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Biden, Trump clash in first presidential debate of 2024

US presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump had their first debate of this election cycle Thursday. From Atlanta, VOA’s Calla Yu has our story.
Camera: Yiyi Yang  
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Biden’s debate performance spurs Democratic panic about his ability to win

ATLANTA — Above all, Joe Biden ‘s allies wanted him to demonstrate strength and energy on the debate stage Thursday night to help put to rest questions about the 81-year-old Democrat’s physical and mental acuity.

But on the biggest stage in U.S. politics, Biden did not meet their modest expectations.

And by the end of the 90-minute showdown, the Democratic president’s allies — party strategists and rank-and-file voters alike — descended into panic following a debate performance punctuated by stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.

Publicly and privately, Democrats questioned whether the party could or should replace him as the party’s presidential nominee against the 78-year-old former President Donald Trump this fall.

“I’m not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There’s a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden,” former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC. “I don’t know if things can be done to fix this.”

For now, the biggest question for Biden is whether the damage is permanent. Many voters have not yet tuned into an election that’s still more than four months away. The president and his allies are sitting on millions of dollars that have yet to be spent on advertising and swing-state infrastructure.

And there’s precedent for recovering from rough debate performances, including Barack Obama ‘s rebound from an uneven encounter with Mitt Romney in 2012. Democrat John Fetterman went on to defeat a Republican rival in 2022 after struggling through a debate several months after experiencing a stroke.

Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign has been based on a gamble that voters would ultimately support an 81-year-old lifelong politician with weak approval ratings in a rematch that few Americans want. Despite such liabilities, Biden’s team insisted that he was uniquely positioned to stop Trump from returning to the White House — just as he did four years ago.

They have long predicted that Biden’s winning political coalition would eventually embrace the Democratic president after being sufficiently reminded of Trump’s chaotic leadership. But there were little signs of such confidence in the wake of Biden’s underwhelming debate performance.

“It was a slow start. That’s obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point,” Vice President Kamala Harris said on CNN after the debate. “I’m talking about the choice in November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime.”

Biden’s surrogates were slow to enter the post-debate spin room in Atlanta. And when they emerged, they largely avoided questions from the press. Instead, they railed against Trump’s long list of falsehoods during the debate. Among other things, Trump didn’t disavow those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential future presidential candidate who was Biden’s most prominent surrogate in the Atlanta spin room, urged Democrats not to panic.

“I think it’s unhelpful. And I think it’s unnecessary. We’ve got to go in, we’ve got to keep our heads high,” Newsom said in an interview on MSNBC. “We’ve got to have the back of this president. You don’t turn back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”

Still, signs of anxiety were apparent as Democrats began to openly encourage the party to find an alternative to Biden. Some party officials pointed to a social media post from former Obama campaign aide Ravi Gupta.

“Every Democrat I know is texting that this is bad,” Gupta wrote on X. “Just say it publicly and begin the hard work of creating space in the convention for a selection process. I’ll vote for a corpse over Trump, but this is a suicide mission.”

Under current Democratic Party rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without the party officials being willing to rewrite its rules at the August national convention.

The president won the overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates during the state-by-state primary process. And party rules state that, “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

Republicans, meanwhile, were giddy about Biden’s lackluster performance. But Trump co-campaign chief dismissed chatter about whether Democrats would try to nominate someone other than Biden.

“There’s so many political experts on X, so we’ll hear a lot from them, I’m sure, in the next few days because they’ve all run so many campaigns,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said sarcastically. “But the only way that happens is if Joe Biden voluntarily steps down, and he’s not going to do that.”

Thursday’s debate may be imprinted on voters’ minds for the foreseeable future with Biden and Trump not scheduled to meet on the debate stage again for another 75 days.
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Biden, Trump blame each other over immigration issues

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CNN bans White House pool reporters from debate room 

washington — The White House Correspondents’ Association said Thursday that CNN had rejected multiple requests to include White House pool reporters inside the studio during the first presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump. 

The press pool, made up of representatives of major news organizations, accompanies the president on foreign and domestic trips and normally has access to any event where he speaks or appears in public, with the goal of keeping the U.S. public informed. 

It is extremely rare for it to be barred from an event in the United States. 

“WHCA is deeply concerned that CNN has rejected our repeated requests to include the White House travel pool inside the studio,” Kelly O’Donnell, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said in a statement. 

