Biden's shaky Trump debate alarms Democrats
Reuters Videos
STORY: The first televised debate between U.S. President Joe Biden, and his Republican rival, former President Donald Trump saw a shaky, tentative performance from Biden that rattled Democrats. While Trump battered him with falsehoods and the two oldest U.S. presidential candidates ever descended into an exchange of personal insults. TRUMP: “The whole country is exploding because of you." BIDEN: "My son was not a loser. Was not a sucker. You're the sucker. You're the loser.” Appearing on CNN's Presidential Debate on Thursday, four months before Election Day in November, the two traded barbs on abortion, inflation, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, even their golf games, as they aimed to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months. A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled in the debate's first half-hour, and Trump pounced: BIDEN: "Excuse me, with - dealing with - everything we had to do with - look if - we finally beat Medicare." TRUMP: "He was right. He did beat Medicaid, he beat it to death." Eighty-one-year-old Biden and 78-year-old Trump are under pressure to show they're fit for office. As the debate wore on, Trump issued a barrage of critiques - many of them, well-worn falsehoods.. ... including migrants carrying out a crime wave and that Democrats support infanticide. Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans. Trump also dodged questions about the January 6 Capitol attack, refused to accept any responsibility and claimed that many of those arrested were innocent. BIDEN: "What he's telling you is simply not true. The fact is that there was no effort on his part to stop what was going on up on Capitol Hill. And all those people, every one of those convicted deserves to be convicted." The debate carried on with no live audience and strict rules on microphone use, which aimed to avoid chaos that roiled their first debate in 2020. Still, the pair took every chance to make jabs at each other: TRUMP: "I wasn't really going to run until I saw the horrible job he did. He's destroying our country." Biden went after Tump over his felonies. BIDEN: "You have the morals of an alley cat.” TRUMP: “I didn't have sex with a porn star.” While concerns about the eligibility for office weigh heavily for both candidates, Biden's performance Thursday could land a major blow to his campaign, at least in the short term. Two White House officials said that Biden had a cold. One top Biden donor, who did not want to be named, called the U.S. President's performance "disqualifying" and expects a fresh round of calls for him to step aside ahead of the party's national convention in August. A Reuters-Ipsos poll that ended Sunday showed voters think Trump is a better candidate for the economy and immigration matters, while Biden had the edge over Trump for responding to threats to democracy.
2 hours ago
