Democrats lament ‘actually disappointing’ Biden debate – stories
The evaluations from Democrats of Joe Biden’s debate performance in opposition to Donald Trump are in, and they aren’t good.
The president’s raspy voice, tendency to meander and problem ending his solutions have his allies deeply fearful about his potential to beat Trump within the November elections, a number of media shops have reported.
Here’s how his former communications director Kate Bedingfield put it:
Joe Biden’s former communications director Kate Bedingfield, on CNN: “It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden.”
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 28, 2024
The Hill obtained an ominous textual content from a swing state Democrat:
Hoo boy. From one House Dem who hails from a swing state:
“This was a disaster. Biden’s team needs to convince him to withdraw and have an open convention.”
— Al Weaver (@alweaver22) June 28, 2024
Former prime Barack Obama strategist David Axlerod stated Democrats are so fearful they might surprise if Biden ought to proceed his marketing campaign:
.@davidaxelrod on CNN post-debate, “ there are gonna be discussions on if he should continue.”
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) June 28, 2024
Key occasions
CNN’s deliberate decision to forgo live factchecking evokes a bit of dread and deja vu from the 2016 election.
David Chalian, CNN’s political director, told the Associated Press: “Obviously, if there is some egregious fact that needs to be checked or the record needs to be made clear, Jake and Dana can do that. But that’s not their role. They are not here to participate in this debate. They are here to facilitate a debate between Trump and Biden.”
Indeed, neither host pushed back on the barrage of false and misleading claims from Donald Trump, nor did they the fumbles by Joe Biden. This debate over how to moderate the debate – and whether networks should offer fact checks – was also raging back in 2016.
After a televised debacle in which then-NBC host Matt Lauer failed to push back on Trump’s falsehoods in a commander-in-chief forum, networks declined the Hillary Clinton campaign’s requests for debate fact checks. On NBC, Lester Holt was under immense pressure at that point to do some live fact checks and pushback, which he did to some extent – but ultimately stayed focused on keeping the conversation going. When Trump won that election, media organizations were left to grapple with how they failed to take seriously his political rise – and weight of his lies.
Joe Biden has staked much of his candidacy on abortion rights – but he didn’t mention the issue in his closing statement.
Across the US, but especially in swing states like Arizona, organizers are hoping that the abortion rights issue will galvanize voters who have started to cool on Biden. But the president didn’t do much to return to the issue after answering the one debate question tonight that focused on abortion rights.
Though Donald Trump claimed that overturning Roe v Wave was “something everybody wanted” – numerous polls have found that Roe was popular when it was in place and the majority of Americans disagree with the decision to overturn in. Republicans who have advanced harsh abortion restrictions have been increasingly out of touch with what most voters want.
Pressed by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, Kamala Harris again acknowledged that Joe Biden had a “slow start”.
“It was a slow start, that’s obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point,” Harris said.
“I’m talking about the choice in November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime. And do we want to look at what November will bring and go on a course for America that is about a destruction of democracy, electing a man who has said he’ll be a dictator on day one? Or do we want to continue on a course that’s about strengthening America’s economy, building and creating 15m American jobs, over 800,000 manufacturing jobs?”
Harris acknowledges Biden’s ‘sluggish begin’ as she defends debate performance
In an interview with CNN, Kamala Harris defended Joe Biden’s debate performance, and identified that Donald Trump spent loads of time distorting details and dodging questions.
“What we saw tonight is the President making a very clear contrast with Donald Trump on all of the issues that matter to the American people. Yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong finish,” stated Harris. “Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong on substance and policy and performance.”
Pressed to touch upon Biden’s performance and Democrats’ considerations that it solely heightened voters’ apprehension over his age, Harris stated:
Ultimately, this election and who’s the president of the United States must be about substance. And the distinction is evident. Look at what occurred in the course of the course of the debate. Donald Trump lied over and over and over once more, as he’s wont to do.
He wouldn’t disavow what occurred on January 6. He wouldn’t give a transparent reply on whether or not he would stand by the election outcomes this November, he went again and forth about the place he stands on probably the most important problems with freedom in America, which is the proper of ladies to make selections about their very own physique. He has been fully ambiguous and everywhere about the place he stands on that difficulty, even though he hand-selected three members of the United States supreme court docket with the intention that they’d undo the protections of Roe v Wade.
The determination of CNN hosts Dana Bash and Jake Tapper to altogether forgo fact-checking is being broadly panned by journalists and political commentators:
CNN = not assembly the second.
The absence of real-time truth checking is the largest failure of this debate.
— Anthony Coley (@AnthonyColey) June 28, 2024
So a lot basic angst concerning the lack of truth checking tonight. The after-the-debate correction of many misstatements (largely Trump’s) gained’t be heard by lots of people who have to know that.
