American voters watched Thursday night as the two leading presidential candidates for the Nov. 5 election faced off in the first public debate before the race.
Former US President Donald Trump, 78, launched into hyperbole against President Joe Biden, 81, who appeared to lose his train of thought during the debate at CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
The two oldest presidential hopefuls in American history clashed over immigration, abortion and even golf.
Here are six key takeaways from the first US presidential debate:
Biden gave a low-key performance
Biden, already facing criticism for his age, could not match the energy of Trump, who is just three years his junior.
The sitting president resorted to hoarse ramblings and appeared to struggle to articulate his words. At one point, he referred to “multimillionaires” as “trillionaires” before correcting himself again.
Biden sharply criticized Trump’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy, and mocked some of Trump’s responses to COVID-19 protection measures at the time. “Just inject some bleach into your arm and you’ll be fine,” he said.
His tone was unconvincing against his more bombastic opponent, however, especially during the early stages of the debate. Biden later picked up the pace a bit to counter Trump's series of factually incorrect claims on immigration and abortion.
Democrats, however, have raised alarm over Biden's performance and some have even begun to talk about replacing him on the presidential ticket.
“There will be discussions about whether he [Biden] “This should continue,” David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, told CNN.
While Biden's Vice President Kamala Harris backed him after the debate and said it's more than style that matters in this election, even she admitted that “it was a slow start.”
Presidential hopefuls fought over golf
Biden and Trump argued which of them is physically and cognitively stronger.
Trump boasted of his strength, saying, “I'm in as good shape as I was 25 or 30 years ago,” to moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
In response, Biden, laughing, suggested his opponent was lying about his height and weight.
Trump said he had won two championships on his golf course, while Biden “can't hit the ball 50 yards.”
This led Biden to challenge Trump to a game of golf, as long as Trump brought his own bag.
“Let’s not act like children,” Trump said.
“You’re a child,” Biden replied.
Trump called Biden a “bad Palestinian”
“We are the largest producer of support for Israel of anyone in the world,” Biden said, reiterating U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza in which more than 37,718 Palestinians have been killed since October last year.
Biden added that his administration continues to send experts and intelligence to hinder the Palestinian group Hamas in the war.
Trump responded sharply by saying that it is Israel that wants to continue the war, “and we must let them go and let them finish the job. He [Biden] He doesn't want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian, but they don't like him because he is a very bad Palestinian, he is weak.”
In the nearly nine months of war that has left Gaza plagued by power outages and food insecurity, the United States has provided military and diplomatic assistance to Israel and repeatedly blocked ceasefire resolutions. A US-sponsored resolution endorsing a ceasefire proposal was finally approved in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) just eight months into the war.
Biden accused Trump of lying about abortion
Trump invoked anti-abortion sentiment by accusing Biden and his party of allowing late-term abortions.
During the debate, Trump claimed that Biden and Democrats would be “willing to, as we say, rip the baby from the womb in the ninth month.”
“You're lying. That's simply not true,” Biden refuted Trump's claim. “We're not in favor of late-term abortion, period.”
Trump also said of the Democrats: “They will take the life of a child…even after birth,” even though infanticide is illegal in every state in the United States.
In the United States, late-term abortions are rare and are usually a last resort when there are serious complications with a wanted pregnancy.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1 percent of abortions were performed at 21 weeks or later in 2020.
Immigration dogged the debate
Throughout the debate, Trump focused the issue on immigration, accusing Biden of “opening the most secure border in the world to terrorists and prisoners.”
He accused Biden of being “the one who killed people with a bad border and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and also killed our citizens when they came in.”
Biden, on the other hand, recounted the work his administration has done to manage the influx of illegal immigrants, including bolstering border security and work on the bipartisan National Security Agreement.
“By the way, the border patrol has backed me up, they have backed up my position,” Biden said, eyes wide. “When he [Trump] He was president, separating babies from their mothers, putting them in cages, and making sure their families were separated. “That is not the right way to go.”
Trump responded sharply, saying, “The border patrol, I won't say that, but they endorsed me for president.”
Trump refused to say whether he would honor the election result
Trump did not directly answer whether he would honor the election result.
He said he would only accept the results if the election is “free and fair,” reiterating false claims that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden, was rigged against him.
“The fraud and everything else was ridiculous,” he said.
Following the outcome of the 2020 election, Trump incited his supporters to storm the United States Capitol in the infamous riots of January 6, 2021.
During the debate, Trump downplayed the riots, which were the deadliest attack on American power in more than 200 years. “They talk about a relatively small number of people who went to the Capitol and in many cases were accompanied by police,” he said.
The next presidential debate is scheduled for September 10 and will be hosted by ABC News.
