Biden-Trump debate: Insults and accusations fly in first presidential face-off of 2024

This story originally appeared on NPR.

If some people who listened to the radio in 1960 thought Richard Nixon won the presidential debate with John F. Kennedy, then maybe people reading the transcript of Thursday night’s match-up would think President Biden won.

Maybe.

But elections aren’t won in transcripts. The reality is, fairly or not, debates are often about optics — how the candidates present themselves, defend their records and parry attacks.

And that’s why so many Democrats are ringing the fire alarms after the first general-election presidential debate of 2024. The Biden campaign said the president had a cold to explain why he sounded so hoarse and weak. But Biden’s stumbles right from the beginning played into his biggest vulnerability — his age and whether the 81-year-old is up to the challenge of handling four more years in office.

There were issues for Trump, too, as he continued to spread falsehoods and bathe in the kinds of conspiratorial grievances that have turned off many voters.

Not much has changed the dynamics of this race; will anything that happened Thursday night make a difference either?

Here are four takeaways from the first Biden-Trump debate of this campaign:

1. First and foremost, let’s talk about the elephant in the room – Democrats have to be wondering if they’d be better off with someone else as their nominee

Neither candidate is the official nominee yet. The national political conventions haven’t happened — but it’s next to impossible that Democrats would replace Biden.

Still, given he delivered the kind of performance Democrats feared, party leaders, strategists and many voters, frankly, had to be wondering during this debate what it would be like if any of a handful of other Democrats were standing on that stage.

Biden got a bit stronger as the debate went on, especially on foreign policy. He had some one-liners, like calling Trump a “whiner” when Trump wouldn’t definitively say that he would accept the results of the 2024 election. But Biden often wasn’t able to show vigor or consistently convey what he wanted to say. He simply couldn’t deliver the kinds of happy-warrior blows with that toothy smile audiences have seen from Biden in years past.

“Sometimes the spin don’t spin,” one Democratic strategist texted midway through the debate when asked for reaction.

2. If how Biden sounded wasn’t bad enough, the visuals might have been equally as bad

An important rule of thumb for candidates — and moderators — in debates is to be conscious of how things look, of how you look, of what people are seeing at home. And what people saw — and this was predictable — was a split screen.

Biden wasn’t able to use that to his advantage at all, even as Trump doled out falsehood after falsehood. Instead, he looked genuinely shocked and confused, which is never a good look.

Trump and his base might not care about Saturday Night Live, but Biden’s base does. And this week’s cold open won’t be pretty.

3. The format — and hands-off moderators — benefited Trump

The muting of the candidates was likely intended to make the debate calmer and not allow Trump to run roughshod over the moderators or his opponent. But it had the effect of making Trump seem more sedate than usual.

Trump employed rounds of verbal jujitsu, in which he threw back his own vulnerabilities and directed them toward Biden. He was even able at one point, during a strange exchange about golf handicaps, to say, “Let’s not act like children.”

The moderation, or lack thereof, also allowed Trump to spread falsehoods and hyperbole without being interrupted or corrected. CNN indicated before the debate that the moderators were not going to play a strong role in fact checking the candidates, and they lived up to that.

They left it to the candidates, essentially, and with Biden unable to deliver in real time and the moderators declining to, the audience was left with a salad bowl full of rotten eggs and moldy lettuce that passed for facts.

Securing a win in Pennsylvania is crucial for unlocking any presidential campaign. In 2020, President Joe Biden found the key: the Philadelphia suburbs.

That election saw a boost in the size of the suburban electorate and its support for the Democratic nominee. Biden defeated Trump in those four counties by a margin of more than 280,000 votes. This cycle, the suburbs of Pennsylvania continue to play a major role.

On Thursday night, equipped with lawn chairs and full plates of home-cooked food, dozens of Biden supporters gathered inside of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee’s headquarters in Norristown.

They’ve seen this movie before, yes.

But four years later, attendees at one debate watch party were looking forward to President Joe Biden nailing former President Donald Trump on threats to abortion, democracy and the social safety net. Some winced at the sequel.

“I was hoping that we would at least stand our ground and be able to stand up to Trump and not let him just talk about random things,” said Amanda Baker, of Pottstown. “But, I don’t know if that happened.”

There were some shaky moments from Biden, but the chasm between Trump and the Democratic Party was enough fuel to keep the left-leaning crowd energized.

Biden’s strongest moment with his remote audience occurred around the halfway mark — when he went on the offensive. In reference to Trump’s recent conviction in the hush money trial, Biden said Trump has “the morals of an alley cat.”

» READ MORE: Philly’s suburbs are crucial to the presidential race. At the first debate, some voters are wincing at the Biden-Trump rematch

Roughly 100 people gathered at a presidential debate watch party in Roxborough on Thursday to support the Biden-Harris campaign.

The crowd was vocal, often cheering for Biden, and laughing at Trump, including when the former president said he left the economy in better shape than he found it when he first took office in 2016.

Philadelphia Councilmembers Anthony Phillips, Quetcy Lozada and Rue Landau; state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta; state Sen. Sharif Street; and Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware were among the audience.

