Biden-Trump 2024 debate highlights: Biden stumbles as Trump fires off falsehoods

One House member who is a Biden supporter said after having watched the debate that there has to be an open convention and that more people are going to be calling for it.

Biden is making a stop at a Waffle House on his way to the airport.

He will talk with diners and pick up pre-ordered food.

Biden’s performance in the first debate tonight has sparked a new round of criticism from Democrats, as well as public and private musing about whether he should remain at the top of the ticket.

Party rules make it almost impossible to replace nominees without their consent, let alone smoothly replace them with someone else. And doing so would amount to party insiders' overturning the results of primaries when Democratic voters overwhelmingly to nominate Biden. He won almost 99% of all delegates.

Still, the Democratic National Committee’s charter does make some provisions in case the party’s nominee is incapacitated or opts to step aside, and an anti-Biden coup at the convention is theoretically possible, if highly unlikely. So how would it work?

Read the full story here.

Asked about Black voters who are disappointed with their economic progress, Trump claimed Black Americans are losing their jobs because of illegal border crossings under Biden’s administration.

Statement

“The fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come through the border. They’re taking Black jobs now,” Trump said.

Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate is raising questions about whether Democrats might try to replace him as the nominee.

Biden began his remarks in front of the debate watch party crowd with an anecdote he’s used before about a John Wayne movie and lying, dog-faced pony soldiers. 

Appearing more energetic than he did during the debate, Biden used the anecdote to make the case that Trump lied throughout the debate and that fact-checkers would be sifting through his responses.

He said: "They’re gonna be fact-checking all the things he said. I can’t think of one thing he said that was true. I’m not being facetious. Look, we’re gonna beat this guy; we need to beat this. I need you in order to beat ’em. You’re the people I’m running for."

Vice President Harris defended Biden after the debate, acknowledging to CNN, "Yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong finish."

She said Biden was "extraordinarily" strong on "substance, on policy, on performance."

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, told NBC News that Trump has not asked him to be his running mate.

"He has not asked me," Vance said in the spin room after the debate.

Trump recently said that he knows who he wants to be his running mate and that his pick would be at the debate. NBC News has reported that Vance, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida are the top contenders to join the Trump ticket.

Republican Senate candidates in key battlegrounds were quick to respond to tonight's debate with a coordinated message rooted in Biden's shaky performance: This is the candidate my opponent votes with nearly all of the time.

"Think about the Joe Biden you saw tonight," Bernie Moreno, the GOP nominee seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, posted on X. "That’s who Sherrod Brown supports for President and votes with 99% of the time."

In Michigan, former Rep. Mike Rogers, the front-runner in August's GOP Senate primary, posted that Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, "votes with Joe Biden 100% of the time but she hasn’t said a word about tonight’s debate."

How long did each candidate speak?

Biden: ~35.5 minutes 

Trump: ~40 minutes

How many questions was each candidate asked?

Biden: 8

Trump: 13

“Double haters” who assembled in Arizona have come up with new terms for their feelings after watching the debate tonight in Phoenix.

“Double cringe,” Jeff Herr, a self-identified “McCain Republican,” said of how he felt watching the debate tonight.

“Double frustrated,” said Nicole Aguirre, a conservative Christian who doesn’t plan to vote for president this year.

Statement

“Nobody ever cut taxes like us. He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybody’s taxes by four times,” Trump claimed. "He wants the Trump tax cuts to expire."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back on his fellow Democrats who panicked after Biden's debate performance, telling them, "Worry less and do more."

"We have the opportunity to universally have the back of this president, who’s had our back," Newsom told MSNBC after the debate, adding, "You don’t turn your back. You go home with the one that brought you to the dance. One hundred percent all in."

Newsom also lauded Biden, calling his debate performance a win on "substance."

"I’m old-school. I’m old-fashioned. That's what matters to me," Newsom said.

Statement

"If you would see my statements that I made on Twitter at the time and also my statement that I made in the Rose Garden, you would say it's one of the strongest statements you've ever seen. In addition to the speech I made in front of, I believe, the largest crowd I've ever spoken to, and I will tell you, nobody ever talks about that. They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol and, in many cases, were ushered in by the police. And as Nancy Pelosi said, it was her responsibility, not mine. She said that loud and clear."

