Friday Briefing

Former President Donald Trump and President Biden during their debate.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times

In the first 2024 debate, Biden struggled and Trump blustered

Former President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked a disjointed President Biden during the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign yesterday.

Trump, 78, spoke clearly and forcefully, assailing Biden’s record, making wild assertions and lying repeatedly. Many of Trump’s claims have become campaign trail staples, like the counterfactual that there would be no war in Ukraine if he were in the White House or the false claim that the Justice Department was involved in the state cases against him.

Trump criticized Biden for fostering “Biden migrant crime” with his border policy and for corruption, among other things. Biden went after Trump for threatening to pull the U.S. out of NATO and not respecting veterans, but stumbled when he tried to draw a contrast with Trump on abortion

Biden also exaggerated some issues, like how much Trump’s tariff plan for most imported goods would cost U.S. citizens. Here is our fact check of the candidates’ claims.

President Biden, 81, who entered the debate hoping to reassure voters concerned about his age, mostly spoke in a soft rasp, with a quavering delivery that was at times hard to decipher. He rambled, and often seemed to lose his train of thought — at one point Trump said, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”

Biden’s campaign later said that he had a cold, but his performance seemed likely to exacerbate worries about his fitness for the job.