President Joe Biden made several verbal missteps Thursday in the opening minutes of his debate with his Republican rival, Donald Trump, as both took the stage seeking to define their presidential rematch. Biden had a raspy voice, struggling repeatedly to clear his throat, and had a halting delivery as he tried to defend his economic record and criticize Trump. Biden appeared to lose his train of thought while giving one answer, drifting from an answer on tax policy to health policy, at one point using the word “COVID,” and then saying, “excuse me, with, dealing with,” and he trailed off again. “Look, we finally beat Medicare,” Biden said, as his time ran out on his answer. Trump picked right up on it, saying, “That’s right, he did beat Medicaid, he beat it to death. And he’s destroying Medicare.” Trump falsely suggested Biden was weakening the social service program because of migrants coming into the country.
Quick Read
- Debate Turns to Abortion Access: Biden blames Trump for state abortion restrictions since Roe v. Wade’s fall, highlighting Trump’s Supreme Court appointments that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
- Trump’s Stance: Claims to support exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, emphasizing states’ rights in abortion decisions.
- Supreme Court Ruling: Referenced a ruling on Idaho’s abortion ban, where women face challenges in obtaining abortions during medical emergencies.
- States’ Rights Argument: Trump asserts that abortion decisions are now in the hands of individual states, despite the reality that many states don’t allow direct voter input through ballot measures.
- Biden’s Campaign: Focuses on the potential nationwide abortion restrictions under a second Trump term and the impact of state-level restrictions on pregnant people.
- Fact-Checking Missteps: Both candidates made factual errors; Biden understated job creation and misstated insulin cost caps, while Trump falsely claimed the economy was set to pay down the national debt pre-pandemic and alleged unsubstantiated claims about immigrants from prisons and mental institutions.
- Trump’s Economic Claims: Bragged about the state of the economy and pandemic handling during his tenure, though budget deficits increased significantly due to his 2017 tax cuts.
The Associated Press has the story:
Biden-Trump Presidential debate turns to subject of abortion access
Newslooks- ATLANTA (AP) —
President Joe Biden blamed Donald Trump during the debate for the deluge of state abortion restrictions since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
As president, Trump appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped form the majority that overturned the constitutional right to abortion — and he has taken credit for that during his campaign.
Highlighting Trump’s connection to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its impact on pregnant people across the U.S. has become a cornerstone of Biden’s campaign. Biden has also warned that a second Trump term could lead to nationwide abortion restrictions.
Trump said on the debate stage that he believes in abortion ban exceptions “for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”
Those exceptions are at the heart of a case the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling on Thursday. Under Idaho’s abortion ban, women have been unable to get abortions in medical emergencies because the state only has an exception to save the life of the mother — not to save her health.
Trump repeated his catchall states-rights response when abortion rights came up, touting that he returned the abortion question to individual states after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which once granted a federal right to abortion.
It’s an attempt to find a more cautious stance on the issue, which has become a vulnerability for Republicans and driven turnout for Democrats.
While Trump has repeatedly claimed “the people” are now the ones deciding abortion access, that’s not true everywhere.
Voters don’t have a direct say through citizen-led ballot measures in about half the states. In those that do allow such measures, abortion rights coalitions in several states this year have faced intense efforts by anti-abortion groups to thwart citizen initiatives on reproductive rights.
Voters in seven states, including conservative ones such as Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to curtail them in statewide votes over the past two years.
Trump and Biden make multiple factual missteps
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump made multiple factual missteps as the debate began on Thursday.
Biden started out his debate with a gaffe, claiming he had created 15,000 jobs. The correct number is more than 15 million, a dramatic undercount by someone trying to renew voters’ confidence in his economic leadership.
Biden also said, “It’s $15 for an insulin shot, as opposed to $400.” But out-of-pocket insulin costs for older Americans on Medicare were capped at $35 in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law. The cap took effect last year, when many drugmakers announced they would lower the price of the drug to $35 for most users on private insurance.
Trump said the U.S. economy was ready to start paying down its national debt before the pandemic. That’s not true. Budget deficits were increasing under Trump because his 2017 tax cuts didn’t pay for themselves as he had promised they would. Trump inherited a budget deficit of $585 billion and it ballooned to $984 billion in 2019, only to climb above $3 trillion in 2020 after the pandemic hit, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
And Trump’s claim that “millions” were admitted to the country from prisons and mental institutions is unsubstantiated. There is no evidence of that.
Trump opens debate by bragging about the state of the economy while he was in office
Donald Trump opened Thursday’s debate by bragging about the state of the economy while he was in office as well as his handling of the pandemic.
He said: “Everything was rocking good.
He also said the U.S. economy was ready to start paying down its national debt before the pandemic.
But that’s not true. Budget deficits were increasing under Trump because his 2017 tax cuts didn’t pay for themselves as he had promised they would. Trump inherited a budget deficit of $585 billion and it ballooned to $984 billion in 2019, only to climb above $3 trillion in 2020 after the pandemic hit, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Trump and Biden entered the night facing stiff headwinds, including a public weary of the tumult of partisan politics and broadly dissatisfied with both, according to polling. But the debate was highlighting how they have sharply different visions on virtually every core issue — abortion, the economy and foreign policy — and deep hostility toward each other.
The two candidates strode on stage and walked directly to their lecterns, avoiding a handshake. The debate did not start with any of the fiery exchanges that defined their first meeting on the debate stage in 2020. Instead, each man stayed relatively measured as he defended his record and blamed the other for steering the country off track.
Biden, pressed to defend rising inflation since he took office, pinned it on the situation he inherited from Trump amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump assailed Biden’s withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, saying, “It was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life.”
Biden said that when Trump left office, “things were in chaos.” Trump disagreed, declaring that during his term in the White House, “Everything was rocking good.”
The current president and his predecessor hadn’t spoken since their last debate weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration after leading an unprecedented and unsuccessful effort to overturn his loss that culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by his supporters.
Trump has promised sweeping plans to remake the U.S. government if he returns to the White House and Biden argues that his opponent would pose an existential threat to the nation’s democracy.
Thursday’s broadcast on CNN, moderated by anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, marked the earliest general election debate in history. It’s the first-ever televised general election presidential debate hosted by a single news outlet after both campaigns ditched the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which had organized every matchup since 1988.
