President Joe Biden struggled throughout the first presidential debate Thursday to fend off a barrage of attacks from former President Donald Trump in a showdown both campaigns viewed as one of the last moments to upend the trajectory of the 2024 race.
The Democrat’s performance during the showdown in Atlanta came off as disjointed and uneven as he faced an assertive Trump who barbed his responses with falsehoods about Biden’s policy agenda while attempting to sidestep his own vulnerabilities.
The historically early debate offered both candidates a chance to change the dynamic of a race that has remained surprisingly stable despite foreign policy crises, contrasting visions over domestic divides and ongoing criminal probes into Trump.
The split-screen contrast also put on vivid display a factor that voters have wrestled with throughout the campaign: The 81-year-old Biden and 78-year-old Trump are the oldest candidates ever to compete in a presidential race.
At times throughout the debate, Biden struggled to find words and offered rambling answers. Trump seized on one shaky Biden response on border security, saying: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of the sentence. I really don’t think he knew what he said either.”
Trump, meanwhile, targeted his opponent with falsehoods, such as contending that Democratic economic policies have only created jobs for people in the U.S. illegally or that Biden supports late-term abortions — something that the president directly refuted.
“He’s willing to rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby,” Trump said, drawing a fiery response from Biden: “That’s simply not true … we are not for late-term abortion, period, period, period.”
Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Abortion is among the issues Democrats see as one of their strongest electoral arguments, with polls by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other outlets showing most voters back expanding abortion rights.
Biden said he backed reinstating Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted a constitutional right to abortion that was overturned with the help of three Trump-appointed justices.
But the Republican tried to steer the argument into friendlier territory, routinely painting a bleak picture of an “uncivilized country” and cities that have turned into “rat’s nests” because of illegal border crossings. Sometimes, he ignored moderators’ questions entirely.
Biden took swings back, including citing a 2020 report that Trump called Americans who died in war “losers” and “suckers” — an allegation Trump denied. Biden mentioned his son Beau, a military veteran who died of brain cancer in 2015.
“My son was not a loser and a sucker. You’re the loser. You’re the sucker.”
Of ‘porn stars’ and golf swings
Both campaigns agreed to CNN’s offer to hold the debate in Atlanta to hone their pitch in one of the nation’s most competitive states, with dueling events throughout the week featuring some of their top allies.
Still, the Georgia backdrop, despite its political resonance, hardly factored into their exchanges. The state was the epicenter of Trump’s attempt to reverse his election defeat, and his 2020 defeat here was among the most humiliating setbacks of his political career.
Their mutual animosity was palpable from the start of the audience-free showdown in CNN’s studio when both refused to shake hands. Over the next 90 minutes the two seemed to alternately sigh and sneer at each other’s responses.
At one point, Biden dismissed Trump’s agenda as “foolishness.” Trump mocked Biden’s delivery and called his successor the “worst president” in the nation’s history.
Deep into the debate, Biden tried to capitalize on his opponent’s legal problems by summoning up Trump’s felony convictions in New York on charges related to a hush-money scheme and panning him for defending the Jan. 6, 2021 mob that invaded the U.S. Capitol.
“The only person on the stage that is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” Biden said, adding: “The idea that those people are patriots? Come on.”
Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Trump downplayed his role in revving up the mob and shrugged off the New York verdict that found him guilty of 34 charges in a scheme to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex with Trump in 2006.
“I didn’t have sex with a porn star,” he said.
The showdown came at a critical point in the race as Biden, trailing Trump in Georgia and other battleground states, hoped to reframe the race away from a referendum on his agenda and toward his argument that Trump’s return to the White House would bring a darker, more chaotic administration than his first stint in office.
And Trump tried to build on years of bashing Biden as a feeble old man while boasting of his own athletic prowess and his golf game, leading to a strange back-and-forth over their handicaps.
Biden’s halting performance immediately led to Democratic hand-wringing -- and rejoicing from Trump’s camp. As Biden took the stage at a nearby after-party, he tried to project confidence: “We need to beat this guy. And I need you in order to beat him.”
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