Biden falters as Trump unleashes falsehoods during presidential debate
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[June 28, 2024]
By Helen Coster, Steve Holland, Joseph Ax
ATLANTA (Reuters)i -President Joe Biden delivered a shaky, halting
performance while his Republican rival Donald Trump battered him with a
series of often false attacks at their debate on Thursday, as the two
oldest presidential candidates ever exchanged personal insults ahead of
the November election.
The two men traded barbs on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine
and Gaza, their handling of the economy and even their golf games as
they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a
virtually tied race for months.
Biden's allies tried to put a brave face on the evening, and two White
House officials said Biden had a cold.
But the president's poor performance rattled his fellow Democrats and
will likely deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to
serve another four-year term.
One top Biden donor, who did not want to be identified while criticizing
the president, called his performance "disqualifying" and said he
expected a fresh round of calls for him to step aside ahead of the
party's national convention in August.
Vice President Kamala Harris, appearing on CNN after the debate,
acknowledged what she called Biden's "slow start" but argued that voters
should judge him and Trump based on their years in office.
"I'm not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90
minutes when I've been watching the last three-and-a-half years of
performance," she told CNN host Anderson Cooper.
A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions
during the debate's first half-hour. But he found his footing at the
halfway mark when he attacked Trump over his conviction for covering up
hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, calling him a "felon."
In response, Trump brought up the recent conviction of Biden's son,
Hunter, for lying 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 endorsed
his campaign.
"They know him well, they served with him," he said. "Why are they not
endorsing him?"
Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of criticisms, many of which were
well-worn falsehoods he has long repeated, including claims that
migrants have carried out a crime wave, that Democrats support
infanticide and that he actually won the 2020 election.
Biden and Trump, 78, were both under pressure to display their fitness
for office. Biden has been dogged by questions about his age and
sharpness, while Trump's incendiary rhetoric and sprawling legal woes
remain a vulnerability.
"Obviously, the biggest factor is that Biden still seemed old and raspy
and less coherent than when he ran last time," said Matt Grossmann, a
political science professor at Michigan State University. "I don't think
Trump really did anything to help himself beyond his existing
supporters, but I think it's eclipsed by people's impressions of Biden
on his biggest vulnerability."
Asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of
Trump supporters, the former president refused to accept any
responsibility and claimed that many of those arrested were innocent.
"This guy has no sense of American democracy," Biden scoffed in
response.
Biden also blamed Trump for enabling the elimination of a nationwide
right to abortion by appointing conservatives to the U.S. 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 U.S. border, ushering
in scores of criminals.
"I call it Biden migrant crime," he said.
Biden replied, "Once again, he's exaggerating, he's lying."
Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than
native-born Americans.
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Media crews work at the press room in the McCamish Pavilion on the
Georgia Institute of Technology campus ahead of the first 2024
presidential debate between Democratic presidential candidate U.S.
President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate former
U.S. President Donald Trump in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 27,
2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello
NAME-CALLING
The televised 90-minute clash on CNN took place far earlier than any
modern presidential debate, more than four months before the Nov. 5
Election Day.
The two candidates appeared with no live audience, and their
microphones 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 interrupted Biden repeatedly.
The two men - who have made little secret of their mutual dislike -
did not shake hands or acknowledge each other before or after the
debate.
But there were plenty more moments in which their bad blood was
evident. Each called the other the worst president in history; Biden
referred 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
bragging about hitting the ball farther than Biden and Biden
retorting that Trump would struggle to carry his own bag.
The first question focused on the economy, as polls show Americans
are dissatisfied with Biden's performance despite wage growth and
low unemployment.
Biden acknowledged that inflation had driven prices substantially
higher than at the start of his term but said he deserves credit for
putting "things back together again" following the coronavirus
pandemic.
Trump asserted that he had overseen "the greatest economy in the
history of our country" before the pandemic struck and said he took
action to prevent the economic freefall from deepening even further.
The debate took place at a time of profound polarization and
deep-seated anxiety among voters about the state of American
politics. Two-thirds of voters said in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll that
they were concerned violence could follow the election, nearly four
years after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Trump took the stage as a felon who still faces a trio of criminal
cases, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The
former president, who persists in falsely claiming his defeat was
the result of fraud, has suggested he will punish his political
enemies if returned to power, but he will need to convince undecided
voters that he does not pose a mortal threat to democracy, as Biden
asserts.
Biden's challenge was to deliver a forceful performance after months
of Republican assertions that his faculties have dulled with age.
While national polls show a tied race, Biden has trailed Trump in
polls of most battleground states that traditionally decide
presidential elections. Just this month he lost his financial edge
over Trump, whose fundraising surged after he was criminally
convicted of trying to cover up hush money payments to porn star
Stormy Daniels.
Neither Biden nor Trump is popular and many Americans remain deeply
ambivalent about their choices. About a fifth of voters say they
have not picked a candidate, are leaning toward a third-party
candidate or may sit the election out, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll
showed.
The second and final debate in this year's campaign is scheduled for
September.
See a Reuters photo slide show of previous debates.
(Reporting by Helen Coster and Steve Holland, additional reporting
by Nandita Bose, Rami Ayyub, James Oliphant, Eric Beech, Stephanie
Kelly, Nathan Layne, Kanishka Singh, Moira Warburton; Writing by
Joseph Ax and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Ross Colvin, Kieran Murray
and Howard Goller)
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