US presidential debate: A fumbling Biden let’s Trump get away with his 'usual lies'

With a little over four months left for the United States presidential election, the presumptive nominees Joe Biden and Donald Trump took the stage for the first debate, on Thursday (Jun 28) night. The debate was marked by Biden's underwhelming performance and his inability to call Trump out on his many false claims.

High-stakes debate

After months of campaigning, Biden and Trump finally went head-to-head for the first time since the last presidential debates in 2020. A lot has changed since then, except for one thing.

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Four years ago, Americans were not thrilled with their choices, and this time around, it is more of the same.

On one hand, there is the 81-year-old Democrat whose age has been in the spotlight more than his policies and time in office and on the other78-year-oldconvicted felon.

Biden is the oldest American president and has repeatedly failed to quell the concerns about his age, and this debate may be the final nail in the coffin forDemocrats.

Thursday’s debate was also Trump’s first since he opted out of Republican primary debates.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s performance was much like one of his rallies marked by false claims, attacking people, and boasting about his (non)achievements.

What happened during the debate?

In an interview with MSNBC after the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “It was a slow start…but I thought it was a strong finish.”

This quote essentially encapsulates Biden’s underwhelming performance; as he did manage to talk about some of the policies that he plans to work on if reelected, calling it a “strong finish” would be a bit of a stretch.

The 90-minute debate between the two oldest presidential candidates was hosted by CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, with no audience.

The incumbent president started slow and was heard speaking in a hoarse voice which the White House officials attributed to a cold.

Meanwhile, Trump seemed more succinct in his responses while his successor struggled to speak within the time limit and had to be stopped by the moderators on multiple occasions.

The former president also often avoided answering the questions asked in favour of responding to what his rival said.

Biden and Trump were asked questions related to a range of issues including, the economy, abortion, and foreign policy.

Economy

The debate started with questions about one of the top concerns among American voters – the economy.

With soaring inflation and a rise in the cost of living, voters are concerned about which candidate will take over the White House for the next four years and how their policies will affect the economy.

While both Trump and Biden have improved certain sections of the economy during their time in office, recent polls have indicated that voters favour Republicans over Democrats when it comes to handling the economy.

Less than 15 minutes into the debate, Biden while talking about Medicare and tax reforms seemingly lost his train of thought.

Tax reform would create money to help “strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I was able to do with the, with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we had to do with,” hesaid.

After pausing and a few seconds of fumbling, the incumbent president continued, “We finally beat Medicare.”

Meanwhile, Trump falselyclaimed that the US had the “greatest economy in the history of our country” when he was in office.

According to a fact-check by the Associated Press, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive recession and the Trump administration borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilise it.

Furthermore, even if the pandemic factor is excluded, growth after inflation under Trump averaged 2.49 per cent, as per data from the World Bank.

The former president also left fewer jobs than when he took office.

Abortion

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly taken credit for overturning Roe v Wade, the constitutional right to an abortion, which had been in place for 50 years.

Abortion is one of the issues where Democrats have the upper hand and support from voters, but Biden failed to rise to the occasion.

Surprisingly, Trump said that he supported the recent decision where the Supreme Court unanimously rejected an effort to restrict access to the abortion pill, butstill thinks that the decision about abortion rights should be left up to the states.

However,in true Trump fashion, he went on to make an outlandish claim that Democrats are allowing “late-term abortions” – which is not a medical term – and falsely claimed the former governor of Virginia supported killing babies.

The claim stems from an interview when the then-governor of Virginia Ralph Northam, a Democrat,was describing a hypothetical situation where a foetus was severely deformed or wasn’t otherwise viable.

He suggested that the “infant would be delivered,” “kept comfortably,” and “resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.” However, at no point did he talk about killing the newborn.

Meanwhile, Biden said he would restore Roe v Wade, but then seemingly mixed up two different stories as he digressed and somehow ended up talking about a “young woman who just was murdered…by an immigrant.”

Immigration

Since the beginning of the debate, Trump seemed eager to talk about the border and immigration; bringingit up 11 and a half minutes into the debate saying that the only jobs that Biden created were for illegal immigrants.

Notably, the former president said the word “border” 36 times during the 90-minute debate and repeatedly attacked his successor over border security.

Immigration and border security are the top Republican talking points and have been central to their messaging ahead of this election.

While talking about immigration, Trump falsely claimed “people are coming in and killing our citizens at a level like we’ve never seen before.”