Trump downplayed his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol during the first presidential debate tonight, saying some people “asked me to go make a speech,” minimizing his involvement in efforts to overturn the election and the summoning of thousands of his followers to Washington for what he promised would be a “wild” time.

Trump faces four federal criminal charges in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but the case is on hold as the Supreme Court decides whether he is protected by presidential immunity. He has pleaded not guilty.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s camp was already planning to ramp up attacks on Harris in the coming weeks by saying a vote for Biden is a vote for the vice president. Expect these attacks to escalate rapidly.

How bad is the overall Democratic panic about Biden's performance? One longtime Democratic strategist who works with the Biden campaign said, “Like nothing I have ever seen."

A Democratic official who supports Biden texted NBC News, "Can Jill Biden intervene? Omg"

The official added, “And I’m sorry voters don’t take the democracy stuff seriously if you’re just willing to continue with a nominee who can’t speak."

“Man, absolute disaster," the official said.

In a video posted on social media following the debate, first lady Jill Biden defended her husband's debate performance and told viewers that they "heard Joe's heart tonight on the debate stage."

"He wakes up every morning thinking about how he can make the lives of Americans better. He's the president we need, the president you deserve," she added.

North Dakota GOP Gov. Doug Burgum declined twice to directly answer whether Trump has asked him to be his running mate, but he suggested he was not aware of whom Trump has selected.

"There's only one person who knows who the next VP is, and that is President Trump," Burgum told NBC News after the debate.

Trump recently said that he knows who he wants to be his running mate and that his pick would be at the debate. Burgum is one of multiple possible running mate picks who were in the spin room in Atlanta, along with Sens. JD Vance of Ohio and Marco Rubio of Florida.

NBC News reported that Burgum, Vance and Rubio are the top contenders to join the Trump ticket.

Statement

“We are at the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010,” Biden said.

Statement

“During my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever, and my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage, actually,” Trump said.

Former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield spoke candidly about her concerns on CNN after the debate.

She said the debate was "very disappointing" for many Democrats. "There are no two ways about it, that was not a good debate for Joe Biden," she said.

Former Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., said on X that Democrats would be committing "political malpractice" by nominating Biden after tonight's debate performance.

"It would be unprecedented political malpractice for Democrats to nominate Joe Biden," said Amash, who is seeking a Senate seat in Michigan as a GOP candidate.

Speaking to NBC News' Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie immediately after the debate, Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu said, "Well, I thought it was a bare-knuckled brawl," before adding: "They're right. The president started off slow, but then he came back."

Landrieu then pivoted to immediately attacking Trump, saying, "When Donald Trump was speaking, he was lying," blasting Trump for being "untethered from the truth."

Landrieu also criticized Trump for his defense of some Jan. 6 protesters and his celebration of the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Trump claimed credit for lowering the cost of insulin for seniors.

Statement

"I am the one who got the insulin down for the seniors,” Trump said.

Asked by NBC News about Biden's debate performance, a Democratic lawmaker said, "The best thing I can do to help Joe Biden is to pretend I didn’t get your text."

In closing statements, Trump called Biden "a complainer."

He argued that Biden "doesn't do anything" and attacked the president's handling of the southern border and foreign policy.

"For three-and-a-half years, we're living in hell," Trump said.

The former president also argued that the country is witnessing something many times worse than Charlottesville, referring to the white supremacist rally in Virginia that Biden has cited as his reason for launching his 2020 bid.

In his closing statement, Biden focused on taxes, blaming Trump for increasing taxes and inflation.

"I ask anyone out there in the audience or anyone out there watching this debate: Do you think the tax system is fair?" Biden asked.

At a Biden watch party in Atlanta, some supporters expressed concern about the president throughout the evening. But the party erupted in cheers when he told Trump, “You’re such a whiner." That led to a chant of “Let’s go, Joe!”

Nicole Aguirre, an Arizona woman watching tonight's debate at a party in Phoenix, said she's been frustrated by Trump’s habit of attacking Biden’s record instead of answering the questions posed by the moderators.

When Trump gave a more direct response to one of the questions, she said: “Look, he finally answered a question!”

That response followed a question about taking a cognitive test.

