President Joe Biden suffered repeated senior moments in Thursday night’s debate, struggling to find his words as he talked about various policy issues and giving Donald Trump an opening to go straight on the attack.
In a debate that sparked concerns among the Democrats about whether he was fit to run for office as it was happened, Biden’s first mistake came after just 12 minutes.
It was a terrible start for the President, who needs to overcome voters’ concerns that he is too old for a second term.
The debate was car crash for Joe Biden.
The 81-year-old sounded hoarse and repeatedly clearing his throat as he jumbled his words, stammered and repeatedly excused himself as he struggled to make himself understood at multiple points. He is reported to also have a cold.
In response to a Medicare question, Biden produced a faltering, bumbling moment that’s likely to be repeated throughout the campaign: ‘We’ve been making sure we are able to make every single person eligible what I’ve been able to do with the Covid, excuse me, everything we have to do with…look… I finally beat Medicare…’ he trailed off.
President Joe Biden fumbled for words in the debate
Moderator Jake Tapper stepped in, telling him ‘thank you’ and turning to Donald Trump to let him speak.
Trump hit back immediately: ‘That’s right, he did beat Medicare, he beat it to death. And he’s destroying Medicare.’
Another serious fumble came when he talking about the number of billionaires in America and the situation on the border.
Trump repeatedly managed to hit back hard at the 81-year-old on the repeated fumbles.
‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either,’ the former president said at one point.
Biden struggled to make up ground from his shocking start.
He tried to hit Trump on the report the former president called dead American soldiers ‘suckers and losers’ and on his felony conviction in New York.
But Biden has been using those attack lines for months, and Trump again was ready for them, barely blinking as he hoped straight into Hunter Biden’s felony conviction and repeated that he was only the victim of a highly politicized persecution.
At times the attacks got jaw-dropping.
Biden told Trump he had the ‘morals of an alley cat’ as Trump noted: ‘I did not have sex with a porn star.’
Glitches and fumbles
But it was Biden’s struggle to find answers that will leave a lasting impression on voters, who have repeatedly questioned the 81-year-old’s staminia and mental capacities.
At multiple times in the night, in several answers on different topics, Biden fumbled.
Democrats were reportedly in meltdown as it happened across tens of millions of American television screens.
The mistakes continued to pile up.
Trump addressed Biden’s policy arguments rather than hammer him on the vocal fumbles as he has done in the past.
The former president has repeatedly called Biden ‘Sleepy Joe’ and mocked him as feeble and mentally addled.
Biden kept fumbling in his next answers as he spoke about abortion rights and women’s health.
‘There was a young woman murdered … he went to the funeral.
‘The idea she was murdered by an immigrant, they talk about that. A lot of young women get raped by in-laws, spouses, brothers. It’s ridiculous and they do nothing about it.’
Donald Trump commented ‘I don’t know what he said’ in reference to Biden’s fumbles
And he fumbled in his claims about the wealthy in America. ‘We have a thousand trillionaires in America’ and then corrected himself to ‘billionaires.’
Biden also rambled as he touted his efforts to secure a bipartisan border deal that fell apart in Congress when asked about his attempts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
‘We had significant increase in number of asylum officers significantly. By the way the Border Patrol been endorsed me, endorsed my position. In addition to that we find ourselves in a situation where when he was president he was taking separating babies from their mothers put him in cages,’ Biden said.
Trump finally chose to highlight the faltering President, answering: ‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either,’ the former president noted.
Alley Cats and Porn Stars
One of the more jaw-dropping moments of the night was when the two men got into verbal fisticuffs about Trump’s legal problems.
Biden had attacked Trump on reports the former president was seeking retribution.
And he hit Trump on his conviction in New York on 34 felony counts related to his payoff to porn storm Stormy Daniels. Trump has denied an affair with her and argues the conviction stemmed from a campaign of political retribution against him.
‘The only person in this stage is a convicted felon as the man I’m looking at right now,’ Biden said.
