Key Highlights from the 2024 CNN Presidential Debate
- Elizabeth Delaney Headlines Contributor
- Updated Jun 28, 2024
Last night’s presidential debate was a much-anticipated event for every political pundit. Though voting day is still around four months away, there was still much to cover in this first debate between Republican and former President Donald Trump and Democrat President Joe Biden. CNN hosted the event live from Atlanta. Before the event, CNN announced that guidelines were established to keep the debate focused and fair. Any candidate who exceeded their allotted time to speak would have their mic cut off.
CNN set up a system in the studio to alert each candidate when their time was running out so they would have a chance to conclude their points. In addition, there was no live audience.
Prewritten notes, props, and contact with campaign staff were prohibited during the debate. Both candidates’ campaigns agreed to accept those guidelines.
Dana Bash and Jake Tapper were co-moderators for the event.
There has been some speculation that, according to WND, the reason this first debate was held with plenty of time before Election Day was because the Democrats wanted time to oust Biden with another candidate if the event didn’t go well for him.
There have been times when Biden acted oddly, ranging from whispers to shouts of incoherent phrases and sentences.
Below are some of the highlights from last night’s debate.
The Economy
Jake Tapper asked President Biden the first question of the evening: what would he say to voters who feel worse off under his presidency than Trump’s?
Biden directed viewers to “look back at what I was left when I became president.”
Biden went on to claim that the economy was in a “freefall” and that the pandemic was “badly handled” with so many people dying. He also claimed that the economy had “collapsed” and mentioned joblessness and an extremely high unemployment rate.
The primary focus of the Biden administration, he said, was to “put things back together again.” He also admitted that more had to be done, such as bringing down the price of housing, “capping rents,” and addressing “corporate greed.”
“Corporate greed is the reason we’re in this problem right now,” Biden said, claiming that Trump left things “in chaos” when he left office.
When former President Trump was invited to speak, he commented that the country was experiencing the greatest economy during the first couple of years of his presidency and that “other countries were copying us.”
Then, when Covid hit, “We spent the money necessary so we wouldn’t end up in the great depression, the likes of which we had in 1929,” he said.
“By the time we finished, we did a great job. We got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military, no wars, and so many other things. Everything was rocking good,” he said.
However, Trump claimed that his administration was never credited for “getting us out of that Covid mess.”
Trump recalled Anthony Fauchi’s mandates, referring to them as “a disaster for our country,” and went on to point out that once those were lifted and the country started to function again, “the stock market actually was higher than pre-covid” and that the government was actually on the upswing economically when Biden took office.
Trump referred to any jobs that Biden claims to have created as “bounce back jobs” because these jobs were nothing more than people returning to work after the Covid restrictions were lifted.
Both candidates agreed that inflation is damaging the economy and burdening the American people financially.
Extension of Trump Tax Cuts
“With the US facing a trillion-dollar deficit in record debt, why should top earners and corporations pay even less taxes than they do now?” Tapper asked Trump.
Trump declared that the tax cuts “spurred the greatest economy we’ve ever seen prior to Covid. And after Covid, it was so strong that we were able to get through Covid much better than just about any other country.”
He details that when the corporate tax was cut from 39% to 21%, “We took in more revenue with much less tax, and companies were bringing trillions of dollars back into our country.”
He added that the country was ready to start paying down debt and using “the oil and gas right under our feet,” but that all stopped because of Covid.
Even though Covid happened right in the middle of his presidency, Trump said that fewer people died under his administration than in Biden’s administration.
He also took a jab at Biden for mandating the vaccine, commenting that a mandate was something that “most people objected to about the vaccine.”
When President Biden was invited to speak, he declared that Trump “had the largest national debt of any president in a four-year period,” adding that Trump’s tax cuts only benefited “the very wealthy.”
Biden went on to declare that he wants to “fix the taxes in America" because the very wealthy are paying only 8.2 percent in taxes, but “if they just paid 24 percent, 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raise 500 million dollars, billion dollars I should say, in a ten year period.”
With that money, Biden said he believed “we’d be able to wipe out all this debt, we’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to secure stuff in our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do [in connection to dealing with] everything we’ve had to do.”
Tapper intercepted Biden as his voice and thoughts seemed to trail off in another direction and invited Trump to speak.
Trump took things in the direction of illegal immigrants coming over the border and receiving benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that they shouldn’t be getting, adding that Biden would “singlehandedly destroy Social Security” and “wipe out Medicare.”
Abortion and the Overturning of Roe vs. Wade
Dana Bash addressed Trump’s achievement of overturning Roe vs. Wade and making abortion a state issue, which Trump was quick to acknowledge. Then she asked Trump if he would “block abortion medication” if he became the president.
Trump pointed out that the Supreme Court justices approved the abortion pill, and he agreed with their decision to do that so that he wouldn’t block it. He also claimed that the effort to move the abortion issue back to the States was a 51-year journey that “everybody wanted.”