The moderators were forced to ask Trump multiple times whether he would accept the results of the coming election.

Instead of providing a straight answer, he reverted to a familiar refrain about accepting the results only if the election is "fair and legal."

Statement

"By the way, the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position," Biden said.

Trump repeated his claim that Biden is driving the country toward World War III.

"We are very, very close to World War III, and he's driving us there," Trump said about Biden, arguing that authoritarian leaders like Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin do not respect nor fear him.

Biden said something "snapped in" Trump after losing the 2020 presidential election, leading him to embark on a meritless campaign to hold onto power. Biden continued to prod Trump, twice calling his Republican rival a “whiner.”

“Let’s see what your numbers are when this election is over,” Biden said. “You’re a whiner. When you lost the first time, you continued to appeal and appeal to courts all across the country.”

Were Trump to lose the race in 2024, “I doubt whether you’ll accept it because you’re such a whiner,” Biden jabbed. “You can’t stand the loss. Something snapped in you when you lost last time.”

Biden took some of his biggest shots at Trump after the former president refused to accept the results this fall regardless of who won. (Trump said he would only accept "if it's fair and legal and good.")

"You’re a whiner," Biden said. "When you lost the first time ... you appealed and appealed to courts all across the country. Not one single court in America said any of your claims had any merit, state or local, none. But you continue to promote this lie about somehow, there’s all this misrepresentation, all this stealing."

"There’s no evidence of that at all. And I tell you what, I doubt whether you’ll accept it, because you’re such a whiner, the idea if you lose again, you accepting anything. You can’t stand the loss. Something snapped in you when you lost last time," he added.

The moderators then cut to a commercial.

Addressing questions about his age, Biden tried to mock Trump's fitness but stumbled through an answer criticizing Trump's height and weight.

"You can see he is 6-foot-5 and only 223 pounds or 235 pounds ... well, anyway," Biden said.

Later, he agreed to Trump's challenge of a golf match, on one condition: "If you carry your own bag" (a joke he made earlier this year, too).

Still, Biden's cheeky dig at Trump's golf game may do little to assuage the fears emerging among Democrats that Biden has done little in this debate to tamp down on concerns about his age and mental faculties.

Black voters are telling NBC News they’re disappointed in the way both candidates talked about Black people.

Most historically vote for Democrats and say they will vote for Biden despite what they see as a weak debate performance tonight, because they see Trump’s past comments and actions as “racist.”

About 60 protesters were gathered on 14th Street here in Atlanta, a few blocks from the debate site. 

Trump, responding to a question from Bash about his age, claimed he took two cognitive tests and insisted he was in "very good shape." He also touted his golf game and said of Biden: "He can't hit a ball 50 yards."

The two candidates then briefly bickered about their respective golf handicaps.

Asked about how he would help people in the throes of addiction, Trump at one point invoked Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is imprisoned in Russia.

"Now we have a hostage, a Wall Street Journal reporter, I think a good guy, and he's over there because Putin is laughing at this guy probably asking for billions of dollars for the reporter," Trump said. "I will have him out very quickly as soon as I take office, before I take office."

There is no indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin would release Gershkovich on Trump's timeline.

As Trump attacked Biden for a rising deficit, saying Biden "gets paid by China" and is "a Manchurian candidate," he also defended the tariffs on goods he imposed during his administration.

Those moves have been criticized by some as effectively increasing prices on everyday goods.

"You'll notice [Biden] never took out my tariffs, because we bring in so much money with the tariffs that I imposed on China. He never took them away. He can't, because it's too much money. It's tremendous," Trump said.

The candidates finally found a subject they really wanted to argue back and forth about — which one is America's all-time worst president.

The moderators had been working to prevent them from having many extended exchanges with each other and have not given them much space to direct the debate themselves.

This was an exception.

Biden argued that tariffs serve as a tax on the middle class and criticized Trump's proposed 10% tariff on goods entering the U.S.

Citing economists, Biden said the tariffs would cost families in the U.S., who are "going to have to pay the difference in food."

A Democratic member of Congress who has been a solid Biden backer, responding to the president's performance tonight, said it's "time to talk about an open convention and a new Democratic nominee."

Expect to hear a lot of concerns about Biden from Democrats and left-of-center thought leaders in coming days.

