Critical moments, key exchanges, and what else to know about the first presidential debate of the election season.
By Lauren Camera, Aneeta Mathur-Ashton, Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder, and Elliott Davis Jr.
June 28, 2024
(GERALD HERBERT|AP
President Joe Biden, right, and former President Donald Trump, left, stand on the stage during a presidential debate hosted by CNN on Thursday night in Atlanta.
President Joe Biden and presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump went head-to-head Thursday night in the first general election debate of the 2024 contest – a crucial opportunity to shape the political narrative and broaden their appeal to undecided voters.
Much has changed since the last time these two met on a debate stage four years ago: A mob of election deniers attacked the Capitol in an effort to halt the certification of the 2020 election; the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade opinion; the COVID-19 pandemic subsided after leaving deep wounds in the economy, the public education system and trust in government; Trump became a convicted felon; the number of illegal border crossings surged to more than 2 million; and prolonged foreign wars sowed uncertain implications for the U.S.
Almost the only thing unchanged Thursday was the contestants themselves.
The 90-minute debate, hosted in Atlanta by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, was the earliest general election presidential debate in modern history.
Here are key takeaways from the historic evening.
Biden’s raspy, muted voice caused concern among Democrats and ridicule among Republicans.
Within minutes of coming out on the debate stage, it was clear Biden’s voice was going to present an issue. The president appeared to be very hoarse, with many on social media questioning if he was sick.
Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, are the two oldest candidates ever to seek the U.S. presidency – a fact that each campaign has been trying to use to paint the opponent as a senile and frail candidate with early stage dementia. On Thursday night, Trump capitalized on it.
“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don’t think he knows what he said, either,” Trump said after Biden stumbled at the end of an answer on immigration.
Earlier, while discussing domestic programs he hoped to be able to invest in with the money gained by taxing wealthy Americans, Biden appeared to stumble for several seconds before trailing off and pausing. Seconds later, he was able to get out, “We finally beat Medicare.”
Within minutes, Trump’s campaign seized on the situation and took to X to publicize it. Other social media users also reacted strongly to Biden’s demeanor, comparing him to a “deer in the headlights” and questioning why he did not delay or postpone the event.
Frank Luntz, a consultant and pollster, said in a post on X early in the debate, “My focus group of undecided voters is surprised and concerned about Biden’s voice. This doesn’t bode well for questions about his health.”
Biden later appeared to pick up steam, firing back at Trump over his claim that he “doesn’t care about our veterans.” Referencing a 2020 Atlantic article in which Trump was reported to have called soldiers killed as “suckers,” Biden brought up his late son Beau Biden.
“My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You’re the sucker, you’re the loser.”
When asked directly about age and acuity, Biden attempted to shrug it off with a joke.
“I spent half my career being the youngest person in politics,” Biden said, noting how he was the second-youngest person ever elected to the Senate. “Now I’m the oldest.”
He also urged voters to look at his record. “Look at how I turned around the horrible situation he left me,” he said.
But the damage had been done. The postmortems proved to be especially devastating, with Biden’s former communications director Kate Bedingfield calling his performance “really disappointing” on CNN. John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent, said Biden’s performance had sparked “a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party.” David Axelrod, former chief strategist and adviser for President Barack Obama, said he thought there would be discussions about whether Biden should continue the campaign.
Trump, meanwhile, boasted about taking cognitive tests and how he “aced them.”
“I’d like to see him take one,” Trump said about Biden before adding that he just recently won two club golf championships and feels as youthful as he did 25 years ago.
Politico reported that a source familiar with the situation said Biden’s performance was due to a cold – something not previously disclosed to reporters.
Trump and Biden swapped blame on inflation.
The first exchange of the debate was on a topic at the forefront of many Americans’ minds: inflation.
When asked about rising grocery costs and home prices, Biden was quick to point the finger back to Trump’s administration.
“What we had to do is try to put things back together again,” Biden said of the economy after Trump’s presidency. “But there’s more to be done.”
Inflation is plaguing the Biden campaign as the cumulative effect of the price increases has stuck in the minds of many voters. Inflation has decreased since its 9% peak in the summer of 2022 to a little over 3% now.
Trump capitalized on the issue, saying “inflation is killing our country.”
“He caused the inflation, and it’s killing Black families and Hispanic families – and just about everybody,” Trump said of Biden.
“I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
Trump’s legal challenges were bound to take center stage at some point during the debate, and they ended up providing the most memorable line of the evening: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
The former president made the Bill Clinton-esque comment shortly after one of Biden’s most aggressive lines of attack all night, in which he said that only one person on the stage was a convicted felon.
A jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid as part of a “catch-and-kill” scheme aimed to influence the 2016 presidential campaign. During the course of that trial, porn star Stormy Daniels testified with salacious details to the fact that she had sex with Trump in 2006, while his wife Melania was pregnant – a sexual encounter Trump and his inner circle went to great lengths to cover up and which Trump has denied.
The exchange occurred after the candidates talked about the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, and after Trump was posed a question about potentially seeking retribution against his political opponents. Trump raised the criminal record of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and the president in turn brought up the crimes Trump is “still charged with,” along with civil penalties he owes.
“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden said.
Abortion answers highlighted deep political divides.
Questions about abortion highlighted some of the biggest policy divisions between the two men.
Trump, while taking credit for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, said abortion policy should be left to the states, adding that it’s “complex, but not really complex.”
“What happened is, we brought it back to the states, and the country is now coming together on this issue,” Trump said. “It’s been a great thing.”
But Biden countered that politicians in states are now setting abortion policies. “No politician should make that decision,” Biden said. “A doctor should be making those decisions.”
Underscoring what a difficult topic abortion can be in GOP politics, Trump was quick to point out that he does believe in exceptions in certain cases like rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother.
“Like Ronald Reagan, I believe in the exceptions,” Trump said. “I am a person that believes, and frankly, I think it’s important to believe in the exceptions. You have to follow your heart. Some people don’t believe in that, but I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”
But Trump repeated an unfounded claim that under Roe v. Wade some people were killing children after birth, which Biden said is “simply not true.” Biden added that “we are not for late-term abortion, period.”
Trump also said he would not block access to abortion medication, saying that he agreed with the Supreme Court’s recent decision that preserved access to the widely used drug mifepristone.
“I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it,” Trump said.
The candidates traded pointed barbs over each other’s immigration policies.
Biden and Trump clashed over one of the most polarizing and charged issues of the campaign – immigration – and seemed to be worlds away on the subject.
Immigration is one of Biden’s most vulnerable issues, but he has been more aggressive about the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, most notably issuing an executive order in early June that restricts asylum at the border.
During the debate, Biden defended his record on immigration, pointing to a bipartisan border bill he tried to shepherd through Congress that was held up in the GOP-controlled House due to a lack of support by Trump.
Trump, meanwhile, employed even more restrictive policies during his term and has used anti-immigrant rhetoric throughout his three campaigns. He’s vowed to launch a massive deportation effort if reelected.
Asked during the debate how he would carry out that operation and whether it would include immigrants lacking legal documentation who have jobs, Trump provided no details and instead said the president was allowing in “terrorists” and “killers,” and fostering “Biden migrant crime” through “open borders.”
“Every single thing he said was a lie,” Biden said in response.
Trump’s comments were the latest attempt from his campaign and supporters to link immigration to crime and blame Biden for it. The pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. blasted out fundraising emails in real-time doing just that.
