Debate 2024: All the Highlights From the First Biden-Trump Showdown

Minutes after the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden wrapped up on CNN, veteran political journalist John King said “there is a deep, wide, and very aggressive panic in the Democratic party.” That was on display on the CNN panel: David Axelrod noted a “sense of shock” at Biden’s raspy opening, as Van Jones called the debate “painful,” and Kate Bedingfield, a former Biden spokesperson, called the president’s performance “very disappointing.”

Of course, debates are about policy, and on issues ranging from abortion to democracy, the differences were stark. Donald Trump downplayed the Jan. 6 attacks and tried deflecting blame for the assault on the Capitol, while also repeating the baseless claim that Democrats support abortion “after birth” and that “everybody” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned (which clearly isn’t the case). Trump failed to provide a substantive response to how he’d address the climate crisis. He turned repeatedly to immigration and inflation.

But debates are also about performance, and while Trump rambled and spouted false claims, he did so in a booming manner that was in sharp contrast to Biden. Though the president did rebound, his slow and halting start might have been the end. “This debate was over in the first five minutes,” said Mark McKinnon, who believes “no one is going to remember a single policy issue debated tonight.”

Biden Set All the Rules in the Debate—And Still Got Trounced by TrumpIt was an awful night.

Donald Trump is an aspiring authoritarian, a liar, a bigot, a criminal—not to mention an idiot. His presidency was an unmitigated disaster. But most people knew that going into Thursday night’s debate. The question heading into the evening was whether President Joe Biden could overcome the stubborn concerns that have been a storm cloud over his election bid: the unfavorable poll numbers, the intra-party divisions, and, of course, the matter of his age and vigor.

That last part was, unfortunately, the story of the night Thursday. Biden struggled. His voice was hoarse. He strained to make an impression. Trump lied and lied and lied, spewed bullshit and bullshit and more bullshit—but Biden seemed unable to block the blows, let alone land any haymakers of his own.

Trump was as mendacious and horrifying as ever—and looked every one of his 78 years, under the caked-on makeup and curiously coiffed hair. But he came out of the gate with more energy than Biden, and that energy overpowered the 81-year-old president’s efforts to bring him back to reality. “I really don’t know what he said,” Trump said after one Biden attack. “I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Rachel Maddow: Biden Campaign Will Want Debate Remembered in ReverseIn the moments after the presidential debate ended, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow said that the Biden campaign will want the night to be remembered in reverse.

The network’s panel of anchors discussed how Biden’s voice was hard to hear toward the beginning of the debate. Those early moments, Maddow said, has “got to put a shock into the campaign, at least at the start, before he started to get stronger” in the later part of the evening.

The Trump campaign, Maddow continued, will want the inverse, saying that the former president started off stronger, then trickled off.

Democrats Witnessed Their Worst NightmareNo one is going to remember a single policy issue debated tonight. Democrats had their greatest concerns confirmed. And now are in a full-blown panic. Republicans were reassured that their guy can keep his composure and is ready to take the wheel.  And if you’re an independent, you probably didn’t see much of anything you liked, but you sure didn’t see anything in Joe Biden that would persuade you he’s ready for another term.

The View from AspenThe unusually early timing of the debate meant that it coincided with another milestone on the American political and media calendar: the Aspen Ideas Festival, the annual summit of elites and do-gooders (and elites masquerading as do-gooders) held every summer in the shadow of the Rockies. Organizers of the festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, arranged a watch party, where a pro-Biden crowd gathered tonight inside a jam-packed pavilion.

Outside, an overcast afternoon gave way to a light drizzle, providing a sense of mountain calm. But inside, nerves ran high. Everyone I spoke to seemed to agree: Biden needed a performance.

I sat next to Denny Bales, a cardiologist who came to the festival from Hawaii.

“It feels like the fate of the world is riding on this one event,” he told me.

The watch party played out like it would in Park Slope or any other liberal enclave, a steady supply of mocking laughter for Trump and eager cheers for Biden.

But when Biden came out with a hoarse voice and lost his train of thought early on, the crowd squirmed and groaned.

Biden rallied somewhat, making it to the first commercial break without any more serious pratfalls. Bales was relieved. Sort of.

“He rebounded,” he said. “But he still looks like a sick old man.”

There was palpable anxiety about the debate here in Aspen this week: the fear of a second Trump presidency felt in near-equal measure with doubts over Biden’s ability to stop it.

Hours before Biden and Trump took the stage, the Democratic strategist James Carville channeled the mood around the festival campus.

“I’m scared. I’m nervous. I’m afraid,” Carville said in a Q&A with the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart.

Carville was confident that Biden would be prepared, but…

“Preparation is one thing,” he said. “Execution is another thing.”

Biden is a “great guy,” Carville told Capehart, but “not a great communicator.”

“He’s not Obama or Reagan,” he said.

At a Q&A earlier in the afternoon, Katie Couric took the pre-debate temperature of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“How nervous are you?” Couric asked.

Whitmer paused for a few seconds.

“I mean, you know, I’m nervous about everything,” she said. The crowd laughed uneasily.