After watching the first half of the debate, liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof was ready to call it. "I wish Biden would reflect on this debate performance and then announce his decision to withdraw from the race, throwing the choice of Democratic nominee to the convention," he said on X.

He added that he thought another Democrat, like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio or Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, "could still jump in and beat Trump."

Seth Anderson-Oberman, who voted uncommitted during the Pennsylvania primary, is disappointed by both Biden’s and Trump’s answers to the question about the Israel-Hamas war.

“I don’t think Biden helped himself with that answer in terms of, you know, attracting the support of younger voters, peace voters, folks who want to see a cease-fire,” he said.

William Latif Little, an undecided voter, is frustrated with the condition of the economy but said he liked Biden’s answer on the economy “because of the hope that he will do the right thing in the next four years.”

Whether it's abortion, the economy or firing staffers, Trump continues to bring up immigration and the border every chance he gets. He's repeatedly called Biden the worst president ever, in part, he says, because he has allowed "criminals" into the country.

Trump — who was once synonymous with the phrase "You're fired" as host of "The Apprentice" — attacked Biden for not firing more people in his administration.

He went on to say Biden should have fired the military leaders involved in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, for instance.

"He never fired people," Trump said. "I’ve never seen him fire anybody. I did fire a lot. I fired [FBI Director James] Comey because he was no good. I fired a lot of the top people at the FBI, drained the swamp. They were no good — not easy to fire people."

Biden attempted to push back on Trump’s referring to him as the worst U.S. president, but his microphone was muted. Trump nonetheless acknowledged him and responded to what he said.

Referring to Biden as the "worst president" in American history is a frequent attack by Trump on the campaign trail.

Statement

"He made up the Charlottesville story, and you'll see it's debunked all over the place. Every anchor has — every reasonable anchor has debunked it, and just the other day it came out where it was fully debunked. It's a nonsense story. He knows that, and he didn't run because of Charlottesville. He used that as an excuse to run," Trump said about Biden.

The Trump campaign sent a fundraising pitch shortly after 10 p.m. ET, around the first commercial break, with the subject line "I'm kicking Biden's BUTT."

"This is President Trump, I don’t have much time," the email read. The email continued in all caps, "Despite everything stacked against me, I'm winning."

Trump has leveraged his email fundraising list to fuel his campaign, helping him close the money gap with Biden in recent weeks. Donations have typically spiked around major events in his legal cases, including his recent conviction in the New York document-falsification case.

Biden and the Democrats have made abortion one of the fundamental issues in the 2024 race, noting the ways it’s energized voters in recent elections since the Supreme Court overturned Roe two years ago. But when it came up tonight, Biden spent more time ceding ground than defending the right to abortion access.

Biden reiterated his support for Roe v. Wade, which protected abortion access before viability. But in trying to explain the court's ruling, he put himself on the wrong side of where many in his coalition are.

Trump was asked whether he planned to take any action as president to slow the climate crisis.

Trump responded, "I want absolutely immaculate, clean water, and I want absolutely clean air. And we had it."

Trump repeatedly tried to undo actions to curtail the effects of climate change during his administration.

In 2020, his administration rolled back an Obama-era rule that required the country's coal plants to reduce mercury and other harmful emissions, and in 2017, he notably pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement aimed at reducing emissions.

Statement

"The truth is, I'm the only president this century that doesn't have any this decade and any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did," Biden said

The president’s team hopes clips of strong Biden moments will reach a wider audience than the live one that watched the painful first 30 minutes of the debate as it happened.

They think Biden delivered several lines that will resonate with voters. One is: “Only one of us is a convicted felon, and I’m looking at him.”

They also liked the Jan. 6 part of the debate, saying it tested horribly for Trump and well for them, according to someone familiar with the Biden campaign’s internal polling dials, which they are doing in real time during debate.

After Biden called Trump a convicted felon, Trump took a swipe at Biden’s son Hunter Biden, who was convicted on felony gun charges this month. Hunter Biden has been indicted on tax charges, with a trial expected in September. It’s a strategy Trump’s Republican allies predicted.

“When he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon at a very high level,” Trump said. “His son is convicted, going to be convicted probably numerous other times.”

