President Biden and former President Trump faced off in Atlanta on Thursday night for their first and likely only debate of the 2024 presidential election.
This crucial race was marked early on by Biden's lackluster performance, while Trump also leaned toward some positions that threatened to cost him swing votes.
Here are five takeaways from the discussion:
1. Biden's disastrous opening sets the tone
The president stumbled repeatedly during the first few minutes of the debate and his voice sounded hoarse due to a cold.
In his opening response, he unwittingly concluded by declaring, “We've finally beaten Medicare.”
Trump was quick to attack.
“He's right. He defeated Medicare. He defeated it big time,” Trump said.
Later in the debate, Trump mocked Biden's incoherent answers.
“I have no idea what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said,” Trump said.
Biden eventually spoke out for himself, confronting Trump on a number of issues, including abortion and his stance on NATO amid the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“This man has no sense of American democracy,” Biden said.
And yet the president appeared wide-eyed on the split-screen debate screen, gazing off camera as his opponents unleashed attack after attack, giving the impression he was struggling to keep up.
2. Conflicts over abortion and immigration are precursors to attacks
In one of the debate's most powerful moments, Biden vowed to reinstate Roe v. Wade and blasted Trump for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the decision.
Trump fired back, claiming Biden and the Democrats “want to rip babies out of the womb and kill them at nine months pregnant.”
“That's simply not true,” Biden countered. “We're not in favor of late-term abortion. Period.”
Democrats have had success focusing on the abortion issue in the 2022 election and are hoping to bring the issue to voters' attention again this year.
For Trump, responses such as sending the issue back to the states or touting his own judicial appointments would only provide ammunition for Democrats.
In a particularly salient attack, Trump slammed Biden over the crisis at the southern border, claiming the president is allowing people into the U.S. from “prisons, jails and psychiatric hospitals.”
“They call it immigration crime. I call it Biden immigration crime,” Trump said.
3. Trump fends off “loser” attacks on Jan. 6
President Trump was initially evasive when pressed about his comments attempting to undermine the results of the 2020 election leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and whether they violated his oath of office.
“On January 6th, our border was great, nobody could get through. On January 6th, we were energy independent,” he said, touting lower taxes and fewer regulations.
Pointing at Biden, Trump added, “And then he comes along and they laugh at us. We're a bunch of stupid people.”
Pressed to answer the question, Trump insisted, “I said it peacefully and patriotically.”
Trumpworld is bracing itself for a Supreme Court ruling at any time on whether the former president will be immune from federal prosecution for his attempts to undermine the election results before Jan. 6.
Asked Thursday night if he would accept the results of the 2024 election, Trump said, “If it's a fair and legitimate and good election, then of course I would.”
Biden has done his best to portray Trump as a baseless man with no respect for democratic institutions or law enforcement, citing January 6 as a prime example.
Elsewhere in Thursday's debate, Trump was put on the defensive after Biden brought up comments Trump made in 2018 in which he described fallen soldiers buried in France as “losers” and “idiots.”
Trump has repeatedly denied making the remarks, but Biden has stepped up his attacks, telling him “you're a fool, you're a loser.”
4. Biden faces age issues, while Trump faces legal challenges
Biden's performance in Thursday's debate is likely to intensify debate among Democrats about whether he should continue to carry the party's banner heading into the Democratic convention and into November.
“I think there will be a discussion, but I don't know if it will lead to anything. There will be a discussion about whether Trump should stay in office,” former Obama administration strategist David Axelrod said on a CNN panel shortly after the debate.
While the age issue is likely to dominate Biden's conversation in the coming days, the debate also highlighted the reality that another major party candidate is embroiled in legal troubles that aren't likely to be resolved anytime soon.
Biden blasted Trump on stage as the only person ever to be convicted of a felony and pressed Trump to deny the salacious allegations in the hush-money case.
In a sign that damage from Thursday's debate may be lasting, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on CNN late Thursday to defend Biden's performance.
“Definitely, I started slow, but I was able to finish strong,” she said.
5. Debate moderator wins
Thursday's debate was the first in more than 30 years to be held without input from the commission that has hosted presidential debates since 1988.
Concerns about widespread microphone muting were largely ignored, with the candidates largely allowing each other to finish their thoughts without interruption, even with the moderator pointing out at several points that the candidates were speaking for longer periods of time.
This was in contrast to the first debate between Trump and Biden in 2020, which placed a strong emphasis on what the candidates were saying.