The event was historic, the first between a sitting president and a former president. They are the oldest candidates in a general election. One of them is a convicted felon, another first.

Most there thought Biden had done a good job.

“He’s got some strong points,” said Biden campaign volunteer and North Philly resident David Evans.

» READ MORE: In Philly, Democrats appear hopeful despite ‘subdued’ performance from Biden

A raspy and sometimes halting President Joe Biden tried repeatedly to confront Donald Trump in their first debate ahead of the November election, as his Republican rival countered Biden’s criticism by leaning into falsehoods about the economy, illegal immigration and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Biden’s uneven performance, particularly early in the debate, crystallized the concerns of many Americans that, at 81, he is too old to serve as president. It sparked a fresh round of calls for the Democrat to consider stepping aside as the party’s nominee as members of his party fear a return of Trump to the White House.

Biden repeatedly tore into Trump in an apparent effort to provoke him, bringing up everything from the former president’s recent felony conviction to his alleged insult of World War I veterans to his weight. The 78-year-old Trump declined to clearly state he would accept the results of the November election, four years after he promoted conspiracy theories about his loss that culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and repeatedly misstated the record from his time in office.

But Biden’s delivery from the beginning of the debate drew the most attention afterward. Trump’s allies immediately declared victory while prominent Democrats publicly questioned whether Biden could move forward.

» READ MORE: A halting Biden tries to confront Trump at debate but stirs Democratic anxiety about his candidacy

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Trump will likely announce his pick for vice president in the coming weeks. There will also be a vice presidential debate this summer. The date has not been finalized, but Vice President Harris agreed to one held on either July 23 or Aug. 13.

On the legal front, Trump will appear for sentencing in his criminal trial on July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention, which begins on July 15 in Milwaukee. A month later, the Democratic National Convention will kick off on Aug. 19 in Chicago.

Trump and Biden will debate for a second time on Sept. 10.

At the start of the debate, CNN’s Jake Tapper described how he and co-moderator Dana Bash would be approaching their roles: “Our job is to facilitate a debate between the two candidates tonight,” he said.

Throughout the debate, Bash and Tapper mainly opted not to follow up or fact-check, sticking to the allotted times and often moving on to another topic. Biden struggled with this format, while Trump often filled his speaking time with wide-ranging comments and accusations that were unrelated to the question he had been asked.

Whoppers and insults were often followed with a pause of the mics being cut and a “thank you, next question.”

Finally, 90 minutes into the debate, Bash followed up three times when Trump failed to answer a question about whether he would accept the results of the election in November, something he refused to do four years ago. Trump never did fully commit to accepting the 2024 election results.

Heading into the debate, CNN political director David Chalian told AP that fact-checking wasn’t the role of the moderators.

“They are not here to participate in this debate,” Chalian said. “They are here to facilitate a debate between Trump and Biden.”

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Neither candidate had direct answers to how they plan to slow the climate crisis in their second terms.

Trump boasted having the “best environmental numbers ever,” after at first avoiding the question. But Trump has a history of casting doubt on the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is the main cause of climate change.

“I want absolutely immaculate clean water, and I want absolutely clean air. And we had it,” Trump said. Still, Trump has campaigned on the promise to “drill, baby, drill” and ending various energy efficiency and rescinding foreign and domestic climate policies.

Biden used the question to boast about passing the “most extensive climate change legislation in history,” referencing the Inflation Reduction Act — which Trump and various Republicans have vowed to repeal — and criticizing Trump for pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, a decision Trump still stands by.

Neither candidate had direct answers to how they plan to slow the climate crisis in their second terms.

Trump boasted having the “best environmental numbers ever,” after at first avoiding the question. But Trump has a history of casting doubt on the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is the main cause of climate change.

“I want absolutely immaculate clean water, and I want absolutely clean air. And we had it,” Trump said. Still, Trump has campaigned on the promise to “drill, baby, drill” and ending various energy efficiency and rescinding foreign and domestic climate policies.

Biden used the question to boast about passing the “most extensive climate change legislation in history,” referencing the Inflation Reduction Act — which Trump and various Republicans have vowed to repeal — and criticizing Trump for pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, a decision Trump still stands by.

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Addressing one of voters’ primary concerns about Trump, Bash asked him to 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?”

Trump didn’t exactly do so.

“Well, I shouldn’t have to say that,” he said. “But of course, I believe that it’s totally unacceptable. And if you would see my statements that I made on Twitter at the time, and also my statement that I made in the Rose Garden, you would say it’s one of the strongest statements you’ve ever seen, in addition to the speech I made in front of, I believe, the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to.”

Trump then went on a tangent about Jan. 6 and foreign policy, before Bash returned with a follow up: Would he accept the election results regardless of the winner?

“Just to finish what I said, If I might, Russia, they took a lot of land from Bush,” Trump answered. “They took a lot of land from Obama and Biden. They took no land, nothing from Trump, nothing.”

Bash tried a third time: “The question was, will you accept the results of the election, regardless of who wins? Yes or No.”

Trump answered with remarks similar to those he made on the debate stage in 2020 — before he was charged with working to overturn the election results and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” he said. “I would have much rather accepted these, but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous, and if you want, we’ll have a news conference on it in a week, or we’ll have another one of these on in a week. But I will absolutely, there’s nothing I’d rather do.”