Trump said Biden had escaped scrutiny for his record at the border and as vice president, when Trump falsely accused him of leveraging aid to Ukraine to benefit his son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. It is an argument Republicans have used as they try to tie Biden to his son's foreign business dealings. Biden has denied any wrongdoing or involvement in his son's business matters.

Trump was impeached in 2019 for pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens.

Trump hit Biden on Social Security issues, arguing that the president is "destroying Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

Trump pointed to migrants, asserting that they are "taking over our schools, our hospitals, and they're going to be taking over Social Security."

Biden said his plan to tackle Social Security was to raise taxes on the very wealthy.

Two sources familiar with the situation told NBC News that "President Biden has a cold."

Biden was administered a Covid test, which was negative, three sources said.

Biden has sounded hoarse throughout the debate.

Polls indicate that some groups of Black voters are undecided about whom they'll vote for, and both candidates are vying for their support on the debate stage.

Biden spoke at length about his efforts to eliminate federal student loan debt, provide tenant tax credits and stimulate job growth for Black families.

Trump, in his latest attempt to court Black voters, criticized Biden's record, saying: "He caused the inflation, and it's killing Black families and Hispanic families and just about everybody. It's killing people."

"I gave him a country with no, essentially no inflation. It was perfect. It was so good, all he had to do is leave it alone. He destroyed it," Trump added.

Notably, though inflation has risen under Biden, wages are also up and unemployment is down.

Biden, defending his record on environmental issues, hailed his administration for achieving the "most extensive climate change legislation in history."

He was referring to the roughly $783 billion in energy and climate change investments that were part of the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive package that he signed into law in August 2022.

Statement

“I’d love to ask him … why he’s allowed millions of people to come in from prisons, jails, and mental institutions, to come into our country and destroy our country,” Trump said.

In his last answer before the first commercial break, Biden echoed a campaign ad he released today related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"We saw with our own eyes. We saw what happened on Jan. 6. We saw the people breaking windows," Biden said onstage.

The ad features video from news organizations and security cameras of protesters breaking into the Capitol.

It’s been four years since protests broke out after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. Tonight, Trump defended his response to the summer of unrest, including sending the National Guard and federal law enforcement officers to Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Minneapolis. 

“They saw them coming, and they left immediately,” Trump said inaccurately of the protesters. 

Protests continued in Portland for more than 100 days, sometimes dissolving into violence as demonstrators confronted federal police forces. And protesters set up an encampment in the middle of Seattle that remained in place for several weeks.

One of the Muslim community leaders who met privately with Biden in a small group at the White House in April says Biden looks “physically weak and tired” and not as “sharp” as he did during the meeting in April.

The person told NBC News that Biden “seems ill right now."

Biden has had difficulty sticking the landing on several familiar attacks on Trump. While Biden has perked up significantly since the first half-hour of the debate, his raspy voice and his tendency to trail off have led to some whiffs.

Trump pushed back on Biden's assertion, saying, "I didn't have sex with a porn star."

Biden had accused Trump of having the "morals of an alleycat" for allegedly having sex with a porn star while his wife, Melania Trump, was pregnant.  (Actually, Mrs. Trump had given birth to their son, Barron, four months before the alleged encounter.)

Statement

“We had the safest border in the history of our country," Trump said.

Biden got off to a slow start, but as the debate approaches its halfway point, he's steadying himself and speaking with more force and clarity. "I've never heard so much foolishness," he said in response to one of Trump's answers.

Biden also spoke with conviction about the idea that Trump, if elected, would seek vengeance against his political rivals.

"The idea that you have a right to seek retribution against any American just because you're president is wrong," Biden said.

His campaign was quick to respond to questions about his poor start.

"He has a cold," an aide said.

Biden showed arguably his most fight in responding to Trump’s allegations in talking about his criminal convictions and civil cases.

Biden said Trump has the "morals of an alley cat," referred to his felony conviction in his document-falsification trial in New York and the civil judgments against him and alluded to the pending cases against him.

During an exchange about the war between Ukraine and Russia, Trump said, "I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as president-elect. Before I take office on Jan. 20, I'll have that war settled."