“The pool is there for the ‘what ifs?’ in a world where the unexpected does happen,” she said, and to provide “context and insight by direct observation and not through the lens of the television production.” 

These reporters are there to see what is said and done when the microphones and cameras are off, and provide independent observation, she wrote, with duties “separate from the production of the debate as a news event.” 

O’Donnell said both the Biden and Trump campaigns agreed to the WHCA’s request. 

CNN has agreed to allow only one White House print pool reporter to enter the studio during a commercial break to “briefly observe the setting.” 

The network will also allow still photographers from other outlets to cover the candidates inside the studio and will provide a television feed of the debate to other networks. 

CNN has put in place many other rules for the first showdown, including two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when the candidates are recognized to speak. The network did not respond to a request for comment. 

“Precedent matters for future debates,” O’Donnell said, alluding to the next Biden-Trump face-off in September. 

The National Association of Black Journalists also asked CNN to accredit reporters from local Black-owned news organizations, after none of Atlanta’s Black news groups got credentials to be on-site for the debate.
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Live Blog: Biden-Trump Debate

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Front-runners emerge in contest for Trump vice president

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Biden, Trump set to debate in Atlanta 

U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off in their first debate of this election cycle Thursday. From Atlanta, VOA’s Calla Yu tells us what to expect. Contributor: Scott Stearns; Videographer: Yiyi Yang
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Famous US presidential debate moments

Public debates between presidential candidates have become a mainstay of American elections, though this wasn’t always the case. Sometimes amusing and sometimes shocking, presidential debates have been full of key moments shaping the way the public perceives the candidates and the issues.
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Biden, Trump to square off in 90-minute presidential debate

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Ahead of Thursday presidential debate, a look back to 2020

The first debate of the 2024 U.S. presidential election takes place on Thursday. But it isn’t the candidates’ first time debated each other. VOA’s senior Washington correspondent, Carolyn Presutti, looks back to 2020 for some clues about what we will see and hear in the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
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Once a rallying cry, ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ fades from Trump rhetoric

Washington — In 2016, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign echoed with a frequent vow to crush “radical Islamic terrorism.” 

Fast forward to today, as he seeks a second chance in the White House, Trump rarely mentions the phrase, his erstwhile rhetoric about Islamist terrorism eclipsed by a focus on immigration, crime and other domestic issues.  

The shift came into sharp relief on Sunday when a coordinated terrorist assault on a police station, churches and synagogues in southern Russia left at least 20 people dead. What might once have prompted a flurry of tweets went unmentioned on Trump’s Truth Social platform.  

Why the silence on what was once a rallying cry? Experts suggest two factors: diminished public concern about terrorism and a possible strategic play for the Muslim American vote. 

Brian Levin, an extremism expert who has closely followed Trump’s rhetoric, said the former president — “more of an opportunist than an ideologue” — is zeroing in on issues that resonate with voters.   

“Eight years ago, when the threat of foreign-inspired extremism polled among the top concerns of voters, Trump successfully invoked terror attacks … to drum up support,” Levin said. “Today, however, Trump has to pivot somewhat to domestic issues relating to the economy, democracy, crime and the border as well as the record of an incumbent he hopes to unseat.” 

Defending his record in office, including his handling of southern border immigration, President Joe Biden has made protecting democracy a centerpiece of his campaign, casting Trump as a grave threat to the country.  

But Biden’s staunch support of Israel during its military campaign in Gaza has angered many Muslim voters, opening a rare opportunity for Trump, according to experts.  

Gabriel Rubin, a justice studies professor at Montclair State University, said Trump may be eyeing the Muslim vote in key battleground states with large Muslim populations that could determine the outcome of the November election.   

“He has an avenue not to mention [‘radical Islamic terrorism’] too much,” Rubin, who has written about Trump’s past rhetoric about Muslims and terrorism, told VOA in an interview. “I think he can win some of these Midwestern states if he plays his cards right.”  

To be sure, the threat of international terrorism hasn’t vanished. In the months since the outbreak of conflict in Gaza, U.S. officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, have been sounding the alarm about an increased potential for terrorist attacks.    

But while the warnings seem to have raised the public’s worries about terrorism, “overall concern about the issue still doesn’t match the higher levels of concern it garnered” in 2015 and 2016, according to an April Gallup report.   

Trump’s 2016 campaign rhetoric — from claiming “Muslims hate us” to calling for a “complete and total” shutdown of Muslims entering the country — did not happen in a bubble.  