More than 80 minutes into the debate, President Joe Biden, 81, and former President Donald Trump, 78, were asked about their age and ability to serve well into their 80s.

Biden, answering with the hoarse voice he’s had all night, launched on a litany of policy achievements and noted that Trump is only “three years younger.”

Biden also used the answer to slap at Trump for bad-mouthing the U.S.

“The idea that we are some kind of failing country? I’ve never heard a president talk like that before,” Biden said.

In his retort, Trump bragged on his golf game and said he’s in as good a shape as he was 25 years ago and perhaps “even a little bit lighter.”

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts — but he still says he did nothing wrong.

In May, Trump became the first former or sitting president to both be tried on criminal charges and to be found guilty. A 12-person New York jury convicted Trump of 34 counts of falsified business records.

Still, Trump has long argued without evidence that the trial, the prosecution and the verdict was politically motivated against him.

“We have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said during the CNN presidential debate.

In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the Justice Department said it found no emails about the Trump probe between Justice Department leadership and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office who prosecuted him. The letter underscored that the District Attorney’s office is a separate entity from the DOJ.

Biden argued that Trump has also received multiple civil penalties — citing other New York trials Trump has been found liable in. These included when Trump was found liable of sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll. Biden also accused Trump of having the “morals of an alley cat” for allegedly having an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Trump denied the alleged affair, which was at the center of the criminal conviction. The falsified business records were the invoices, ledgers and checks used to pay his former lawyer Michael Cohen for originally paying Daniels to keep quiet about the alleged affair as Trump ran for president in 2016.

The crowd at the Biden-Harris office in Roxborough has been vocal, often cheering Biden and laughing at Trump, on instances such as when the former president said he left a better economy than what he had been given.

A volunteer with the Biden campaign, David Evans, told WHYY News that he believes Biden could go after Trump stronger on some points, but Evans said that, overall, the president is doing well.

“He’s got some strong points,” Evans said. “He’s struggling a little bit with his rebuttals, but overall I think he’s got some really key points.”

As for Trump, “He diverts when he is pinned to a corner, he just changes the subject like he usually does.”

Evans, who lives in North Philly, runs a nonprofit called Block by Block Philly. He says women’s health care and voting rights are his top issues and he will door-knock for the campaign Sunday.

Ahead of the Newtown watch party, Jim Worthington, local delegate to the Republican National Convention, spoke to the room about the importance of local Trump organizers engaging voters to win the county, the state and ultimately the election.

He said worries about “stealing the election” should be dismissed, stating that 500 lawyers will be on the ground that day to ensure the election is fair.

“Forget it, you’ve got to start focusing in on what you can control. That’s what I do,” Worthington said.

He recommended Trump supporters work with “low-propensity” voters by helping to get them to the polls on Election Day, or by assisting them with voting by mail.

Although Trump falsely claimed that mail ballots led to election fraud in the 2020 elections, Pennsylvania Republican leaders have been encouraging voters to use mail-in ballots in the upcoming elections and working to change negative perceptions of mail ballots.

Debate questions are turning to Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the Electoral College vote count.

Trump was asked by host Jake Tapper whether he violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

Asked about the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump quickly pivoted to immigration and taxes. Pressed on his role, he said he encouraged people to act “peacefully and patriotically,” then attacked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The rioters on Jan. 6 engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police and used makeshift weapons, including flagpoles, a table leg, hockey stick and crutch, to attack officers. Police officers were bruised and bloodied as they were dragged into the crowd and beaten. One officer was crushed in a doorframe and another suffered a heart attack after a rioter pressed a stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him.

More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal offenses stemming from the riot. Of those, more than 850 have guilty people have pleaded guilty to crimes, including seditious conspiracy and assaulting police officers. About 200 others have been convicted at trial.

Philadelphia Councilmembers Anthony Phillips, Quetsy Lozada and Rue Landau; State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta; State Sen. Sharif Street; and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons gathered at the Biden-Harris campaign’s watch party in Roxborough.

Coons, co-chair of Biden’s national campaign, addressed the audience of about 100, telling them he was there because of the outsized role Pennsylvania will play in the election.

“No state is more important in 2024 than Pennsylvania,” he told WHYY News. “With Pennsylvania, we can win. Without Pennsylvania, there’s no path. It’s Joe Biden’s home state. I’m frankly spending the whole weekend in Pennsylvania.”

Asked about Biden’s polling results, Coons said that the big challenge has been messaging.

“I think the problem has been that he’s gotten so many good things done,” Coons said. “If he’d only accomplished three things, every Democrat would be talking about those three things. Instead, it’s two dozen.”

Coons elicited applause when he finished mentioning how “the Phillies have the best record they ever had.”

“I’m very excited about the Phillies,” he told WHYY News. “My wife’s from Pennsylvania, our whole family are Phillies fans, and my twin boys both live in Philadelphia and they’ve been going to Phillies games all season, so we’re really excited about how they’re doing and the prospects.”

