President Biden and former President Trump faced each other for the first time in four years on Thursday in a debate in Atlanta, seen as a key moment in the presidential election.
their A 90-minute encounterObservers on the left and right seem to agree that the night was a game-changer, but not one in Biden’s favor.
The two candidates clashed over the economy, abortion, immigration and foreign policy, but the night is likely to be best remembered for Biden’s shaky start, which the White House blamed in part on a cold.
Here are five takeaways.
Biden fails to shake concerns about his age
Biden, 81, will be 86 at the end of his second term and has done little to ease voters’ concerns about whether he is prepared for another four years in the Oval Office.
Age has been one of the main concerns Biden continues to face throughout the 2024 campaign, and his delayed appearance at a debate requested by his campaign has called into question his decision to go ahead with the June debate.
“There’s no way I would send my boss on national television in this condition,” Michael Hardaway, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), wrote on X.
Biden made several gaffes, stuttered and slurred his words, and his voice was hoarse throughout the night, especially at the start of the debate when he spoke in a hushed voice.
One of Biden’s most notable stumbles came early in the debate, during a discussion of Medicare.
“Making sure that every single person has access to the same things that I’ve been doing, erm, with COVID-19, excuse me, dealing with everything that has to be done,” he said, pausing. “Look… we finally won Medicare.”
Trump, who had argued during the campaign that Biden was not ready to stay in the White House for another four years, countered after a brief pause that Biden had “defeated Medicare for good.”
Multiple sources have told The Hill and other media that Biden has a cold, explaining his “slow” start, but it certainly wasn’t what was needed to dispel doubts about his competency.
Trump is not young — he just turned 78 and would be the oldest president in history if he completes his term — but questions about his age have not been as easily dismissed as those about Biden, and the Republican’s Thursday night speech is unlikely to change that.
Biden grew more enthusiastic as the debate went on, confronting Trump more frequently over various comments he made, including one notable example when he blasted Trump for comments he allegedly made in 2018 calling military veterans “idiots” and “losers,” a charge Trump has denied.
Democratic strategist John Reinisch argued that Biden will improve over time.
“The president started slowly but has picked up steam. His team should look into home remedies for the throat: honey and lemon,” he said.
Trump is relatively disciplined
Former President Trump was panned in the first debate of the 2020 campaign for frequently interrupting Biden and taking an aggressive tone, but there were no such issues in Thursday’s debate.
Trump’s response was filled with misleading statements and lies, including claiming that Biden plans to quadruple taxes across the U.S. He downplayed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and was vague about whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election.
But even though Biden rambled on certain topics and lost his train of thought at times, he was able to pass the visual test while avoiding the kind of bluster that has plagued him in the past.
Ahead of Thursday’s showdown, aides to the former president and Republican strategists argued that Trump has a duty to avoid a self-inflicted wound and to keep the evening’s focus on Biden.
The fact that candidates’ microphones were muted when it was not their turn to speak, so they could not be heard, may have played a part in Trump’s victory, but Republicans felt that by the end of the night, Trump’s mission was accomplished.
“The MVP of this debate for Trump is the visual contrast between Trump and Biden on the two screens,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told The Hill. “Trump looks 20 years younger and sharper, while Biden looks smudged and incapable of serving another four years. After tonight, the chances of another Trump-Biden debate are slim to none.”
Moderators fail to fact-check
Moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper tried to limit the candidates’ debate time but chose not to fact-check the candidates in real time during the debate, despite some experts arguing beforehand that Trump and Biden should be held accountable.
The decision not to dispute the allegations in the debate left the candidates open to distorting the truth and trading accusations.
This may have worked to Trump’s advantage: After the debate, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale counted at least 30 Trump claims and at least nine Biden claims, though Dale’s fact-checking efforts only became evident after many viewers had finished watching the debate.
At one point, Trump appeared to suggest Biden was “basically going after a former president who is a political enemy” through the Manhattan hush-payment case in which Trump was convicted last month.
Four years ago, Trump made a bizarre claim during the 2020 debate. Urged thorough fact-checking After the curtains were closed.
Biden’s campaign and Allies share Verification of Trump’s remarks Throughout the night, social media posts Tracker Various media outlets tried to keep up with the developments of both candidates.
The contentious debate was controlled in part by mute buttons that blocked the audio from both candidates and the absence of a live studio audience — an effort by broadcasters to avoid a repeat of the raucous 2020 showdown between the two candidates.
But the hosts struggled to keep chiding the candidates, allowing for both falsehoods and digressions. At one point, Trump ignored a question about how much child care he had to pay and used the time to blast Biden as “the worst president ever.”
“I wish CNN’s hosts would do a better job of fact-checking and letting viewers know when they are clearly lying. I don’t see how a platform can help by disguising lies as facts,” said Nicholas Kristof, a longtime New York Times columnist. post Observers gathered at X Criticism.
Meanwhile, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said: It is called The moderators are “amazingly good” and “not that unfair.”
Republican strategist Brian Sejczyk said the hosts did a good job of staying out of the spotlight with their low-key approach, while Democratic strategist Reinisch said the hosts should have been more involved.
It wasn’t 2020, but it became a personal issue.
The first debate between Trump and Biden was notorious for chaos and heated arguments between the two candidates.
Thursday’s debate didn’t reach that level of tension, but it still at times devolved into personal conflict.
Later in the debate, Biden called Trump a “moron” and a “loser” in response to comments Trump allegedly made about dead veterans.
“He was standing there with a four-star general and he told me, ‘I don’t want to go there, because they’re all losers and idiots,'” Biden said. “My son was not a loser. He’s not an idiot. You’re the idiot. You’re the loser.”
At one point, Trump called Biden the “Manchurian candidate” and accused him of not standing up to China.
Both candidates accused the other of lying and being dishonest during debates on a range of policy issues.
Notably, the candidates did not shake hands before or after the debate, at which point Biden was greeted by his wife, Jill Biden, and Trump left the room.
Democrats went into the night feeling anxious and frustrated.
Biden’s distracted and flubbed performance sent Democrats into a state of panic even before the debate ended.
“I’m not a Biden campaign staffer, nor am I a close friend of Bidenworld. I don’t know if there are any high-level discussions happening right now about Biden’s concerning performance, but it would be politically dishonest to pretend that tonight is a step forward for the Biden campaign.” Max Barnes explained. Mr. X, a Democratic strategist and opinion writer for The Hill.
“In 2012, when Barack Obama botched the first debate with Mitt Romney, serious conversations were held about what went wrong and what needed to be done to fix it. Obama got it right,” he added in another post. “Now we need to have a similar conversation with Biden.”
The CNN debate was meant to be Democrats’ first opportunity to show voters the difference between Trump and Biden, who they hoped would demonstrate the same vigor he displayed during this year’s “State of the Union” address.
Instead, Biden’s initially sluggish performance in the debate highlighted concerns about voters’ age.
“Biden’s off to a bad start (there’s no other way to put it).” I have written “He got better throughout the debate, but that’s not what the Biden campaign was hoping for tonight,” said Symone Sanders Townsend, a former senior adviser to Vice President Harris. “I think it’s fair to point out that the president looks like he has a cold, but when it comes to debates, performance is as important as content.”
Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Arizona I thought about X Regarding the possibility that the hashtag “#ReplaceBiden” would start circulating online. The word “dementia” was also trending on X.
Biden will have a chance to significantly improve his performance when he debates Trump again in September at an ABC News debate, but the president will have a lot of redemption to make before then.
Julia Manchester contributed to this story.