Porn star Stormy Daniels
Trump hit back by noting Biden’s son Hunter was convicted of three felonies related to a 2018 gun purchase.
‘We’re going to make this country successful again, because right now it’s a failing nation. My retribution is going to be success. But when he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon. At a very high level. His son is convicted,’ Trump said.
‘We’d have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong,’ he said..
Biden then brought up his reported affair with the low blow that it allegedly happened when Melania Trump was pregnant with Barron.
‘The crimes you are still charged with and think of all the civil penalties you have – how many billions of dollars in civil penalties for molesting a woman of public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night while your wife is pregnant?,’ he said, adding: ‘You have the morals of an alley cat.’
‘I didn’t have sex with a porn star number one,’ Trump responded. ‘Number two, that was a case that was started and moved. They moved a high ranking official at DOJ into the Manhattan DA ‘s office to start that case. That case is going to be appealed and one we had a very terrible judge.
He also noted ‘my poll numbers went up way up you know … and we took in more money in the last two weeks than we’ve ever taken in the history of any campaign. I don’t think any campaign has ever taken hundreds of millions of dollars came pouring in. Because the public knows it’s a scam.’
‘Suckers and losers’
The two men got into a heated attack when it came to talking about the military.
Biden slammed Trump for reports the former president called dead American soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’
‘My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You’re the sucker you’re the loser,’ Biden said.
‘They made it up,’ Trump replied. ‘We had 19 people that said I didn’t say it.’
He then called on Biden to apologize to him.
‘He made up the suckers and losers so he should apologize to be right now.’
Biden hit back hard.
‘The idea I have to apologize to you for anything,’ he said.
Both men struggled with the debate rules they agreed to that saw their microphones muted when it was not their turn to talk. Each of them, at points, tried to speak only to find themselves unable to be heard.
The Economy
Biden attacked Trump from the start as he was asked to defend him economic record, hitting him on his suggestion that Americans inject themselves with bleach during COVID.
He said Trump left him an ‘economy that was in freefall – the pandemic was so badly handled, many people were dying.’
‘By the time he left are things that are in chaos literally chaos. And so we put things back together,’ he said.
Trump hit back, arguing he left a strong economy until covid hit and then spent funds to keep the country from spiralling into a depression.
‘Everything was rocking good,’ he said.
‘The only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs that are bounced back from the covid. He has not done a good job. He’s done a poor job – inflation’s killing our country. It is absolutely killing us,’ he said.
The two men did not shake hands after they entered the stage, Biden arriving first and then Trump. They simply stood at their podiums, starting straight ahead.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden at the first presidential debate
A presidential motorcade in Atlanta
The Rules
It is the first of two debates the two presidential candidates agreed to.
The two men are on stage with only a pad, pencil and a bottle of water, without the assist of the teleprompter and will not be allowed to chat with aides during commercial breaks.
The microphones are muted automatically when it is not their turn to speak.
There is no audience in the room – just the debate’s two moderators.
First lady Jill Biden is the only member of the president’s family there. She is watching the debate from a holding room and will stop by a debate watch party with Biden after the event concludes.
Each man came into the debate with a different set of expectations.
For the 81-year-old Biden, it comes down to his health and fitness. He needs to be energetic and on point with his talking points. Republicans have successfully used his age to raise questions about his mental capabilities. And Biden looks as if he’s aged, walking with a gait and moving stiffly.
The president, who likes briefing binders and practice sessions, spent the week holed up at Camp David preparing for the debate with close aides. His appearance at the debate is the first time he was seen in public since June 20th.
He will try to throw Trump off with attack lines designed to sting the former president on a personal level. Biden will also focus on reminding voters of some of Trump’s more extreme policies.
Trump, meanwhile, eschewed formal practice sessions. He tried out new attack lines at various campaign rallies but otherwise kept a low profile.
The question remains which Trump will show up at the debate: the loud, talkative, disruptive one who can devolve into rants or a more restrained Trump, who will stay focused during the 90 minutes on stage.
