Biden-Trump debate: presidential candidates trade blows on abortion and foreign policy – live | US elections 2024

As expected, Donald Trump is far, far outpacing Joe Biden in making false and misleading statements.

(Trump even lied, at one point, about how much Biden lies …)

This was also the case during the last two election cycles, when candidate Trump flooded debate stages with so many lies and so much misinformation that it became almost impossible for journalists and factcheckers to keep up. Tonight, he repeated several false statements, including that the US has the biggest deficit ever under Biden (Trump had larger deficits).

He pulled out of thin air the idea that Biden “wants to raise your taxes by four times” (actually Biden proposed a tax increase of about 7% over the next 10 years), that Biden has been paid by China (there’s absolutely no evidence of this). He claimed that 18m migrants entered the country during the Biden administration, not including the “gotaways” – citing a number he seems to have pulled out of thin air. (It’s impossible to know exactly how many people entered the country without authorization but the total number of migrants entering both at ports of entry and apprehensions oustide of ports was under 10m. Some may have tried to enter more than once and about 4m were turned back.)

The former president also said that Biden has “destroyed our country”. That’s a bit subjective – but given that I am fact checking this debate from an intact North American land mass in California, suggests the United States has not, in fact, been destroyed.

The former president used his closing argument to attack Biden as having failed to change anything 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 said.

And then he shifted to his tried-and-true tactic of tying that to all his favored campaign subjects:

All he does is make our country unsafe by allowing millions and millions of people to pour in. Our military doesn’t respect him. We look like fools in Afghanistan. We didn’t stop Israel. It was such a horrible thing that would have never happened. It should have never happened.

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.”

The debate is now over after 90 minutes of back and forth between Trump and Biden.

Trump walked off the stage, while Biden was joined by Jill Biden, and appeared to go down to speak to moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper.

The candidates are now on to closing statements, with Biden up first and arguing that he had cleaned up a mess left behind by his predecessor.

“We’ve made significant progress from the debacle that was left by President Trump in his last term,” Biden said.

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.”

After trying twice more, moderator Dana Bash finally got Trump to say he will accept the election results. But in typical form for the former president, he included caveats.

“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” Trump said.

Moderator Dana Bash asked Trump if he would accept the election results, and rather than answer, Trump more or less dodged the question by rambling about a variety of things.

“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 asked.

“Well, I shouldn’t have to say that, but of course, I believe that it’s totally unacceptable,” Trump said, seemingly in response to the question about political violence.

But he had more difficulty answering if he would accept the election, and never quite completed his response:

But the answer is, if the election is fair, free, and I want that more than anybody, and I’ll tell you something, I wish he was a great president, because I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be at one of my many places, enjoying myself.

He then went on to attack Biden and accuse him of putting the country on course for a third world war.

Fact check: Trump on the environment

Trump claimed he “had the best environmental numbers ever” – a vague statement that is impossible to fact check (what environmental numbers?).

However, here the many ways that Trump’s policies made the environment dirtier and the climate warmer, compiled by the Guardian in 2020:

CBS News reports that Biden’s doctor recently diagnosed him with a cold – which may explain his raspy voice and occasional coughing during this debate:

Fact check: Trump accuses Biden of using the phrase “super predator”

Trump said that Biden called Black Americans “super predators”.

The super predator theory in the 1990s suggested that a growing number of unusually violent young people, especially Black boys, posed a threat to the country. The theory capitalized on racialized fear and was used to encourage policies that led to the disproportionate incarceration of Black youth. There is no evidence Biden used the phrase or ascribed to the theory behind it.

However, his endorsement of the 1994 crime bill has justifiably come under scrutiny. Biden has defended the bill, and said that aspects of it were wrongly implemented. Here’s context from 2020, when Trump made the same false claim about Biden:

A question about childcare led to a back and forth between Trump and Biden in which the Republican insisted that the country had been “destroyed”, while the president argued that things had never been better.

It was a clear encapsulation of the very different messages each campaign is pushing to voters as they seek to win their allegiance in November.

Here’s what Trump had to say:

Joe, our country is being destroyed. As you and I sit up here and waste a lot of time on this debate. This shouldn’t be a debate. He is the worst president, he just said about me because I said it. But look, he’s the worst president in the history of our country. He’s destroyed our country.

Contrast that with Biden:

We’re the most admired country in the world. We’re the United States of America. There’s nothing beyond our capacity. We have the finest military in the history of the world, the finest in the history of the world. No one thinks we’re weak. No one wants to screw around with us, nobody.

Both candidates have been saying variations of these themes for months, and will undoubtedly do so right up to election day.

Looming over the debate is a rightwing manifesto that will inform a potential second term for Trump.

Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” an effort by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, outlines agency-by-agency policies that should be undertaken, if a Republican president wins. The project includes a lengthy playbook and a personnel database that hopes to set the government on a more conservative path immediately, should Trump win.

Democrats have highlighted the massive changes Project 2025 would entail, like staffing the government with political appointees, dismantling entire agencies, hindering reproductive rights and overturning policies that protect LGBTQ rights or advance diversity. Searches for the project have surged in recent weeks, and it’s been the subject of a John Oliver segment.

Joe Biden’s campaign signaled earlier today that the president could bring up the project this evening. The campaign sent out a press release announcing a new website set up to explain Project 2025 and how it would affect the daily lives of Americans. The campaign also is running digital and outdoor ads in Atlanta to direct voters to its webpage about the project.

“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the new webpage says. “Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately.”

Trump has previously sought to distance himself from Project 2025, saying he isn’t working with or tied to any one organization or its goals. But much of what’s included in the playbook aligns with Trump’s own plans, dubbed Agenda 47, that he’s announced on the campaign trail or on his campaign website.

The Heritage Foundation has a history of getting its preferred policies enacted – its influence was cemented after Ronald Reagan used a previous version of its Mandate for Leadership as a policy Bible, of sorts. And Heritage has previously claimed credit for a bevy of Trump policy proposals in his first term, based on the group’s 2017 version of the Mandate for Leadership.

Fact check: Trump’s claim about the national guard on January 6

When asked about the January 6 riot, Trump deflected, blaming Nancy Pelosi for turning down a chance to deploy the national guard.

This is false. There is no evidence Pelosi got an offer to deploy national guard troops, and even if she did, she wouldn’t have the power to turn it down. The president, defense secretary and army secretary have command of the Washington DC national guard.

The commercial break lasted about four minutes, and for that time only, the pool reporters who travel with Biden were allowed into the studio.

They report that the two candidates were staring silently straight ahead at their lecterns as photographers took pictures.

Trump took a sip of water, while Biden cracked a smile as the cameras flashed.

The debate resumed shortly after.

Biden has at times struggled to land his lines this debate, but managed to strongly defend his handling of the economy from Trump’s attack.

“There was no inflation when I became president. You know why? The economy was flat on its back, 15% unemployment, he decimated the economy, absolutely decimated the economy. That’s why there was no inflation at the time. There were no jobs. We provided 1000s and millions of jobs for individuals who are involved in communities, including minority communities. We made sure that they have health insurance,” Biden said.

Again and again, Trump has found a way to bring up immigration in response to just about any question.

Moderator Dana Bash asked both Trump and Biden about their plan to address racial inequities in the economy, particularly when it came to Black and Hispanic Americans.

Biden talked about his policies, while Trump brought up inflation … before, once again, bringing up the border:

He caused inflation, as sure as you’re sitting there. The fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking Black jobs now, and it could be 18, it could be 19, and even 20 million people, they’re taking Black jobs, and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.

CNN could face moderation scrutiny as Trump’s false claims go unchecked

David Smith

CNN could face scrutiny for deciding that moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would not be fact-checking Donald Trump.

David Chalian, CNN’s political director, had explained to 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.”

But so far Trump has made false claims about January 6 and the national debt, about Democrats’ plans to abort babies in the eighth or ninth month or even after birth, and that he presided over the “greatest economy in the history of our country”.

Tapper and Bash have failed to push back, and it’s difficult for Biden alone to counter every lie. The unfortunate upshot is false equivalence: Trump’s lies seem to have just as much weight as Biden’s truths, especially to viewers who might just be tuning into the election. It’s a potential repeat of the disastrous CNN town hall with Trump last year.

Political commentator David Rothkopf tweeted: “The lack of challenges from moderators has the effect of making it appear that the lies flowing from Trump’s mouth are the same as the facts in which Biden is dealing.”

And we are back.

The debate has resumed, after its first commercial break.

If this debate was an opportunity for Joe Biden to dispel concerns about his age, it will probably be a missed one.

While Donald Trump speaks, Biden, on the other side of the split screen, sways and closes his eyes. He speaks quietly and at times uncomfortably – and Trump is taking every opportunity to pounce.

Meanwhile, Trump has unleashed an ongoing stream of misleading and false statements, from his claims of broad approval for overturning Roe v Wade (“this is something that everybody wanted”) to claiming his administration oversaw the strongest economy in US history.

Fact check: Trump on the border

Trump said that when he left the presidency, the US had the most secure border in history, and later said “hardly” anyone was coming through. That’s not true.

While migrant apprehensions have spiked under Trump, the increases began in 2020, during Trump’s presidency. The reasons people were seeking to migrate include economic stress caused by the pandemic and natural disasters, long-running issues, including violence and political instability.