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

While talking about democracy and Jan. 6, Biden asked Trump point blank to denounce the Proud Boys — in a flashback to their first presidential debate in 2020.

At that debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked whether Trump would denounce white supremacists, and Trump asked for a name. Both Wallace and Biden suggested the Proud Boys.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said, in what sounded more like a call to action, and quickly became part of the far-right extremist group’s new social media logo.

Biden recalled that moment onstage tonight, as Trump visibly rolled his eyes. Then Biden addressed him directly.

“Will you denounce these guys?” he asked, a few times.

Trump seemed momentarily at a loss for words. The moderators jumped in to change the subject, asking Trump instead about comments he made recently about going after his political opponents.

Throughout Thursday’s presidential debate, the crowd at the Montgomery County Democratic Committee has been active.

While they have shown concern for President Joe Biden’s early stumbles, his offensive against former President Donald Trump’s criminal conduct drew the loudest applause of the night.

As Biden ripped into the hush money payments, the room grew silent. Biden’s final line accusing Trump of having “the morals of an alley cat” represented his strongest moment of the night so far.

Joe Biden lost his train of thought during Thursday’s debate while trying to make a point about tax rates and the number of billionaires in America.

Biden trailed off and looked down before mumbling about COVID and saying something to the effect that “we finally beat Medicare.”

When he tried to come back to finish his point, moderator Jake Tapper cut him off because his time was up.

Trump quickly interjected: “He’s right he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”

Throughout his reelection campaign, Trump has said that Biden has allowed criminals to come into the U.S. without authorization.

“They are killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen before,” Trump said tonight.

Republicans have been saying the same, particularly after two Venezuelan immigrants were charged with capital murder for killing a 12-year-old girl.

But data from Northwestern University shows immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. born people.

Jim Petrino came to the Newtown watch party because he supports Trump and wanted to gather with other Republican local leaders to watch the debate.

“There’s the border, the economy right now with gasoline prices and food prices going up again,” he said. “And I guess one of the biggest things is Biden’s stability. Is he able to stand for an hour, is he able to hold the conversation for an hour? Legitimate conversation.”

The roughly 50 people at the watch party have been reacting with groans and laughs so far to Biden’s parts of the debate. When Trump said “I really don’t know what he said,” in response to Biden’s description of his immigration policies, people cheered.

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Trump has accused doctors of executing babies who are born alive after a failed abortion attempt many times.

Federal data suggests that very few U.S. babies are born alive as a result of a failed abortion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 143 deaths during a 12 year period ending in 2014 involving infants born alive during attempted abortions.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. happen in the first trimester (first 12 weeks of pregnancy). Only about 1.3% take place after 21 weeks, according to the CDC, and many are not viable or may endanger the mother.

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Trump had a solid record of job growth during his first three years in office, when employers added 6.6 million jobs.

Unfortunately, those gains and more were wiped out by the pandemic, which briefly drove the unemployment rate up to 14.8%.

Although employment began to rebound by the summer of 2020, there were still 2.7 million fewer jobs when Trump left office than when he entered the White House four years earlier.

The United States has continued to add jobs since then – a whopping 15.6 million jobs since Joe Biden was sworn in as president. The unemployment rate has been at or below 4% for the last two and a half years.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in their first 2024 presidential election debate beginning at 9 p.m. ET.

The 90-minute debate, which will be moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash at the network’s Atlanta studio, will be available on CNN and the streaming platform Max.

Viewers and listeners can watch or listen to live special coverage starting at 9 p.m. on WHYY-TV, WHYY-FM or WHYY App.

Viewers without a cable login can also watch the debate on CNN’s website.

More than 60 people packed into the Montgomery County Democratic Committee’s presidential debate watch party.

As the debate kicks off, attendees are pulling out their pens. But, they’re not taking notes.

They’re playing bingo.

Many of the spots are common phrases used by President Joe Biden, such as “folks.” Other spots are positions they hope Biden pins former President Donald Trump on, such as defending the Jan. 6 insurrection.

At the Trump Force 47 office in Newtown, Bucks County, Trump supporters gathered for the debate watch party.

Trump Force 47 describes itself as “the official army of volunteer neighborhood organizers working together to defeat Joe Biden and the far-left liberal Democrats.”

Abigail Vega will be 18 by November and plans to vote for Trump in her first election. She said immigration is the top reason for her support for the former president. She said she hopes both candidates “have matured” since the first time they faced off in the 2020 election cycle debate.

“I hope this is more presidential and more, you know, manly, like man-to-man, not child-to-child. So I can’t wait to see that growth and progress between both of them, not just Trump,” Vega said.

Jim Worthington, chair of the delegation to the Republican National Convention, said he wants to see former President Trump “correct the record” and address any “mistruths” President Biden shares during the debate.

Worthington has supported Trump since his successful run in 2016, and said Bucks County is the “battleground” for the presidential election.

“If you win Bucks County, you win Pennsylvania. If you win Pennsylvania, you become the president,” Worthington said. “So their strategy is to win Bucks County, keep the Southeast close, and he’ll become the president of the United States, guaranteed.”