Though on the run, the Islamic State (IS) still controlled large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq and advocated attacking the West. Adding to Americans’ angst about terrorism were a spate of IS-inspired terror attacks across Europe and the United States. 

In the 12 months leading up to the November election, Trump tweeted 164 times about Islamic State, “radical Islam” and terrorism — nearly twice as much as he did about border security and immigration, according to one estimate. 

Trump’s vitriolic comments on Muslims and Islam, welcomed by his supporters, unnerved many in the Muslim community, drawing charges of Islamophobia against him, which he and his allies reject.   

VOA reached out to the Trump campaign for comment but did not receive a response. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.    

Biden’s stance on terrorism, particularly Islamist terrorism, also has evolved over the years. 

While he is not known to have used the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” in the past he was more willing to employ similar language while taking a tough stance on terrorism.  

In 2014, as vice president under President Barack Obama, he criticized Turkey and the United Arab Emirates for supporting jihadi groups in Syria and “the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts to the world.” He later apologized for the comment. 

Since becoming president in 2021, Biden has focused on terrorism more broadly without singling out any one region or religion, moving away from the rhetoric of the “War on Terror” of the 2000s.  

On the day he entered the White House, he repealed the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban,” calling it “a stain on our national conscience.”

In the wake of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, moreover, his administration placed a greater emphasis on domestic terrorism as a significant threat to homeland security. In 2021, it launched the first-ever national strategy for countering domestic terrorism. 

After the October 7 Hamas attack, Biden condemned the attack as “pure, unadulterated evil” while putting a distance between the perpetrators and the broader Muslim community. 

“You know, I know many of you in the Muslim American community or the Arab American community, the Palestinian American community, and so many others are outraged and hurting, saying to yourselves, ‘Here we go again,’ with Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9/11,” Biden said on October 10.  

Trump is not known for moderating his rhetoric, even while in office. But after his second year in the White House, the volume of his rhetoric about Muslims and terrorism fell dramatically as he shifted his focus to a new area: border security and illegal immigration. 

That trend has continued into the current campaign. A VOA examination of his most recent social media posts and campaign statements found fewer than 20 references since the start of his reelection campaign, including only one mention of “radical Islamic terrorists.” 

That came last July when he announced that he’d reinstate a travel ban on several Muslim countries that he imposed during his first term in office and which Biden later repealed. 

“We don’t want people coming into our country that hate us. We want people that love us,” he told a rally, citing anti-police riots in France sparked by the killing of a French Moroccan teenager.   

Trump supporters dismiss his rhetoric about Muslims and terrorism as just that — rhetoric.  

“Let’s forget about what this guy says. Let’s look at what he does,” a Muslim Republican activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity.  

Another activist questioned whether Trump has ever said he hates Muslims, adding that more Muslims will likely vote for the former president than did in 2016.  

But if there is one thing both Trump supporters and detractors agree on, it is that Trump will likely follow through on his vow to bring back the “Muslim ban.”  

“The legal structure that allowed the Muslim ban to be implemented in the first place is still on the books so we have to start planning as if a new Muslim ban will come into existence,” said Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director for the Council on American Islamic Relations. 
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Unpacking US campaign spending

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How the presidential candidates see top foreign policy issues 

washington — An aggressive Russia, an emboldened China, a tempestuous Middle East and the fragile global relationships needed to confront these challenges are major foreign policy issues neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump can dodge if either wins November’s election.

As the two men hold their first presidential debate on Thursday, they’ll likely use their talking points to paint a picture of the role they want the United States to occupy on the world stage.

The difference couldn’t be starker, said Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

“Biden’s approach is a combination of liberal internationalism and forceful realism, echoing the Cold War,” he said. “Trump’s approach is a combination of isolationism and unilateralism, echoing the United States before World War II.”

Here’s a look at how they view major foreign policy hot spots.

Russian aggression

Biden’s administration sounded the alarm ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion and has vowed to support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” But that support faltered this year, when congressional Republicans stalled for six months on a $61 billion aid package.

At the NATO summit in Washington in July, Biden will seek to boost allies’ support for the conflict while passing Ukraine coordination duties to allies in Europe — moves seen as insulating the conflict from a hostile U.S. Congress or future president.

Trump’s view of the conflict is complicated, contradictory and colored by his own experience with that nation’s leader. It was, after all, a July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that sparked his first impeachment. A majority of the Republican-dominated Senate acquitted him of the charges that he improperly sought help from a foreign power to boost his reelection chances by asking Zelenskyy to help him discredit Biden politically.

