Who won the US debate? Biden’s shaky performance against Trump causes panic
Joe Biden froze up during the first Presidential debate of the 2024 election against Donald Trump in an alarming performance which set off outright panic among Democrats.
After just 12 minutes the President lost his train of thought and stared ahead blankly in a gaffe his aides had been dreading.
It was just the first of numerous blunders by Mr Biden, who mixed up billionaires with trillionaires, stared open-mouthed while waiting to speak and slurred his closing argument.
Trump appeared more vigorous and at one point gave Biden a brutal put down: âI donât know what he said â I donât think he knew what he said.â
Immediately afterwards CNN analyst John King said that there was âpanicâ among senior Democrats who were considering going to the White House and asking Biden to step aside even though there was 130 days to go until the election.
Former Obama advisor Van Jones said: âThat was painful. He [Biden] did not do well at allâŚhe had a test to meet and he did not do thatâ.
Analyst Scott Jennings said: âThe candidacy has fallen. Iâm worried about the Presidentâ.
The debate was the first time both candidates on stage had been the President with Trump, 78, the 45th and Biden the incumbent and the 46th.
Both men were hoping to influence an electorate which is deeply divided with Trump ahead by one point nationally and leading in most of the swing states that will decide the election.
Unlike the Presidential debates from the 2020 election, this was arranged and moderated by CNN after both candidates rejected efforts from the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized them since it was set up in 1987.
As a result, the debate at CNNâs studio in Atlanta took place much earlier in the election cycle as the first one usually happens in September.
Unlike in 2020 there was no live studio audience and CNN muted the microphones of the candidate who was not answering the question.
The tactic largely worked and the handful of times one candidate tried to keep talking they were not audible to viewers at home.
While the first question to Biden was about inflation, the issue of his age immediately presented itself.
Speaking in a raspy voice he struggled while claiming that Trump left the economy in ruins after the Covid-19 pandemic and ârewarded the wealthyâ with a huge tax cut.
Bidenâs attempt to ding Trump by referring to his infamous suggestion to âinject bleachâ missed the mark.
Then Biden made his first gaffe of the night when he said: âIâm the only president this centuryâŚthis decade that doesnât have any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.â
Trump turned to the botched US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and called it the âthe most embarrassing day in the history of our countryâs lifeâ.
The former President claimed that his tax cuts âspurred the greatest economy weâve seenâ.
At that Biden gaffed again, claiming that there were 2,000 trillionaires in the US before correcting himself to billionaires.
The President struggled to make sense and said: âMaking sure we make every single solitary person eligible for what Iâve been able to do with Covid, excuse me, with umm dealing with everything we had to deal withâ.
Then Biden froze up, looked to the front and said: âLook, we finally beat medicareâ, referring to the state-funded programme for healthcare for the elderly, and then trailed off.
Trump shot back: âHe did beat Medicare, he beat it to deathâ.
It was a stunning moment and a harbinger of more unsettling moments to come.
The split screen between the two men did Biden no favours either as he looked on open-mouth as if struggling to understand what was happening.
The debate turned to abortion: two years ago the US Supreme Court â stacked with three conservative Trump appointees â overturned Roe vs Wade, the landmark law that guaranteed a womanâs right to an abortion.
It should have been a slam dunk for Biden yet somehow Trump put him on the back foot.
Biden said he would restore Roe vs Wade and that doctors, not politicians, should be deciding about abortions.
Trump claimed that Biden would allow late-term abortions and claimed âheâs willing to rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the babyâ.
A visibly irate Biden said: âYouâre lying â that is simply not trueâ, without landing a blow as he should have done.
Immigration is seen as Bidenâs weakest point and when asked why voters should trust him, he gave a long-winded answer about trying to pass bipartisan legislation.
As Biden looked on, open-mouthed, Trump said: âI donât know what he said. I donât think he knew what he saidâ.
Trump claimed that migrants were âcoming in and killing our citizensâ and that America was âliterally an uncivilised country right nowâ.
âHe opened the borders and we have to get a lot of these people out because theyâre going to destroy our countryâ, Trump said.
Biden said: âEverything he said is a lieâ.
The President finally began to wake up when he brought up Trumpâs past comment that American soldiers who died in conflict were âlosersâ and âsuckersâ.
Referring to his late son Beau Biden, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard in the Iraq War, Biden said: âMy son was not a sucker and a loser. Youâre the sucker, youâre the loserâ.
It took Biden an astonishing 44 minutes to mention the fact that Trump was a felon after he was found guilty of falsifying business records last month relating to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
When the debate turned to 6 January 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, Biden said that Trump âdidnât do a damn thingâ to stop it.
Biden called Trump a âwhinerâ and said he was the âonly person on this stage who is a convicted felonâ.
Trump shot back that Bidenâs son Hunter, who was found guilty earlier this month of gun charges, was a convicted felon too.
In his strongest part of the night Biden said: âThe idea I did anything wrong relative to what youâre talking about is outrageous.
âThe idea you have a right to seek retribution against anyone is simply wrong. No President has spoken like that before. The crimes youâre charged with â how many billions do you owe for molesting a woman in public, having sex with a porn star while your wife was pregnant. You have the morals of an alleycat.â
Trump responded: âI didnât have sex with a porn star.â
Biden shot back: âThis is a guy who says Hitlerâs done some good things. Iâd like to know what they are.â
The ill-tempered mood continued during questions about foreign policy when Trump was asked if would accept Vladimir Putinâs offer to end the war in Ukraine if he could keep the territory he has seized and Kyiv not join Nato.
Trump said he wouldnât and that if he had been President, Putin would never have invaded Ukraine.
Biden laughed and said that he had ânever heard so much malarky in my lifeâ.
Asked directly about his age, Biden claimed that Trump was âthree years younger and a lot less competentâ.
In the most bizarre part of the evening, Trump countered that he had just won two golf tournaments and that he was âable to hit the ball quite a young wayâ.
Biden said: âIâm happy to play golf with you if you carry your own bag.â
Trump shot back: âThatâs the biggest lie heâs a six handicap. Iâve seen your swing, I know your swing. Letâs not act like children.â
Biden responded: âYou are a childâ.
The debacle for Biden continued in his closing argument.
Without a teleprompter he mangled figures related to Medicare and drifted off in the middle of a sentence giving yet another meme-worthy moment which is likely to be endlessly replayed by Republicans until November.