President Biden and former president Donald Trump squared off in their first 2024 debate on Thursday, sparring over their records in office but also their ages, morals — and golfing talents.
The debate, which was hosted in Atlanta by CNN, started with Biden stumbling through some answers as Trump limited his combativeness. But as the event went on, the two got increasingly feisty and displayed deep disdain for each other.
Biden accused Trump of having the “morals of an alley cat,” while Trump derided Biden as a weak president not even worthy of a debate. And they clashed over some of Trump’s most controversial moments in office — most extensively over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Biden and Trump have agreed to one more debate closer to the election. It is set to be hosted Sept. 10 by ABC News.
‘Morals of an alley cat’
Return to menu
Biden, while criticizing Trump over his long list of legal problems, accused the former president of having the “morals of an alley cat.”
Advertisem*nt
Biden alluded to two cases in particular: the 2023 jury finding that Trump was liable for sexually abusing and defaming a columnist in the 1990s — and Trump’s conviction last month on all 34 felony counts in his New York hush money trial. In that New York case, a jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged affair with an adult-film actress, Stormy Daniels, before the 2016 presidential election.
Biden said Trump was facing civil penalties for “molesting a woman in public” and had “sex with a p*rn star on the night ... your wife is pregnant.” That appeared to be a reference to another alleged affair, the full circ*mstances of which prosecutors were not allowed to tell jurors about in the hush money trial.
“I didn’t have sex with a p*rn star, number one,” Trump replied, later adding that the New York criminal conviction will “be appealed and won.”
‘He didn’t do a damn thing, and these people should be in jail.’
Return to menu
Trump initially sought to deal with the darkest moment of his presidency — the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — by quickly pivoting to boasting about how well-off the country was as he prepared to leave office.
But before long, Biden and Trump were locked in a back-and-forth over the attack, in which a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol to derail the certification of his election loss. Trump insisted he had asked his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” gather, while Biden repeatedly scoffed at the idea Trump wanted to calm the crowd.
“He didn’t do a damn thing,” Biden said, “and these people should be in jail.”
Trump went on to rail against the bipartisan House select committee that investigated Jan. 6, saying its members should be jailed. That gave Biden an opening to highlight the guilty verdict in Trump’s hush money trial last month.
“The only person on the stage that is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” Biden replied.
‘The fraud and everything else was ridiculous.’
Return to menu
Trump, after being asked twice, said he would “absolutely” accept the results of the election “if it’s a fair and legal and good election.” He, however, had a caveat.
Advertisem*nt
“But the — the fraud and everything else was ridiculous,” Trump said, repeating once again his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Biden replied swiftly: “Not one single court in America said any of your claims had any merit, state or local. None. But you continue to provoke this lie.”
Trump and his allies have lost dozens of court cases they’ve brought to challenge the results of the 2020 election. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in that election.
Still, that didn’t stop Trump from continuing to make these allegations on the debate stage. Biden called him a whiner and said he doesn’t believe Trump will accept the results of the race in November if he loses.
“Let’s see what your numbers are when this election is over,” Biden said. “… I doubt whether you’ll accept it because you’re such a whiner. The idea, if you lose again, you accept anything. You can’t stand the loss. Something snapped in you when you lost the last time.”
Advertisem*nt
‘This guy’s three years younger and a lot less competent.’
Return to menu
Asked about voters’ concerns about their ages — Biden is 81 and Trump is 78 — it did not take long for the two candidates to resort to insults.
“This guy’s three years younger and a lot less competent,” Biden said.
Trump countered by boasting about his performance on cognitive tests and physical exams — and his golf game.
“I just won two club championships,” Trump said, taunting Biden over his abilities on the golf course. “… He can’t hit a ball 50 yards.”
Biden responded gamely, saying he would be happy to have a driving contest with Trump. Trump scoffed at that, telling Biden, “I’ve seen your swing.”
‘We finally beat Medicare.’
Return to menu
Biden appeared to lose his train of thought when talking about Medicare and the effects of the tax cuts on the ultrawealthy that Trump enacted when president.
Advertisem*nt
After appearing to argue that Americans need their government to strengthen the health-care system, Biden stumbled on his words and ended his thought with the line: “We finally beat Medicare.”
“He’s right, he did beat Medicaid, beat it to death,” Trump responded. “And he’s destroying Medicare because of all these people are coming in, they’re putting them on Medicare, they’re putting them on Social Security.”
Trump was arguing that Biden’s immigration policies have led to bigger populations of immigrants, who he claimed strain Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
“He will wipe out Medicare,” Trump claimed. “So he was right in the way he finished that sentence.”
Per U.S. law, immigrants can receive Medicare and Social Security benefits only if they are lawfully present in the country.
‘I have the biggest heart [on] the stage.’
Return to menu
Later on, Trump doubled down on his claim that immigrants are straining Medicare and Medicaid in a rambling answer that also touched on climate change and insulin prices. Biden, Trump claimed, “is destroying all of our medical programs because [of] the migrants coming in, they want everybody.”
Advertisem*nt
“And look … I have the biggest heart [on] the stage,” Trump said. “I guarantee you that. And I want to take care of people, but they’re destroying our country.”
Trump — who launched his 2016 bid with a message attacking Mexicans as “rapists” — has long vilified immigrants, and he did so multiple times on Thursday night, claiming that they are “taking the place of our citizens.” There is no evidence that immigrants are straining the United States’ Social Security system — per the Social Security Administration, under current Social Security rules, workers who immigrated to the country “are likely to receive lower benefits than natives.”
‘You’re a sucker. You’re the loser.’
Return to menu
Biden brought up an insult Trump allegedly made about American war dead during his time as commander in chief.
According to a story in the Atlantic, Trump in 2018 canceled a visit to an American World War I cemetery in France, asking senior staffers ahead of the scheduled visit, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the trip, “Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood [during World War I] as ‘suckers’ for getting killed,” according to the story, which cited “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.”
Advertisem*nt
During the debate, Biden recalled his recent trip to France for the anniversary of D-Day and referred to his late son, Beau Biden. Beau, a veteran, died of glioblastoma — a condition the president has said could have come from the inhalation of toxic fumes from burn pits during his military service.
“I went to the … World War I cemetery where he refused to go to. He was standing with his four-star general. And he told ’em, he said, ‘I don’t want to go in there because they’re a bunch of losers and suckers.’ My son was not a loser. He’s not a sucker. You’re a sucker. You’re the loser,” Biden said.
Trump has repeatedly denied the account, saying during the debate that it was “made up” and that “there’s nobody that’s taken better care of our soldiers than I have.”
In 2023, Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly issued a statement to CNN saying that Trump “rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
Election 2024
President Biden and former president Donald Trump faced off in the first presidential debate of 2024. Here are our top takeaways from the debate.
Who is running: President Biden and Donald Trump secured their parties’ nominations for the presidency. Here’s how we ended up with a Trump-Biden rematch.
Key dates and events: Voters in all states and U.S. territories have been choosing their party’s nominee for president ahead of the summer conventions. Here are key dates and events on the 2024 election calendar.
Abortion and the election: Voters in about a dozen states could decide the fate of abortion rights with constitutional amendments on the ballot in a pivotal election year. Biden supports legal access to abortion, and he has encouraged Congress to pass a law that would codify abortion rights nationwide. After months of mixed signals about his position, Trump said the issue should be left to states. Here’s how Biden’s and Trump’s abortion stances have shifted over the years.