He appointed three Supreme Court justices whose votes helped to bring an overall shift that defeated Roe vs. Wade and returned it to the state level.
Trump said he does believe in exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
When Biden was invited to speak about the abortion issue, he verbally jabbed Trump with, “It’s been a terrible thing that you’ve done!”
He went on to call Trump’s claim of everybody wanting the issue returned to the state level “ridiculous,” comparing such a move to returning the issue of civil rights over to the states.
When Bash asked Biden if he supported any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to have an abortion, Biden adamantly replied, “I support Roe vs. Wade,” insisting that doctors should make such decisions, not politicians.
Immigration and Border Security
Tapper asked Biden why voters should trust Biden to solve the immigration and border security crisis.
Biden’s response was somewhat jumbled, claiming that 40 percent fewer people are coming across the border, and he will continue to work to bring that number down.
When Trump was invited to speak, he said he wasn’t sure what Biden said and wasn’t sure Biden knew what he said either.
Trump went on to point out that there has been a border crisis involving people pouring in since Biden took office, but that closing the border, which he said he did when he was in office, created border safety. He added that during his administration, America had the safest border in history, but with Biden in office, it’s “the worst border in history,” and “people are dying all over the place.”
He referred to the high number of citizens who illegal immigrants killed as cases of “Biden-migrant crime” and insisted that it’s happening “at a level we’ve never seen before.”
The Ukraine-Russia War
Bash asked Trump about Russia’s terms for ending its third-year war with Ukraine. Putin said he would only agree to end the war if Russia could keep the territory it had gained and if Ukraine abandoned its bid to join NATO. Bash asked if these terms were agreeable to Trump.
“If we had a real president, a president that was respected by Putin, he would’ve never invaded Ukraine!” Trump said.
Trump claimed that when Putin saw “the incompetence” of Biden’s handling of Afghanistan, which included the deaths of soldiers, leaving behind billions of dollars in equipment, and leaving American citizens behind, Putin was emboldened in his aspirations to take over Ukraine.
When pressed about whether or not Putin’s terms were acceptable, Trump said, “No, they’re not acceptable.”
He went on to declare that if he wins the election, he intends to settle the war before he takes office.
When Biden was invited to speak, he stated that Putin “wants to reestablish what was part of the Soviet empire, not just a piece of it. He wants all of Ukraine. And then, do you think he’ll stop there?”
Biden went on to imply that Russia would not be stopped by just taking over Ukraine.
The Middle East War
Bash asked Biden what additional leverage he’d use to get Hamas and Israel to end their war.
Biden mentioned a plan involving a cease-fire with conditions and then drifted off topic.
Revisiting January 6th, 2021
Tapper asked Trump what he would say to voters who say his actions on January 6th, 2021, violated his constitutional oath and are worried he’d do it again.
Trump insisted that he had told people to act peacefully and patriotically and had offered Nancy Pelosi and others to have the National Guard in the area, but his offer was turned down.
When Biden was invited to speak, he commented that everyone who was convicted on January 6th deserved to be convicted because “patriots” wouldn’t break down doors, break windows, occupy offices, break statues, and turn over desks.
Tapper asked Trump about the comment he made after being convicted of 34 felonies last month, in which he said he’d “have every right to go after his political opponents.” Tapper asked for clarification on that statement.
Trump responded that his retribution would be his success and that he would make the nation successful again.
Black Voters
Bash asked what Biden would say to black voters disappointed that Biden hadn’t made more progress on the issues that concern them.
Biden claimed that he feels much progress has been made, especially since more black businesses have been started under his administration than at any other time in history.
He also claimed that black unemployment is at one of the lowest levels in a long time and that there have been improvements regarding black housing issues and black childcare costs.
Biden admitted that he doesn’t blame black voters for being disappointed because inflation is still hurting them badly.
When Trump was invited to speak, he accused Biden of causing the terrible inflation, with food costs that have doubled, tripled, and, in some cases, quadrupled. He also said that he believed blacks and Hispanics were especially suffering from inflation.
Democrats Worried about Biden’s Debate Performance
Interestingly, most Democrats didn’t feel that Biden did well in the debate, according to The Hill.
“This was a disaster. Biden’s team needs to convince him to withdraw and have an open convention,” said a House Democratic member from a swing state.
“We need to have a real discussion about how this is going,” said one Democratic donor. “...We have to get serious. There is so much on the line here..."
Biden sounded hoarse throughout the debate, and there were times when he was staring at Trump with his mouth hanging open.
According to Politico, Former New Hampshire GOP Chair Fergus Cullen commented after the debate, "Anyone who has watched a parent grow old, frail, and foggy recognizes what they are seeing and knows it only gets worse, at an accelerating rate, from here.”
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Justin Sullivan/Staff
