First U.S. presidential debate sees Biden trip over words while Trump deflects on key questions

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President Joe Biden went into Thursday’s debate with Donald Trump hoping to energize his campaign, which has so far failed to motivate many of the voters who carried him to office four years ago.

Instead, the presumptive Democratic nominee put his re-election bid in its gravest peril yet with a halting, doddery performance, delivered in a quiet, coughing, raspy voice.

Mr. Biden tripped over his words, had difficulty finishing sentences and frequently could not articulate his campaign pledges. Only when he lobbed insults at his Republican rival did the President seem to come alive.

While Mr. Biden has struggled with public speaking for decades, Mr. Trump has seized on such problems to suggest Mr. Biden is suffering from age-related cognitive decline. On the debate stage in Atlanta, there was little trace of the energy the President brought to his State of the Union address earlier this year and ample fodder for Mr. Trump’s attacks.

The former president, meanwhile, delivered a vintage performance, rhyming off a string of falsehoods on abortion and trade, disparaging undocumented immigrants as dangerous criminals, pushing conspiracy theories and showing no contrition either for trying to overturn the past election or for his recent criminal conviction.

It was an unprecedented tilt, both for coming amid Mr. Trump’s multiple criminal prosecutions – the first for a former U.S. president – and for using an unusually restrained format at the insistence of Mr. Biden.

Mr. Biden’s stumbles and insults

If Mr. Biden had hoped to put to rest age-related questions – he is 81 and Mr. Trump is 78 – he struggled mightily. While advocating for wealth redistribution, he appeared to forget one of the programs he was promising and instead mistakenly said “if we finally beat Medicare.” Mr. Trump fired back: “he did beat Medicare, he beat it to death.”

At another point, Mr. Biden trailed off during an answer on immigration and Mr. Trump responded: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows either.”

While the President was for the most part able to rhyme off numerous facts, figures and economic statistics, displaying a much firmer grasp of policy details than his opponent, his clearest moments came when he simply started insulting Mr. Trump.

“You’re the sucker, you’re the loser,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Trump, in reference to comments Mr. Trump once reportedly made about dead U.S. soldiers while visiting a cemetery. At another moment, Mr. Biden shook his head and said “every single thing he said is a lie” in relation to an answer by Mr. Trump.

Can an octogenarian rule the USA?

Can either of the two oldest presidential candidates in U.S. history muster the physical or cognitive energy to rule the world’s pre-eminent superpower? It is among the most pressing questions of the current U.S. election – one both candidates sought to answer in sports achievement, in substance and in style.

Asked about his capacity to govern at 82, his age at the end of the next presidential term if he wins, Mr. Trump responded by describing cognitive tests he has undergone – and by boasting about his golf record. “I think I’m in very good shape,” he said, suggesting that he may even have lost a few pounds. He then took a golf-related jab at Mr. Biden.

“He can’t hit a ball 50 yards,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Biden responded by saying that, as vice-president, he had brought his golf handicap down to a six.

“That’s the biggest lie,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Biden, in turn, answered that he had a handicap of eight – a different number, which he made no attempt to explain.

Mr. Biden attempted to mock Mr. Trump’s claims about the former president’s height and weight, but in a sentence that mixed numbers and struggled for grammatical clarity.

That response only served to underscore a debate performance in which Mr. Biden frequently struggled to complete sentences; mixed thoughts in ways that were not always clear to the listener; and uttered some words in a hoarse mumble that rendered them indecipherable.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, spoke with a sustained vitality and clarity. The ripostes about golf even offered him an unusual moment to assert maturity, as he ended the exchange with an exhortation: “Let’s not act like children.”

Mr. Trump’s litany of falsehoods

During the first debate topic – the economy – Mr. Trump claimed that his plan to put 10-per-cent tariffs on all imports would cause countries “that have been ripping us off” to “pay us a lot of money.” This is, of course, not true: such tariffs would be paid for by U.S. consumers.

Defending his decision to appoint anti-abortion Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, Mr. Trump said “everybody wanted” federal abortion rights to be abolished. Mr. Biden, staring in seeming incredulity at Mr. Trump, appeared to speak for the solid majority of Americans who have, since the 1980s, expressed support for Roe v. Wade.

Fact-checking some of the false claims made during the Biden and Trump debate

Mr. Trump also repeatedly said that “millions of people” are coming to the U.S. from prisons and “mental institutions,” one of his most well-worn lies. Immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, tend to commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. And there is no evidence that countries are deliberately sending millions of criminals to the U.S. – as opposed to people simply fleeing war, poverty and political repression.

Mr. Trump dodges on Ukraine

It took moderator Dana Bash two tries to get Mr. Trump to clarify his murky position on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. When she first asked if Mr. Trump would accept Mr. Putin’s demand that Russia keep captured Ukrainian territory as a condition for peace, Mr. Trump refused to answer. Instead, he insisted – without explaining why – that had he been president, Mr. Putin would never have invaded.

On her second try, she elicited an answer. Mr. Trump said that Mr. Putin’s conditions were “not acceptable,” but then promised to reach a peace deal between the November election and the January inauguration. The former president did not explain how such a deal would be possible.

Mr. Trump also bashed the U.S.’s military support to Ukraine “every time Zelensky comes to this country” he walks away with millions, Mr. Trump said. “The money that we’re spending on this war.”

Mr. Biden fired back: “I never heard so much malarkey in my whole life.” He said Mr. Trump, during his presidency, had told Mr. Putin “do whatever you want.” He also reminded viewers that most military aid to Ukraine is actually spent in the U.S. to manufacture weapons.

The silencing of the mics

If rules can have a bias, then the terms of the debate were widely seen as tilted toward Mr. Biden. The CNN production included no live studio audience, muting the cheers that have energized Mr. Trump in previous debates. Producers silenced microphones of the candidate not speaking, barring the interjections for which Mr. Trump is famous.

But within moments of the two men taking the stage, it became clear that the great winner in those rules was not either candidate – it was an audience that could watch two men answer questions without interruption, offering each an extended period to answer, challenge each other and, occasionally, promote policies.

The rules didn’t prevent the two men from reacting to their opponents, with split-screen video allowing Mr. Trump to shake his head in disagreement, or Mr. Biden to stare in amazement at what he was hearing.

And it’s not clear that, in the end, Mr. Biden benefited: the moderators cut off the President for exceeding his allotted time more frequently than they did his opponent. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, showed an unexpected patience in delivering his critiques, defying those who said he would struggle to rein in his impulses.

“I didn’t have sex with a porn star”

Mr. Trump’s history of sex and crime is a prominent part of the backdrop to his campaign. He is the first major candidate to run for president as a convicted felon, and his opponents have sought to take advantage, with Mr. Biden accusing him of being prepared to misuse the levers of power to exact revenge if he is returned to the White House.

“The idea that you have a right to seek retribution against any American, just because you’re president, is wrong. It’s simply wrong. No president has ever spoken like that before,” Mr. Biden said.

He accused Mr. Trump of having sex with a porn star while his wife was pregnant.

“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Mr. Biden said.

Mr. Trump, whose campaign events have celebrated the legal cases against him as evidence that he is an object of persecution, sought to divert attention from his own legal travails, arguing that the real criminal is Mr. Biden.

As evidence, he raised Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, who was recently found guilty of felony counts related to the purchase of a handgun while he was using cocaine. “I did nothing wrong,” Mr. Trump said.

He then, in a statement at odds with considerable court testimony, denied one of the most salacious accusations against him.

“I didn’t have sex with a porn star,” he said.