— Not THAT Karen, thanks (@karenbates) June 28, 2024
CNN’s lack of truth checking and wood questions are simply as dangerous for democracy as all the things else that is occurring
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) June 28, 2024
Former Obama marketing campaign supervisor says Biden’s debate performance ‘a Defcon 1 second’
In an interview on MSNBC, David Plouffe, a Democratic strategist who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 marketing campaign and labored in his White House, warned that Joe Biden’s debate performance drew consideration to his superior age, which is certainly one of his greatest weaknesses.
“It’s kind of a Defcon 1 moment,” Plouffe stated. “The biggest thing in this election is voters’ concerns, and it’s both swing voters and base voters, with his age, and those were compounded tonight.”
Though Biden is simply three years older than Trump, Plouffe stated, “They seemed about 30 years apart tonight. And I think that’s going to be the thing that voters really wrestle with coming out of this.”
“DEFCON 1 moment”
Obama marketing campaign vet David Plouffe on the fallout from Biden’s debate performance.
Plouffe provides Biden did “have a couple of good moments” however the “concern level is quite high.” pic.twitter.com/SPi1pcIlDy
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 28, 2024
Biden says ‘see you on the subsequent one’ regardless of Democratic worries over debate performance
While lots of his allies had been expressing considerations over his debate performance, Joe Biden headed over to talk to supporters at a watch get together, and confirmed no indication of pulling out of the second debate scheduled for early September.
“He’s just a liar,” Biden stated of Trump. “ I can’t think of one thing he said that was true, not being facetious. But look, we’re going to beat this guy. We need to beat this guy, and I need you in order to beat him.”
He concluded with: “Let’s keep going. See you at the next one.”
Lauren Gambino
Trump hammered the difficulty of immigration.
Nearly each query detoured again to the subject.
It’s his signature difficulty, and his strongest difficulty with voters. Americans constantly inform pollsters that they imagine Trump is best outfitted to deal with the border than Biden.
Voters rank immigration as a prime difficulty, generally the prime difficulty. Unprecedented migration on the US-Mexico border, and the sense that the Biden administration has failed to handle it, has alarmed many Americans, together with Democrats.
But for a lot of the debate, Trump merely performed on these fears. He continued to wrongly conflate crime and border crossings. He has vowed to hold out the “largest” deportation marketing campaign in American historical past.
Lauren Gambino
Incumbents often begin off rusty.
There is not any downplaying the full-blown panic throughout the Democratic get together proper now. But, if any are looking for a silver lining, they might keep in mind that incumbent presidents usually carry out poorly within the first debate of their re-election marketing campaign.
The purpose? Presidents are the boss, the commander in chief. For practically the previous 4 years, they’ve given the orders and usually aren’t challenged. A debate places them in a brand new, uncomfortable setting.
President Barack Obama famously had a horrible first debate in opposition to Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, however got here again to ship a a lot stronger performance within the second debate and after all was re-elected.
Will Biden get a second probability to debate Trump this cycle? If fearful Democrats have their approach, most likely not.
Democrats lament ‘actually disappointing’ Biden debate – stories
The evaluations from Democrats of Joe Biden’s debate performance in opposition to Donald Trump are in, and they aren’t good.
The president’s raspy voice, tendency to meander and problem ending his solutions have his allies deeply fearful about his potential to beat Trump within the November elections, a number of media shops have reported.
Here’s how his former communications director Kate Bedingfield put it:
Joe Biden’s former communications director Kate Bedingfield, on CNN: “It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden.”
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 28, 2024
The Hill obtained an ominous textual content from a swing state Democrat:
Hoo boy. From one House Dem who hails from a swing state:
“This was a disaster. Biden’s team needs to convince him to withdraw and have an open convention.”
— Al Weaver (@alweaver22) June 28, 2024
Former prime Barack Obama strategist David Axlerod stated Democrats are so fearful they might surprise if Biden ought to proceed his marketing campaign:
.@davidaxelrod on CNN post-debate, “ there are gonna be discussions on if he should continue.”
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) June 28, 2024
Maanvi Singh
As anticipated, Donald Trump is much, far outpacing Joe Biden in making false and deceptive statements.
(Trump even lied, at one level, about how a lot Biden lies …)
This was additionally the case over the past two election cycles, when candidate Trump flooded debate phases with so many lies and a lot misinformation that it turned nearly unattainable for journalists and factcheckers to maintain up. Tonight, he repeated a number of false statements, together with that the US has the largest deficit ever beneath Biden (Trump had bigger deficits).