On the war, Trump told a recent interviewer, “I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect.”

Analysts say he hasn’t made clear how.

“He advocated only for the need to start some types of talks and negotiations, and he said that he could be willing to engage in these negotiations between [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Zelenskyy, but he never specified the design of the future outline of this peace agreement,” said Sergiy Kudelia, an associate professor of political science at Baylor University.

Biden recently assured Zelenskyy that their new 10-year bilateral security agreement serves as “another reminder to Putin: We’re not backing down. In fact, we’re standing together against this illegal aggression.”

But this tough stance is not limited to Biden, analysts say.

“We do know that Trump perceives himself as a strongman and does not want to be associated with foreign policy failure,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told VOA.” And a Russian victory in Ukraine, if Trump is president, would look very much like a foreign policy failure.”

Chinese ambition

Biden’s mantra on Beijing is “competition, not conflict” — and economic statecraft is Washington’s tool of choice in this high-stakes game. This narrowed view of the relationship with China ties into what a consistent majority of Americans identify as a top election priority: the economy.

In May, Biden highlighted the risks he believes China poses, by imposing steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminum and medical equipment.

“American workers can outwork and outcompete anyone as long as the competition is fair,” Biden said. “But for too long, it hasn’t been fair. For years, the Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese companies. … It’s not competition, it’s cheating.”

And Trump, a self-professed fan of tariffs, recently proposed a tariff on all imported goods and another levy of 60% or more on Chinese imports.

On China, professor Konstantin Sonin of the University of Chicago said, both men are aggressive. Biden, analysts note, has not reversed many of the Trump administration’s tough tariffs on China.

“Eight years ago, it sounded as if he would be a very different kind of U.S. president,” he said of Trump. “But actually, he was not that different. And a lot of things that Trump did were then continued by the Biden administration.”

But on Taiwan, where the policy of American “strategic ambiguity” comes into play — the idea that Washington refuses to signal how it would react if Beijing were to invade Taiwan — this hits different, depending upon who’s in charge, Sonin said.

“I think that these are still very different presidents,” he said. “For example, if it escalates around Taiwan, then perhaps Donald Trump would react differently.”

But, he added, further emphasizing Trump’s rhetoric, “In foreign policy, sometimes he sounds harsher than he acts. And this is true in respect to China, not only China [but] with respect to Mexico, as well.”

Middle East malaise

Trump’s ambivalence and use of superlatives come wildly into play when it comes to the Middle East. While Biden has publicly styled himself as Israel’s strongest supporter — yet increasingly publicly letting slip that he is often annoyed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war in Gaza rages on — Trump’s personal relationship with the Israeli leader seems to shape his view of the region.

“I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump said, using the prime minister’s nickname, in a wide-ranging April interview with Time. “And it had to do with [the U.S. strike that killed Iranian military officer Qasem] Soleimani, because as you probably know by now, he dropped out just before the attack. …  And I was not happy about that. That was something I never forgot. And it showed me something.”

But then in May, when Biden pledged to withhold weapons from Israel if its forces were to launch a major ground assault on the highly populated Gaza city of Rafah, Trump fired back.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump described Biden’s words as “taking the side of these terrorists, just like he has sided with the Radical Mobs taking over our college campuses.”

Here, Trump uses a particular rhetorical trick: using one issue — in this case, Israel — to bring up a keyword — “terrorism” — that polls say is a top voter concern, and then using that to reach back to domestic issues. In this case, he noted growing campus protests over the war in Gaza with loaded language that appeals to voters’ feelings.

Americans’ top foreign policy issues, as documented by the Pew Research Center, appear to be focused through the same, particular lens that also seems to motivate voters: fear.

“The majority of Americans say preventing terrorist attacks (73%), keeping illegal drugs out of the country (64%) and preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (63%) are top priorities,” the group said in its most recent roundup of Americans’ foreign policy priorities. 

But then, Pew says: “Even with these priorities, foreign policy generally takes a back seat to domestic policy for most Americans.”
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How Biden, Trump differ over Ukraine policy

U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump meet Thursday for the first of their two scheduled debates. Russia’s war on Ukraine is expected to be one of the top foreign policy questions. VOA’s Tatiana Vorozhko looks at how the two candidates differ in their approach to Ukraine.
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