal immigration, abortion and inflation, as well as climate change, the Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The debate comes as Biden and Trump are the leading Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively, and will be their first televised debate this election cycle, with a second one scheduled for September, hosted by ABC.
While Trump did not take part in any of the Republican primary debates, the Democratic National Convention fully endorsed Biden and did not hold a debate between the two candidates.
Biden campaign avoids answering question about whether president plans to use performance-enhancing drugs ahead of debate
President Biden and former President Trump. (AP Photo/Julia Nickinson and Evan Vucci)
The main points of contention in Thursday’s debate were:
1. “I really don’t know what he said”: Trump-Biden immigration feud
During Thursday night’s debate, CNN host Jake Tapper asked President Joe Biden to explain to voters why he would curb the record numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the border, and Biden and Trump sparred over immigration policy, with Biden calling Trump a “liar” and Trump appearing not to understand some of Biden’s responses.
“We’re seeing things happening right now that, when he was president, we were taking babies from their mothers, putting them in cages, separating families,” Biden said after touting a bipartisan border bill in Congress that lawmakers rejected earlier this year.
“That’s not the right way to do it. What have you done since I changed the law? As a result of me changing the law, we’ve seen a 40% drop in people crossing the border illegally, which is better than when I left office. I’m going to keep going until we have a total ban on full-scale efforts compared to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum agents,” Biden said.
However, Trump did not seem to understand what Biden was saying, responding, “I have no idea what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
“Look, we had the most secure border in the history of our country,” Trump continued, “and all he had to do was abandon it. All he had to do was abandon it. He decided to open up our borders and our country from prisons, from mental hospitals, from psychiatric hospitals, from terrorists. We have the most terrorists coming into our country right now.”
Trump and Biden are sparring over golf handicaps as they try to convince voters he’s not too old to be president.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke at the first presidential debate for the 2024 election with former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the CNN studios in Atlanta, Georgia on June 27, 2024. (Getty Images)
2. “Straight Cat Morality”: Trump and Biden clash over Stormy Daniels allegations
Biden slams former president Trump He accused Trump of “having sex with porn stars” and said he has the “morals of a wild cat”, but the Republican front-runner insisted he doesn’t and accused Biden of being behind his lawsuit because he “can’t win fair and square”.
“You have to pay billions of dollars in civil fines for sexually abusing women in public? For having sex with a porn star while your wife was pregnant? For all that? You have the moral compass of a stray cat in the middle of the night, sir.”
Trump hit back, denying the allegations.
“Number one, I’m not having sex with a porn star,” he said. “Number two, it’s a case that’s already been opened, and they’ve sent a senior Justice Department official to the Manhattan district attorney’s office to open that case.”
Trump was referring to Matthew Colangelo, who served as a senior Justice Department official under the Biden administration before leaving to join Bragg’s prosecution team.
3. “I’ll settle the war between Putin and Zelinsky before I take office,” Trump and Biden say in debate over Ukraine-Russia war
Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden for donating billions of dollars to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to continue his defense against Russian aggression that began in February 2022, and said that if elected he would “resolve” the war before taking office.
“He’s given away $200 billion. That’s a lot of money,” Trump said. “I don’t think anything like this has ever happened before. Every time Zelinsky comes to this country, he brings home $60 billion. He’s the greatest salesman of all time.”
“The money we are spending on this war should not be spent. This should never have happened. I am going to get this war resolved between Putin and President-elect Zelinsky before I take office on January 20th. I am going to get this war resolved. People are being killed needlessly and senselessly. I am going to get this war resolved. I am going to get it resolved quickly before I take office.”
The current president responded by saying, “The fact is that Putin is a war criminal.”
“He killed thousands of people and made one thing clear: he wants to re-establish what was once part of the Soviet empire. And not just part of it, he wants to take all of Ukraine,” he said.
“By the way, the money from weapons we make in the United States is not given to Ukraine at this point, it’s given to them as weapons. I’ve got our NATO allies to give Ukraine the same amount of money as the United States. That’s why we’re strong,” he said.
A raspy-voiced Biden stumbles off the ground as he takes on Trump in the first 2024 presidential debate
The composite image shows President Biden, former President Trump and the southern border. ((AP Photo/Gerald Herbert and Fox News))
4. Trump and Biden debate cognitive ability and golf handicaps: “You’re a kid”
During the CNN presidential debate, CNN host Dana Bash announced how old Biden and Trump will be at the end of their second terms.
Biden will be 86 years old and Trump will be 82.
Biden defended his age, saying, “I’ve been criticized for half my career for being the youngest person in politics. I was the second-youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I’m the oldest. This guy is three years younger than me and far less qualified.”
But Trump recalled that he had taken the cognitive ability test twice.
“You know, I got perfect scores on both. I made it public. He didn’t get one. I wish he’d take one. I hope it’s just the really easy questions,” Trump said.
An avid golfer, Trump said Thursday night that he recently “won two club championships, although not at the senior level.”
“You have to be pretty smart and be able to hit the ball far to do that, and I can do that,” Trump said. “He can’t do that. He can’t hit the ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a game of golf and he can’t hit the ball 50 yards.”
“I saw you swing. I know your swing,” Trump retorted. “Stop acting like a kid.”
But Biden responded, “You’re a child.”
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A look at the debate dial shows that Democratic voters are responding favorably to Biden’s comments on the economy. (Fox News Digital)
5. Biden and Trump slam each other over criminal records
During the debate, Biden pointed out to Trump that he was the “only person” with a felony record, but Trump responded by saying, “When he talks about convicted felons, his son is a convicted felon.”
“At the very highest level, his son was convicted,” Trump said, adding that he would seek “retribution” if he wins the November election.
“Joe could be convicted as soon as he leaves office for all the things he’s done,” he continued. “He did terrible things, like killing a lot of people on the border. He told the Ukrainian people that if they changed their prosecutor, he wanted $1 billion, and if they didn’t, he wasn’t going to give them $1 billion. If I said that, that was a payoff.”
“This guy is a criminal. This guy, you’re lucky, you’re lucky. I didn’t do anything wrong. Our system is rigged, it’s terrible,” Trump said.
Biden, meanwhile, dismissed the idea that he cheated, calling it “outrageous.”
“That’s just a lie,” Biden responded. “Secondly, the idea that just because you’re the president you have the right to seek retaliation against any American is false. No president has ever said that. No president in the history of our country has ever said that.”
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