Biden answered, "The fact is that Putin is a war criminal." He added: "He wants all of Ukraine. That's what he wants. And then you think he'll stop there? Do you think he'll stop when the, if he takes Ukraine? What do you think happens to Poland, Belarus? What do you think happens to those NATO countries?"

Biden's answer reinforced the notion that Trump frightens NATO leaders who've partnered with the U.S. to supply Ukraine with weapons over the last two years.

In one of his most forceful moments of the debate so far, Biden accused Trump of poor personal character, referring to his alleged sexual relationship with pornographic film star Stormy Daniels — a story at the center of Trump's recent criminal trial in New York.

"You have the morals of an alley cat," Biden told Trump.

Statement

“That’s why you had no terror, at all, during my administration. This place, the whole world, is blowing up under him," Trump said

Biden and Trump both claimed to have done a better job at securing the border.

“We found ourselves in a situation where, when he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers, put them in cages, making sure their families were separated,” Biden said of Trump. “That’s not the right way to go.”

Statement

Trump "refused to go to" a World War 1 cemetery ... "He was standing with his four-star general" who said Trump said, "I don't want to go in there, because they're a bunch of losers and suckers," Biden said about Trump.

Trump was asked about what he would say to voters concerned about Jan. 6.

Trump said that "we were respected" around the world on that date in 2021, which was the day of the attack on the Capitol. He deflected responsibility, pointing to other politicians and officials in office.

Trump also pointed to his words in a speech that day asking protesters to make their voices heard "peacefully and patriotically."

Trump just briefly referred to his legal issues in baselessly accusing Biden of weaponizing the justice system against a political opponent, a frequent talking point at his rallies and in his post-court remarks.

So far, Biden has not alluded to Trump's conviction in the New York trial related to a hush money payment or the other criminal indictments against him.

Biden's advisers said he was prepared to trigger Trump in the debate.

But 40 minutes in, there has been nary a word about Trump’s felony conviction last month, which is central to the case Biden is making against Trump with voters who are wary about Trump's ability to defend democracy if elected.

Trump mentioned Hunter Biden, the president's son who was recently convicted on gun charges in Delaware, during his pushback on Biden's allegations that Trump disparaged soldiers and veterans.

"Fifty-one intelligence agents said that [Hunter's] laptop was Russia disinformation. It wasn't. That came from his son Hunter. It wasn't Russia disinformation," Trump said onstage.

His reference to Hunter Biden and the laptop, which was seized by federal agents and presented as evidence in Hunter's trial, didn't elicit any visible response from the president.

A leader of a reproductive rights group is reacting to Trump's saying he would protect medication abortion.

The person told me: “Trump’s allies at Project 2025 have outlined a plan to revoke approval for medication abortion. His appointed judge in Texas let this case move forward without standing. Trump’s statements have been full of lies and inaccuracies. Voters cannot trust Trump on abortion.”

The person added, “Leaving the issue to the states means letting abortion bans like Texas and Idaho in place with devastating consequences.”

Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin's terms to end the grinding war in Ukraine — keeping Ukrainian territory seized by Moscow as Kyiv drops its bid to join NATO — are not acceptable to him.

He went on to say that he would have the conflict "settled" if he wins in November.

Trump then took a shot at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, deriding him as a "salesman" who he said has taken too much U.S. military aid.

Trump is employing a familiar argument when it comes to foreign policy. He's saying Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he had been president. That's impossible to prove either way, of course.

John Bolton, one of Trump's White House national security advisers, predicted that Trump would trot out this argument.

In an interview before the debate, Bolton said: "Trump’s answer on almost any foreign policy question with respect to something bad that’s happened is that it wouldn’t have happened if he were president."

Statement

“They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth. After birth. If you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do so, and we'll determine what we do with the baby. Meaning we’ll kill the baby. ... So that means he can take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth. Because some states, Democrat-run, take it after birth. Again, the governor, the former Virginia governor, put the baby down so that we decide what to do with it. He’s willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby. Nobody wants that to happen, Democrat or Republican; nobody wants it to happen," Trump said.

Four years ago, The Atlantic reported that Trump had derided Americans who died in war as "suckers" and "losers" — comments that Trump and his allies have vehemently denied. Biden referred to those reported remarks in defending his record on veterans affairs, heatedly telling Trump that his late son Beau, who served in Iraq, was not "a sucker and a loser."