Biden won Bucks County in 2020 by a slim margin, with 51.7% of the vote (204,712 votes) to Trump’s 47.3% (187,367). Hillary Clinton barely edged out Trump to win Bucks County in the 2016 election, with 48.4% of the vote compared to 47.8% of the vote for Trump.

President Joe Biden took a jab at Donald Trump’s insinuations that he’s using drugs to enhance his debate performance.

Biden posted photos on social media and a message that he’s been drinking a canned beverage called “Dark Brandon’s Secret Sauce.” It’s just water in a can, but the ingredient label notes Trump’s 34 felony convictions and stresses that the main ingredient in the aluminum can is “MAGA Tears.”

I don’t know what they’ve got in these performance enhancers, but I’m feeling pretty jacked up.

Try it yourselves, folks.

See you in a bit: https://t.co/vD3mL9slj1 pic.twitter.com/Li4EM9mzve

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 28, 2024

While Biden has tried not to dignify Trump’s criticisms, his campaign is now selling the canned water for $4.60 apiece. Biden noted that his wife, Jill, took the photos of him holding the beverage.

Elisha Morris, 67, a Norristown resident, descended on the Montgomery County Democratic Committee headquarters to watch the debate and get involved in local politics.

He said he’s hoping President Joe Biden reminds voters that his opponent, Donald Trump, has “no plan.”

“I hope people recognize what the Biden-Harris administration have done the last four years: bridges here in Norristown,” Morris said. “Some people are upset. ‘Streets are closed for eight months’ — because we’re rebuilding a bridge that was crumbling. That never happened under Trump. It happened under Biden. He’s reinvesting in America.”

He said he wants Trump “to act like the jackass that he is.”

“I want him to be exactly who he’s always been,” Morris said. “And then I want to see people that I know, Black and white, defend him. Because then, I’ll really know where they are.”

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

Tonight’s debate between President Biden and former President Trump is the first major moment of the general election with only one other debate scheduled. Here are 5 questions to think about ahead of tonight’s debate:

1. It’s getting old to talk about Biden’s age, but will he show vigor and be on top of the job to reassure voters he is up to the job?

If you watch conservative media, Biden is often described as senile, which has lowered the bar for him at every other major public event, like State of the Union addresses. He’ll have to do it again, but Trump and conservatives have lowered the bar to the point that Biden might only need to step over it. Because of it, Trump has resorted to baselessly alleging that Biden uses performance-enhancing agents. This will likely be the largest single audience of any day in this campaign yet, so Biden having a good, energetic performance would likely do a lot to reassure his base, which he desperately needs.

2. Can Trump look like he has a coherent grasp of the issues – or will he be unhinged, as he has in past debates?

Trump has said in recent days that he has been preparing his whole life and doesn’t need to hunker down for a week or two to prepare, which is what Biden has been doing. Often a president is the one who stumbles in the first debate in a reelect, but Trump also may be rusty, considering he chose not to participate in any primary debates. He’s never been a policy wonk, and his conspiracy theories, like about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, are rabbit holes that have turned off swing voters in recent elections.

3. What issues will the moderators focus on?

Expect inflation, abortion, foreign policy, immigration and Trump’s conduct, including his felony conviction and promise to pardon Jan. 6ers to be a major part of the debate. But what gets more time and focus? Polling shows Trump is currently trusted more on inflation, foreign policy and immigration, but Biden gets higher marks on handling abortion rights, and majorities think the investigations into Trump have been fair – despite his cries of political targeting. And how will the moderators handle fact checking? CNN has indicated it would be leaving that to the candidates.

4. Who will control the debate?

The moderators? Biden? Trump? Someone will affect the flow and that could show which candidate is more of the alpha. Trump has often run over moderators and candidates in past debates. Will new rules rein him in?

5. Who will the new rules benefit?

There won’t be a studio audience and candidates will be muted when the other candidate is talking. In theory, that should help Biden get his point across without the rampant interruptions of the 2020 debates when Biden told Trump to “shut up, man.” Or will it have an inverse effect by helping Trump look more sedate?

For more than three decades, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) ran the debate process, scheduling the events and setting the ground rules.

But not this year. President Biden and former President Donald Trump parted ways with the CPD this spring.

Both campaigns complained the CPD was planning debates for too late in the season, well after many Americans vote in early voting.

Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon also pushed for a simplified format, with no live audience and muted microphones unless candidates are directed to speak –- choices she said allow voters to focus on the subject matter. The CPD typically holds debates at a college or university in front of a packed crowd.

“The Commission’s model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense simply isn’t necessary or conducive to good debates,” O’Malley Dillon wrote to the CPD.

The Trump campaign agreed to the switch in rules. Leading up to the decision to debate on CNN, Trump had vowed to faceoff against Biden “anytime, anywhere, anyplace.”

There have also been feuds with CPD in the past. Both campaigns criticized the CPD’s handling of the 2020 debates. Plus, in the spring of 2022, the Republican National Committee announced it would be leaving the CPD, accusing the organization of bias.

In an interview with NPR, Frank Fahrenkopf, the co-chair of the commission, said that it was created as a neutral body “to avoid the haggling over key issues like the number of debates, schedule, format and moderators,” he said. “The debates belong to the American public, not to the campaign or the parties.”

