President Joe Biden, right, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump stand during a presidential debate hosted by CNN, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. ahead of the November election, as his Republican rival countered Biden’s criticism by leaning into falsehoods about the economy, illegal immigration and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
“I think there was a sense of shock, actually, of how he came out at the beginning of this debate, how his voice sounded. He seemed a little disoriented. He did get stronger as the debate went on but by that time, I think the panic had set in,” said David Axelrod, a longtime advisor to former President Barack Obama, said on CNN immediately after.
Trump equivocated on whether he would accept the results of the November election, saying he would accept them if the vote was “fair” and “legal,” repeating his baseless claims of widespread fraud and misconduct in his 2020 loss to Biden that he still denies.“On Jan. 6, we were respected all over the world, all over the world we were respected. And then he comes in and we’re now laughed at,” Trump said.
Trump then defended the people convicted and imprisoned for their role in the insurrection, saying to Biden, “What they’ve done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Pressed to defend rising inflation since he took office, Biden pinned it on the situation he inherited from Trump amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
At one point, Trump defended his record on foreign policy and blamed Biden for the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, suggesting the conflicts broke out when the aggressors felt free to attack because they perceived Biden as weak.“I never heard so much malarkey in my whole life,” Biden retorted.