He also claimed that Biden wants to “open borders” which is also incorrect considering the incumbent has recently signed restrictive measures into law which are similar to that of his predecessor.

Foreign policy

The presidential nominees were asked about the Russia-Ukraine war as well as the conflictbetween Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden over America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan in 2021.

Notably,Russian PresidentVladimir Putin was mentioned nearly 12 times during the debate as Trump and Biden butted heads over the Ukraine war.

“If we had a real president, (who)...was respected by Putin, he would have never invaded Ukraine,” said the former president.

Meanwhile, Biden called the Russian president a “war criminal” and criticised Trump for the time he said he would let Putin take over Ukraine and pull out of NATO. “He has no idea what the hell he’s talking about.”

Speaking about the war in Gaza, Trump said that Biden has “become a Palestinian” and is not letting Israel “finish the job”.

On the contrary, the Biden administration has repeatedly come under fire over their support for Israel, with polls showing a dip in the number of young voters backing the incumbent US president because of it.

Meanwhile, Biden spoke about his peace plan for Gaza and said that the US is “providing Israel all the weapons they need.”

January 6 and election result

When asked about the January 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, Trump avoided answering the question and said on that day “nobody” was coming through the border, we had the “lowest taxes ever,” “lowest regulations ever,” and the US was “respected all over the world”.

Subsequently, the debate moderator pressed Trump to answer saying that voters are “worried” that you will do that again.

Eventually, Trump, speaking of the day when his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a bid to stop the certification of Biden’s victory, falsely claimed there were a “relatively small number of people” and in “many cases were ushered in by the police.”

However, the attack on the US Capitol has been described as the deadliest assault on the seat of American power in over 200 years and Trump’s claims about that day have been debunked time and again.

Biden called him a “whiner” who cannot handle loss and said that Trump did nothing to stop his supporters, who he said Trump has referred to as “great patriots of America,” from storming the Capitol.

Subsequently, the Republican was asked if would accept the results of the upcoming elections regardless of who wins. Trump dodged the question two times by rambling about other issues before he was asked a third time.

“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” said Trump in his response.

The former president and his supporters, including many from the Republican party, have repeatedly spewed false claimsthat the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Attacks against each other

An analysis by the New York Times showed that Trump and Biden collectively spent nearly 31 minutes attacking each other.

The former president reportedly spent at least 44 per cent of his time launching attacks against his successor who, in turn, spent 35 per cent of his time responding and/or taking shots at his predecessor.

At one point, Trump took a jab at Biden for his incoherence and said, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said.”

The two also challenged each other to a golf match, a driving test, and a cognitive test. “I told you before that I’m happy to play golf. If you can carry your own bag, think you can do it?” Biden told Trump.

Arguably, one of the comical moments of the debate was when the incumbent US president attacked his predecessor over his many legal woes.

Trump was seen nodding along until Biden accused him of having sex with adult film actor Stormy Daniels, while his wife, Melania, was pregnant. “You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden said.

“I didn’t have sex with a porn star,” Trump said in response.

Who won this round?

It is safe to say that this debate did not go well for Biden and his underwhelming performance has sent Democrats into a frenzy.

Prominent Democratic lawmakers are worried, a Congressional aide who works for a Democratic senator told Reuters. She noted her boss is “sitting with other frontline members and panicking. Let the Democratic bedwetting begin.”

But in addition to the panic, some reports suggest that Democrats are seeking to replace Biden with manyanxious overhis performance in the high-stakeselections.

A flash poll by CNN following the debate showed Trump was leading against Biden with 67 per cent of debate watchers voting for the former president when compared to the 33 per cent supporting the incumbent president.

“Joe Biden looked very weak and confused right from the start…I was shocked and dismayed. I hate to see our president acting that way on TV and in front of the world,” one of the 13 “undecideds” told Reuters.

The jury is still out on whether Trump can be called a winner in this debate considering the number of lies he spewed on the stage.

Meanwhile, Biden, despite his nearly week-long prep at Camp David presidential retreat and facts onhis side, mumbled and stumbled his way through the debate.

According to a fact check by CNN, Trump made more than 30 false and misleading claims during the debate when compared to Biden’s nine.

This point was aptly putby CNN’s political commentator, Van Jones who said, “Biden stuttered, but he told the truth.”

He added, “He looked terrible, but his policies were good. Trump spoke plainly, but he lied the whole time. He looked good, but his policies were terrible.”

The next presidential debate is scheduled for September 10 and will be hosted by ABC News.

(With inputs from agencies)