There will be plenty of cameras in the debate room tonight, but in a break with precedent, no independent reporters will be there to bear witness.

Going back decades, a pool of 13 journalists travel with the president wherever he goes, and have eyes on him whenever he is in public. It includes a television crew, print and wire reporters and photographers, and a radio reporter.

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) spent weeks advocating for the pool to be allowed into the CNN studio where the debate is happening. CNN and the campaigns agreed to allow still photographers in. But as for the rest of the pool, CNN ultimately decided to only permit a single print reporter to enter “during a commercial break to briefly observe the setting,” the WHCA said in a statement.

WHCA respectfully requests that CNN grant access to the WH print pool reporter for the duration of the debate. Access matters. Independent observation matters. Precedent matters. pic.twitter.com/wNxf8du4t1

— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) June 27, 2024

However, while the two men are actually debating, the print pool reporter won’t be there to note off-camera or off-mic interactions for the rest of the press corps.

“We don’t know how this will play out in real time,” said WHCA president Kelly O’Donnell, noting that there is no audience and that CNN will mute the candidates’ microphones when it isn’t their turn to speak.

» READ MORE: There are no reporters in the room. That’s a break with precedent

Nearly two dozen people arrived early for the debate watch party hosted at the Montgomery County Democratic Committee headquarters in Norristown.

Prior to the event, organizers asked attendees via email to bring a lawn chair in case they ran out of seating. A few attendees appear to have gotten the message.

Jason Salus, chair of the county party, said the purpose of throwing debate watch parties is to provide “a welcoming environment for new folks” who want to get involved in the local electoral process.

Salus said he’s looking for President Joe Biden to lay out his accomplishments tonight.

“I think he can point to tangible examples of accomplishing them: the infrastructure act, capping insulin at $35 per month for seniors, incredible job creation and low unemployment,” Salus said.

Heard on All Things Considered

When President Biden and former President Donald Trump face off Thursday, it will mark the first time a sitting president and a former president have ever debated.

One of Trump and his team’s objectives has been to frame this election as a contest between strength and weakness. Those efforts could be undercut by a new format designed to avoid the chaos that marked their first faceoff.

Their first debate four years ago quickly unraveled into a mess of angry insults and personal attacks as Trump sought to bulldoze over Biden. It’s largely because of those interruptions that this debate switches up that format, eliminating an audience and muting microphones to avoid the chaos that marked their first faceoff.

The change is largely expected to hurt Trump.

» READ MORE: As Trump takes to the debate stage Thursday, his signature style may be muted

Ray Zaborney, partner and founder of Red Maverick Media and a Republican political consultant, said he expects Donald Trump to hammer President Joe Biden on the economy and inflation at tonight’s debate.

“I hear a lot about people who go to the grocery store and costs are up, go to the gas pump, costs are up, pretty much go anywhere and costs are up,” Zaborney told WHYY News.

Zaborney said that Biden’s biggest challenge is to “quite frankly look competent and not look like someone whose best years are behind him. I don’t want to be too hard on the guy, but it’s been a struggle to keep coherent sentences. That’s what you want to kind of show is the difference in vigor and back-and-forth.”

Zaborney said he thinks Trump will likely pick Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota or Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his running mate.

Trump will be at a Virginia rally Friday, which Zaobrney said could also be an indicator that Gov. Glenn Youngkin is a potential dark horse candidate for vice president.

Mitch Landrieu, national campaign co-chair for Biden-Harris and former mayor of New Orleans, told WHYY News that he expects President Joe Biden to come off strong tonight.

“President Biden’s going to take it to him,” Landrieu said. “He’s going to ask him about why he’s got a war on women and why he wants to ban abortion. He’s going to ask him why he said he wants to be a dictator on day one and why he continues to push these false lies that the election was stolen and that he was a part of an insurrection.”

Landrieu said that Keystone State voters should expect Biden to talk about economic achievements during his first term.

“He passed the four biggest pieces of legislation that have started to rebuild our country,” he said. “In Pennsylvania alone, you saw him create 547,000 jobs since taking office. You saw him cap insulin at $35 a month and 2.8 million Pennsylvanians who have Medicare have been able to take advantage of that. You guys saw firsthand when I-95 crashed, the president sent me and some folks down there to work with the governor to rebuild that.”

Most U.S. adults plan to watch some element of Thursday’s presidential debate and many think the event will be important for the campaigns of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Both men remain broadly unpopular as they prepare to face off for the first time since 2020, although Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, maintains a modest enthusiasm advantage with his base compared to Biden, the Democratic incumbent.

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” likely to watch the debate live or in clips, or read about or listen to commentary about the performance of the candidates in the news or social media.

The poll suggests tens of millions of Americans are likely to see or hear about at least part of Thursday’s debate despite how unusually early it comes in the campaign season. Both Biden and Trump supporters view the debate as a major test for their candidate — or just a spectacle not to miss.

“I think it’s super important,” said Victoria Perdomo, a 44-year-old stay-at-home mom and a Trump supporter in Coral Springs, Florida. “It shows America what you’re going to see for the next four years.”

