President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump finally squared off on Thursday night in the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign.
CNN hosted the debate, which took place in Atlanta. The network declared that the first presidential debate would take place without a live audience, but would include two commercial breaks—the first presidential debate in history to have ads.
CNN also granted the debate moderators a new power: the ability to mute either candidate at will.
Many of these choices drew ire from critics, but the network’s choice for the debate’s two moderators probably drew the most backlash. Moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have consistently expressed open disdain for Trump, accusing Trump of crimes ranging from Russian collusion and corruption to channeling Adolf Hitler and not “trusting the science” during COVID-19.
Tapper has made a point of refusing to show widely covered Trump rallies and speeches on CNN, explaining that Trump was too “mean” to air clips of him with audio.
Here are some of the major highlights from Thursday’s debate.
When discussing his economic record, Biden appeared to lose his way, pausing for several seconds, stuttering, and leading to a claim that he “beat Medicare.”
“… Making sure we make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with COVID, excuse me, with umm, dealing with everything we had to deal with. Look, we finally beat Medicare.”
Trump responded: “Well, he’s right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”
Trump then claimed that a large number of illegal immigrants were allowed onto Medicare and Social Security. At the southern border, illegal immigrants who are taken into Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are given medical treatment, shelter, and meals. The ICE Health Service Corps’ current policy is to reimburse those providing those services “at Medicare rates.”
While illegal immigrants are usually not eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, noncitizen parents with citizen children are eligible for Medicaid.
Trump further suggested that Biden would destroy Social Security by overloading it with the cost of illegal immigrants added to the rolls. Biden announced a plan this week to provide some illegal immigrants with work permits and Social Security numbers, which would increase the spending burden on the struggling federal program.
As Trump and Biden discussed the topic of abortion, Biden appeared to equate the deaths of American women at the hands of illegal immigrants to purported efforts to stop women who are attempting to cross state lines to get abortions.
“There’s so many young women who have been, including the young woman who just was murdered, and he went to the funeral, and the idea that she was murdered by an immigrant, they talk about that, but here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their in-laws, by their spouses, brothers and sisters. It’s just ridiculous … and they try to arrest them when they cross state lines,” Biden said.
Biden emphasized that his party supports the restrictions on abortion imposed by Roe v. Wade.
Trump argued that Biden and Democrats support allowing babies to die after they have been born alive, pointing to former Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s comments on infanticide.
Biden, angered by Trump’s remarks, emphatically argued that Roe v. Wade does not allow for late-term abortion.
“We are not for late-term abortion. Period. Period. Period,” he said.
“Under Roe v. Wade, you have late-term abortion,” Trump said, pushing back. “You can do whatever you want, depending on the state. We don’t think that’s a good thing. We think it’s a radical thing. Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans.”
This is a breaking news post. Please check back for updates.