WASHINGTON (AP) — For a rerun that featured a rematch between two men with a combined age of 159, the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday night had a fiery sense of urgency.
Each man viewed the presidential race as a crisis for the country, based almost entirely on threats they said the other represented.
Here are some takeaways:
Style v. Substance
Presidential debates are often judged more on style and impact than on substance. Trump was confident and collected, even as he steamrolled facts about abortion and immigration with false claims, garish exaggerations and empty superlatives. Biden often faltered, his voice hoarse, even when the facts were on his side. He struggled to finish his arguments or organize his attacks.
Trump’s supporters don’t seem concerned about his relationship with the truth, and his performance and delivery have helped him. Biden’s supporters continually express concern about the president’s age and abilities and he did little to reassure them.
One of the first glimpses viewers got of Biden was when he lost the thread while explaining his stance on tax rates and the number of billionaires in America. He fell silent and looked at his lectern before muttering briefly and saying, “We finally beat Medicare.” When he wanted to finish his point, he was interrupted due to the time limit.
January 6 and Trump’s revenge
Trump was opening the debate when he suddenly stumbled over how to reassure voters that he would respect his oath of office following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He continued to deny the attack and refused to charge those who attacked police and stormed the building by destroying doors and windows. He suggested that those charged would one day somehow be proven innocent.
More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot. Of those, more than 850 have pleaded guilty to crimes including seditious conspiracy and assaulting police officers. About 200 others have been convicted at trial.
Trump did not attempt to address the issue. He defended the people who stormed the Capitol and accused Biden of prosecuting them. “What they did to some people who are so innocent, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told Biden.
Trump warned that members of the congressional committee investigating January 6 could face criminal charges, as could Biden himself.
Biden shot back: “The only person on this stage who is a convicted criminal is the man I’m looking at.”
Trump did not go back on his promise to take revenge, which, combined with his refusal to condemn the January 6 attackers, made for a grim moment.
When asked if he would accept the outcome of the election, Trump said, “If it’s a fair, legal and good election, absolutely,” which is notably not an unconditional yes.
Low way
In what may be a first in a presidential campaign, Trump called the president, Biden, a “criminal” and said he could be prosecuted after he leaves office. Biden then brought Trump’s recent criminal trial to New York, in which prosecutors presented evidence that Trump had sex with a porn actor. “I haven’t had sex with a porn star,” Trump said.
Trump’s promise on abortion
Abortion is an issue that Democrats believe could help them win in November. Trump campaigned in 2016 on overturning Roe v. Wade, and as president he appointed three Supreme Court justices who provided the deciding votes, repealing the 49-year-old right to the procedure. In response to a question from the moderators, Trump vowed to do no more if he returns to the White House, where his administration would have the authority to ban the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.
Overturning Roe is one of Trump’s biggest political vulnerabilities, but on Thursday the former president claimed everyone was happy with what he did.
“On abortion, it’s back to the United States,” Trump said, claiming the Founding Fathers would have been happy with the end of Roe. “Everyone wanted it brought back.”
That’s not true. Polls show significant opposition to overturning Roe, and voters punished Republicans for it in the recent election. “The idea that the Founders wanted politicians to be the ones making decisions about women’s health is ridiculous,” Biden shot back.
In a unanimous decision this month, the Supreme Court upheld access to mifepristone, a pill used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year.
Until Thursday, Trump had not outlined his position on access to the drugs, but during the debate he indicated he supported the judge’s decision, saying: “I will not block it.
Border skirmish
In recent months, Biden has tried to improve his poor public reputation for his handling of immigration. First, he supported a bipartisan Senate proposal that included some of the toughest border restrictions in recent history. When that legislation failed, he then took executive action to crack down on migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.
But while Biden tried to show off the progress he had made, most notably the 40% drop in illegal border crossings since his border directive was enacted this month, Trump used his trademark dark and catastrophic rhetoric to paint a picture of a chaotic border under Biden’s administration.
Trump, for example, has argued that migrants arriving at the U.S. border are coming from “mental institutions” and “insane asylums” — a frequent statement he has made at rallies for which he has provided no evidence. He also claimed that the US-Mexico border is the “most dangerous place in the world” and cited examples of immigrants who were in the US illegally and had committed violent crimes.
While some immigrants do commit heinous crimes, a 2020 study by the National Academy of Sciences found “significantly lower felony arrest rates” among people in the United States illegally than among legal immigrants or those born in the United States. But Trump often benefits from his certainty.
It’s the economy, and Trump said Biden is stupid
The debate began with Biden defending his record on the economy, saying he inherited an economy that was “in free fall” when it was hit by the pandemic, and that his administration had put it back together.
But after Biden touted his administration’s achievements — such as lowering insulin costs and creating millions of new jobs — Trump boasted he was overseeing the “greatest economy in the history of our country” and defended his record in the field of the pandemic.
Biden responded: “He’s the only one who thinks that.” But Trump responded by attacking him on inflation, arguing that he had inherited low inflation when he came to power in January 2021, but that prices had “gone up under his leadership.”
Suckers and losers
Biden — whose late son, Beau, served in Iraq — had one of his most powerful moments when he attacked Trump’s reported comments in 2018 that he refused to visit a U.S. military cemetery in France because veterans buried there were “suckers” ‘ goods. and ‘losers’.
It was an argument Biden, then the Democratic challenger, made against Trump in their first 2020 debate, and one the incumbent president has frequently used against Trump, portraying him as a commander in chief who nonetheless discredits veterans. “My son was not a loser, he was not a loser,” Biden said. “You’re the loser. You’re the loser.”
Trump responded that the publication that initially reported the remarks, The Atlantic, was “a third-rate magazine” and had fabricated the quotes. But Trump’s retort is undermined by the fact that his former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed the private remarks in a statement last fall.