Nic Greene, a libertarian who is a registered independent, said he’ll likely vote for Trump as the “least worst candidate.” He doesn’t think debates do much to help voters make decisions, but he’s expecting to be entertained and plans to listen to post-debate analysis on podcasts.

“I think the majority of people have their minds made up with or without these debates,” he said. “It’s a circus.”

» READ MORE: Most Americans plan to watch the Biden-Trump debate, and many see high stakes, an AP-NORC poll finds

To hear former President Donald Trump tell it, the U.S. has fallen apart under President Joe Biden: the economy is failing, countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions across the southern border and crime has skyrocketed.

Biden, on the other hand, has claimed he confronted an inflation rate of 9% and $5 gas prices when he took office, and boasts about his administration’s job creation without telling the full story.

There’s no comparing the volume of false and misleading claims Trump has deployed throughout his campaigns and presidency with Biden, who tends to lean more on exaggerations and embellishments rather than outright lies. But as the two men prepare to debate Thursday night, here’s a look at the facts around false and misleading claims frequently made by the two candidates.

Economy

Trump and his team like to claim his presidency gave the U.S. its “greatest economy in history.”

That’s not accurate.

First of all, the pandemic triggered a massive recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy. Trump had the ignominy of leaving the White House with fewer jobs than when he entered.

But Trump’s team likes to argue that only his pre-pandemic economic record should be judged. So, how does that compare?

— Economic growth averaged 2.67% during Trump’s first three years. That’s pretty solid. But it’s nowhere near the 4% averaged during Bill Clinton’s two terms from 1993 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger so far under Biden than under Trump.

Now, Trump did have the unemployment rate get as low as 3.5% before the pandemic. But again, the labor force participation rate for people 25 to 54 — the core of the U.S. working population — was higher under Clinton. The participation rate has also been higher under Biden than Trump.

Trump also likes to talk about how low inflation was under him. Gasoline fell as low as $1.77 a gallon. But, of course, that price dip happened during pandemic lockdowns when few people were driving. The low prices were due to a global health crisis, not Trump’s policies.

» READ MORE: Here’s a look at the false claims you might hear during tonight’s presidential debate

Hours before President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump’s first debate of the election cycle, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis spoke with WHYY News about his expectations. Davis said he is confident that the sitting president will prevail.

“I think what we’re going to see is two distinct visions for America,” Davis said. “I think we’re going to see President Biden’s vision where he’s working to protect all of our freedoms and making sure that Americans have a fair shot. And I think we’re going to see Donald Trump’s vision where he strives to serve as a dictator on day one and give tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy and continue his attacks on women’s reproductive freedoms.”

Biden’s sagging poll numbers with Black voters have been a concern to the Biden-Harris team, and have emboldened Trump. Davis, who serves as co-chair of Black Pennsylvanians for Biden-Harris, said that the president will likely talk about his administration’s efforts for Black and brown communities.

“My advice to the president would be to continue to do what he’s been doing, which is talk about the historic accomplishments he’s been able to achieve in office like creating Black wealth, which is up 60% since the pandemic and the lowest unemployment rate among Black and brown individuals ever in our country’s history,” he sad

Davis and Gov. Josh Shapiro will be watching the debate at Biden-Harris watch party in Harrisburg.

President Joe Biden and his Republican rival, Donald Trump, will meet for a debate on Thursday that offers an unparalleled opportunity for both candidates to try to reshape the political narrative.

Biden, the Democratic incumbent, gets the chance to reassure voters that, at 81, he’s capable of guiding the U.S. through a range of challenges. The 78-year-old Trump, meanwhile, could use the moment to try to move past his felony conviction in New York and convince an audience of tens of millions that he’s temperamentally suited to return to the Oval Office.

Biden and Trump enter the night facing fierce headwinds, including a public weary of the tumult of partisan politics. Both candidates are disliked by majorities of Americans, according to polling, and offer sharply different visions on virtually every core issue. 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.

With just over four months until Election Day, their performances have the rare potential to alter the trajectory of the race. Every word and gesture will be parsed not just for what both men say but how they interact with each other and how they hold up under pressure.

» READ MORE: How the Biden-Trump debate could change the trajectory of the 2024 campaign

Trump has been hinting for months that he knows who his running mate will be, fueling speculation and (ever-shrinking) shortlists.

The former president even told NBC News over the weekend that the person he has in mind will “most likely” be in attendance, although there will be no studio audience.

“They’ll be there,” he said. “I think we have a lot of people coming.”

Trump has previously said he’ll announce his VP pick during the Republican National Convention in mid-July.

Some of the top contenders, as NPR has reported, include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Other possible picks include some of Trump’s former primary rivals, like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Many of those elected officials have made the cable TV rounds in recent weeks to sing Trump’s praises.

It’s a fitting form of vetting for a presidential candidate who rose to fame in part as the host of a reality show competition — and for a VP who will likely get a lot of airtime.

The stakes for the VP slot are high, especially since Trump has been the de-facto Republican nominee since the race started. His second-in-command will shape the future of the MAGA movement and potentially woo harder-to-reach voting blocs, like moderates.