He pulled out of skinny air the concept that Biden “wants to raise your taxes by four times” (really Biden proposed a tax enhance of about 7% over the subsequent 10 years), that Biden has been paid by China (there’s completely no proof of this). He claimed that 18m migrants entered the nation in the course of the Biden administration, not together with the “gotaways” – citing a quantity he appears to have pulled out of skinny air. (It’s unattainable to know precisely how many individuals entered the nation with out authorization however the whole variety of migrants coming into each at ports of entry and apprehensions oustide of ports was beneath 10m. Some might have tried to enter greater than as soon as and about 4m had been turned again.)
The former president additionally stated that Biden has “destroyed our country”. That’s a bit subjective – however on condition that I’m truth checking this debate from an intact North American land mass in California, suggests the United States has not, in reality, been destroyed.
Trump assaults Biden as ‘complainer’ as debate concludes
The former president used his closing argument to assault Biden as having failed to alter something as president.
“Like so many politicians, this man is just a complainer. He said, we want to do this, we want to do that, we want to get rid of this tax, that tax. But he doesn’t do anything,” Trump stated.
And then he shifted to his tried-and-true tactic of tying that to all his favored marketing campaign topics:
All he does is make our nation unsafe by permitting tens of millions and tens of millions of individuals to pour in. Our navy doesn’t respect him. We appear to be fools in Afghanistan. We didn’t cease Israel. It was such a horrible factor that may have by no means occurred. It ought to have by no means occurred.
Trump concluded by saying: “We’re in a failing nation, but it’s not going to be failing any more. We’re going to make it great again.”
Biden-Trump debate concludes
The debate is now over after 90 minutes of again and forth between Trump and Biden.
Trump walked off the stage, whereas Biden was joined by Jill Biden, and appeared to go down to talk to moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper.
Biden touts ‘vital progress’ after Trump’s ‘debacle’ in closing assertion
The candidates are actually on to closing statements, with Biden up first and arguing that he had cleaned up a large number left behind by his predecessor.
“We’ve made significant progress from the debacle that was left by President Trump in his last term,” Biden stated.
He went on to say Trump “increased your taxes because of the deficit. Number one, he’s increased inflation because of the debacle he left after where he handled the pandemic, and he finds himself in a position where he now wants to tax you more by putting a 10% tariff on everything that comes into the United States of America.”
Biden ended by pledging to “continue to fight to bring down inflation and give people a break.”
Trump appears to point he’ll settle for election outcomes, with situations
After attempting twice extra, moderator Dana Bash lastly bought Trump to say he’ll settle for the election outcomes. But in typical type for the previous president, he included caveats.
“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” Trump stated.
Trump declines to say if he’ll settle for election outcomes
Moderator Dana Bash requested Trump if he would settle for the election outcomes, and slightly than reply, Trump roughly dodged the query by rambling about a wide range of issues.
“Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted, that you will accept the results of this election, regardless of who wins? And you will say right now that political violence in any form is unacceptable?” Bash requested.
“Well, I shouldn’t have to say that, but of course, I believe that it’s totally unacceptable,” Trump stated, seemingly in response to the query about political violence.
But he had extra problem answering if he would settle for the election, and by no means fairly accomplished his response:
But the reply is, if the election is truthful, free, and I would like that greater than anyone, and I’ll inform you one thing, I want he was an incredible president, as a result of I wouldn’t be right here proper now. I’d be at certainly one of my many locations, having fun with myself.
He then went on to assault Biden and accuse him of placing the nation on target for a 3rd world struggle.
Fact test: Trump on the atmosphere
Trump claimed he “had the best environmental numbers ever” – a imprecise assertion that’s unattainable to truth test (what environmental numbers?).
However, right here the numerous ways in which Trump’s insurance policies made the atmosphere dirtier and the local weather hotter, compiled by the Guardian in 2020:
Biden has a chilly – report
CBS News stories that Biden’s physician lately identified him with a chilly – which can clarify his raspy voice and occasional coughing throughout this debate:
White House official says POTUS was examined by his physician, Kevin O’Connor, at Camp David in current days, and O’Connor decided it was a chilly. POTUS examined destructive for COVID.
— Nancy Cordes (@nancycordes) June 28, 2024
Fact test: Trump accuses Biden of utilizing the phrase “super predator”
Trump stated that Biden referred to as Black Americans “super predators”.
The tremendous predator idea within the Nineteen Nineties instructed {that a} rising variety of unusually violent younger folks, particularly Black boys, posed a risk to the nation. The idea capitalized on racialized concern and was used to encourage insurance policies that led to the disproportionate incarceration of Black youth. There is not any proof Biden used the phrase or ascribed to the idea behind it.
However, his endorsement of the 1994 crime invoice has justifiably come beneath scrutiny. Biden has defended the invoice, and stated that elements of it had been wrongly carried out. Here’s context from 2020, when Trump made the identical false declare about Biden: