ATLANTA (AP) — A rasping and sometimes halting President Joe Biden repeatedly tried to confront Donald Trump in their first debate before the November election, while his Republican rival countered Biden’s criticism by spreading falsehoods about the economy, illegal immigration and his role in the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Biden’s uneven performance, especially early in the debate, highlighted fears among many Americans that, at 81, he is too ancient to be president. This sparked a recent wave of calls for the Democrat to consider stepping down as the party’s nominee amid fears that Trump could return to the White House.
Biden repeatedly attacked Trump, apparently to provoke him, bringing up everything from the former president’s recent felony conviction to his alleged insults against World War I veterans to his weight. Trump, 78, refused to say clearly that he would accept the outcome of November’s election, four years after spreading conspiracy theories about his defeat that culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and repeated misstatements about the results of his time in office.
But Biden’s speech at the beginning of the debate attracted the most attention afterward. Trump’s allies immediately declared themselves the winner, while prominent Democrats publicly questioned whether Biden could even advance.
“I think the panic has set in,” David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to former President Barack Obama, said on CNN immediately after the debate about Biden’s performance. “And I think you’re going to hear discussions that I don’t know if they’re going to lead to anything, but there’s going to be discussions about whether he should continue.”
Van Jones, another Democratic strategist, said on CNN: “He has not done well at all.”
Rosemarie DeAngelis, a Democrat who watched the debate at a party in South Portland, Maine, said she thought Biden gave Trump the right answers but “lacked the spark we needed tonight.”
“That will be the challenge for the future. It’s only June, that’s the first, but can he hold out?” she said. “That will be the challenge.”
Vice President Kamala Harris subsequently attempted to defend the president’s performance in an interview with CNN, but at the same time acknowledged the criticism.
“It was a slow start but a strong finish,” she said.
When asked about his performance in the debate, Biden told reporters early Friday, “I think we did well,” but said he had a “sore throat.” Asked if Democrats should question his performance and therefore make him consider resigning, Biden said, “No, it’s hard to debate a liar.”
Biden kept losing the thread
Biden began the evening with a hoarse voice as he tried to defend his economic record and criticize Trump. A person familiar with the matter said Biden was suffering from a chilly during the debate, adding that his COVID-19 test came back negative.
Biden seemed to lose his train of thought while answering, drifting from an answer about tax policy to health policy. At one point he used the word “COVID,” then said, “Excuse me, dealing with,” and fell noiseless again.
“Look, we finally defeated Medicare,” Biden said as time ran out to respond.
He also stumbled on the issue of abortion rights, one of the most significant issues for Democrats in this year’s election. He was unable to explain Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. A conservative Supreme Court with three justices nominated by Trump overturned Roe two years ago.
When asked if he supported certain restrictions on abortion, Biden said: “I support the Roe v. Wade case, which had three trimesters. The first time is between a woman and a doctor. The second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. The third time is between the doctor, so between the woman and the state.”
He added that he believes doctors, not politicians, should make decisions about “women’s health.”
As the debate continued, Biden gave clearer answers, albeit still in a harsh voice, and attacked Trump’s record on issues such as combating climate change.
“The only existential threat to humanity is climate change, and he has done nothing damn about it,” he said.
Trump tried to deflect blame for January 6
The current president and his predecessor had not spoken since their last debate a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump was absent from Biden’s inauguration after leading an unprecedented and unsuccessful attempt to overturn his defeat that culminated in his supporters rioting at the Capitol.
Trump was ambiguous about whether he would accept the outcome of November’s election, saying he would accept it if the vote was “fair” and “legal,” repeating his baseless claims of widespread fraud and wrongdoing in his 2020 loss to Biden, which he continues to deny.
When Trump was questioned about his behavior on January 6, 2021, he showed no remorse.
“On January 6th, we were respected around the world, we were respected around the world. And then he comes and we are laughed at,” Trump said.
When asked by a moderator to answer whether he had violated his oath of office that day by calling on his supporters to block the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory and failing to act for hours to call off the storming of the Capitol, Trump tried to shift the blame to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Biden said Trump encouraged supporters to go to the Capitol and sat idly in the White House as they fought with police.
“He didn’t do a damn thing and those people should be in jail,” Biden said. “They should be the ones held accountable. And he wants to release them all. And now he’s saying if he loses again, it could be a ‘bloodbath,’ like the whiner he is?”
Trump then defended those convicted and imprisoned for their role in the insurrection, telling Biden, “They should be ashamed of what they did to some such innocent people.”
Trump and Biden began the evening facing stiff headwinds. Polls showed the public tired of partisan tumult and broadly dissatisfied with both parties. But the debate made clear that the two have starkly different views on virtually every core issue – abortion, the economy and foreign policy – and are deeply hostile to one another.
Their personal animosity quickly came to the surface. Biden got personal when he mentioned his son Beau, who served in Iraq before dying of brain cancer. The president criticized Trump for allegedly calling Americans killed in the war “suckers and losers.” Biden told Trump, “My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You’re the sucker. You’re the loser.”
Trump said he never said that – a phrase attributed to him by his former chief of staff – and he criticized Biden for the messy withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, which he called “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”
Trump himself had agreed to the withdrawal with the Taliban a year before he left office.
Biden directly mentioned Trump’s conviction in the New York hush money trial, saying, “You have the morals of a stray,” referring to allegations in the case that Trump had sex with a porn actress.
“I did not have sex with a porn star,” replied Trump, who chose not to testify at his trial.
When Biden has been pressed to defend rising inflation since taking office, he attributed it to the situation he inherited from Trump amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Biden said that when Trump left office, “chaos reigned.” Trump disagreed, saying that “everything went great” during his tenure in the White House.
When Trump left office, America was still battling the pandemic, and during his final hours in office, the death toll topped 400,000. The virus continued to rage through the country, and over a year later, the death toll reached one million.
Trump was asked what he would do to make child care more affordable, but he instead used his answer to brag about how many people he fired during his time in office, including former FBI Director James Comey, and criticized Biden for not firing people from his administration.
The age question is back
Before the debate, about six in 10 American adults (59%) said they were “very concerned” that Biden was too ancient to be president, according to Gallup data from June. Only 18% expressed the same concern about Trump. The poll found that Biden’s age also raised concerns among some Democrats: 31% said they were very concerned.
But Trump’s allies would enter the spin room after the debate triumphant. Trump’s senior adviser Chris LaCivita called it “the most lopsided victory in debate history” and mocked the Biden team for claiming the president had a chilly.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a prominent Democratic supporter of Biden, was asked if he would consider stepping in for Biden. He dismissed the questions, saying, “I will never turn my back on him.”
He said he knows Biden and knows what he is capable of, adding: “I am not afraid.”
Biden spent nearly a week at the presidential resort Camp David to prepare for the debate. Shortly before the debate, Biden began selling cans of water labeled “Dark Brandon’s Secret Sauce” on his campaign website, mocking suggestions by Trump and his advisers that he was taking drugs to enhance his performance.
In a brief address to his supporters at a watch party near the debate venue, Biden did not directly address his performance but said, “Let’s keep going,” and indicated that he had no plans to drop out of the race.
“See you next time,” he said.
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Miller, Price and Weissert reported from Washington.