Choosing a vice president generally comes down to strategy. NPR’s Ron Elving says Trump’s likely priorities should be doing no harm, followed by creating some form of unity in the Republican Party.

“Trump doesn’t need any more controversy,” Elving adds. “He doesn’t need anybody who carries any baggage of his own or her own.”

Read more from Elving about the stakes of VP selection over the decades — and how Trump is putting his spin on a familiar storyline.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face off Thursday night in Atlanta for the first presidential debate of the 2024 general election. The debate, hosted by CNN, is historic because it will be the first debate between a sitting president and a former president.

A Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released Wednesday found Trump has a slight lead over Biden. The same goes for polling focused on Pennsylvania, a key swing state with the most electoral votes, where the lead is often within the margin of error — an effective tie. With less than five months before voting day, the stakes are high for the candidates as they try to inspire their supporters and woo the undecided voters.

The Biden campaign has the heavier lift when it comes to winning the debate, said James Lee, president and CEO of Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna Polling and Research.

“They have to show Americans, we’re making progress, we’re moving in the right direction,” Lee said. “They have to try to convince the electorate and the viewing public that things aren’t as bad as Trump will make them out to be, we can’t risk changing leaders now because the threat of what Trump promises will take us in the completely wrong direction.”

Jeff Jubelirer, vice president of Bellevue Communications and a political consultant who has worked for both Democrats and Republicans, agrees, but added Biden also “has the bigger opportunity.”

“There’s a sense that many people aren’t expecting him to perform well, and that if he does a half decent job and he’s loosened and he answers questions concisely and clearly, has positive energy, and is enthusiastic and so forth, that would be a tremendous opportunity to help his campaign,” he said.

» READ MORE: What Keystone State voters can expect from the historic presidential debate

This dispatch originally appeared on NPR.

President Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 general election tonight in Atlanta.

It begins a new phase of the presidential race, less than five months out from Nov. 5, Election Day, as the matchup remains extremely tight. Biden and Trump stand virtually tied, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, which echoes a months-long trend of recent national surveys.

The debate also breaks with campaign tradition, occurring months earlier than usual and with a new set of rules both candidates have agreed to, including no live audience. It’s also the first debate either candidate has participated in this campaign season. Biden largely ran unopposed, and Trump notably skipped the GOP primary debates.

Here’s what you need to know about this first debate.

Who will be there?

Biden and Trump are the only presidential candidates who qualified for the debate stage.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. failed to meet the threshold, which required candidates to poll at 15% or higher in four national surveys and appear on enough state ballots that could theoretically push them past the needed 270 Electoral College votes to secure the presidency.

How is this debate different from those in the past?

Typically, presidential debates occur in front of a live audience, often in an event space on a college or university campus, and are coordinated by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).

But not this year. Both candidates have said they will not participate in the CPD’s previously scheduled and announced debates, lobbying for earlier matchups.

Instead, Biden and Trump will take part in Thursday’s debate on CNN and then a second in September hosted by ABC News.

Biden and Trump have agreed to the following rules:

• Microphones will be muted unless a candidate is directed to speak.
• Candidates are not allowed to bring prewritten notes or props. They will receive a pen and paper, as well as a bottle of water.
• A coin toss determined podium positions and the order of closing statements. According to CNN, Biden’s campaign won the coin toss and chose the podium to the viewers’ right. As a result, the Trump team chose to deliver the final closing statement of the evening.

What to watch for

Candidates will likely speak to recent respective legal dramas. The debate comes about a month after Trump was found guilty of 34 criminal charges in New York, becoming the first U.S. president in history to be convicted of felony crimes. Biden’s son, Hunter, who is not running for office, was convicted on felony gun charges in Delaware in mid-June and faces a second federal trial in September over failing to pay his taxes.

Biden will also likely address concerns over his age and ability to serve a second term. At 81, he is the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, and if elected for a second term, he would exit office at 86.

While the president has had public slipups throughout his first term, Trump, who is 78, has repeatedly criticized Biden’s mental ability, most recently speculating he should take a cognitive test. In that same speech, Trump incorrectly named the doctor who conducted his own cognitive exam while president.

On the issues, it’s expected the candidates will discuss the state of the economy and immigration policy, as both are consistently top issues for voters in national polling. It’s also possible the candidates will weigh in on international politics, given voters remain divided on whether the U.S. should be sending military aid to Ukraine and Israel in their respective wars.

The debate may also be an opportunity for Biden to address his decreasing support, when compared to 2020, among key parts of his base, notably Blacks and Latinos and young voters.

Trump is losing some ground among older voters, and the Biden campaign is trying to capitalize on that. Plus, the former president may still need to repair relations with Nikki Haley supporters who remain uncertain about backing him again.

What’s next?

Trump will likely announce his pick for vice president in the coming weeks. There will also be a vice presidential debate this summer. The date has not been finalized, but Vice President Harris agreed to one held on either July 23 or Aug. 13.

On the legal front, Trump will appear for sentencing in his criminal trial on July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention, which begins on July 15 in Milwaukee. A month later, the Democratic National Convention will kick off on Aug. 19 in Chicago.

Trump and Biden will debate for a second time on Sept. 10.