"You're a sucker. You're a loser," Biden told Trump.

NBC News' Monica Alba reported ahead of the debate that Biden might use the word "loser" to provoke Trump to lash out.

Trump has called the quote "fake news," but his former chief of staff John Kelly last year confirmed the story was true.

Statement

"We brought down the price of prescription drugs, which is a major issue for many people, to $15 for an insulin shot — as opposed to $400," Biden said.

Trump has begun mocking Biden's verbal stumbles, beginning a reply to one Biden statement by saying, "I don’t know what he said, and I don't think he knows what he said, either."

A Democratic strategist told NBC News that "Biden sounds and looks terrible."

The source, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, said they think "this is the worst start in presidential debate history for an incumbent."

Incumbents historically underperform in their first debates.

A Biden aide told NBC News that he "just needed to warm up."

Heading into tonight, a key question was which Donald Trump would show up. Would it be a disciplined Trump or the Trump we've seen on the campaign trail who goes off on angry tangents?

So far, Trump has been fairly composed in his answers. He's stayed on topic and largely avoided interruptions — helped in part by the muted mic. He's been tough on Biden but hasn't indulged in the personal taunts and insults that are a staple of his campaign rallies.

Trump, whose administration surged resources via public-private partnerships to bring a variety of Covid vaccines and therapeutics to market, has struggled to find a consistent message on the issue as vaccine skepticism spread.

The jab became a potent attack line during the Republican primaries when Florida Gov. Ron De Santis used it to compare his response to the pandemic to Trump's.

Trump gave a preview of his response to questions about immigration while responding to questions about whether he supports abortion in certain cases.

"We have a border that’s the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, and he opened it up, and these killers are coming into our country, and they are raping and killing women, and it’s a terrible thing," he said.

Trump was attempting to respond to Biden's points about abortion rights when his microphone was muted.

Trump’s claim that “everybody” wanted abortion to be decided by states clashes with the current GOP party platform, which was crafted in 2016 and re-adopted in 2020 amid the Covid pandemic. That platform calls on Congress to enact a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Trump is doubling down on the messaging that he wants abortion to be back to the states, and he is now saying he would not block access to the abortion pill. But the Biden campaign’s strategy is to tell voters that Trump should not be trusted and that if given the opportunity it would ban abortion nationwide.

The second question came from Bash, directed to Trump: "As president, would you want abortion medication?"

"First of all, the Supreme Court just approved the abortion bill, and I agree with their decision to have done that," Trump said.

As he was hitting Trump for his administration's tax cuts and arguing that taxing billionaires would eliminate the deficit and fund "child care [and] elder care," Biden stumbled, saying, "Making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I was able to do with the Covid — excuse me — with dealing with everything we have to do with — look — if we finally beat Medicare."

After the question was redirected to Trump, the former president instantly picked up on Biden's stumble, saying, "He's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death, and he's destroying Medicare."

Statement

"He also said he inherited 9% inflation. Now, he inherited almost no inflation, and it stayed that way for 14 months, and then it blew up under his leadership," Trump said about Biden.

As Biden and Trump walked on the stage, Seth Anderson-Oberman said, “It’s insane that these are our two candidates.”

William Latif Little, who voted for Biden in 2020 and is not sure whom he is voting this time around, said, “This is going to be hilarious”

Biden has been off the campaign trail and out of public view for days. He’s had a chance to conserve his speaking voice while sequestered at Camp David, prepping for tonight.

So it’s a bit surprising to hear how hoarse he sounds tonight. Whatever points he makes could get lost if viewers have trouble hearing them.

As Biden stumbled while talking about Medicare, Denise Lewis, a double hater from Scottsdale, Arizona, buried her head in her hands.

Biden tried to attack Trump on national security by claiming he was the only president in recent history "that doesn't have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like [Trump] did."

Not only is that not true, but it tries to sidestep a potentially significant political weakness for Biden: his administration's oversight of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

When Trump was asked whether a tariff he proposed would raise costs, he said no. He then turned on Biden, saying he inherited nearly no inflation.

Moments earlier, Biden hit Trump for job loss during his term, reiterating one of his go-to campaign trail lines by comparing him to Great Depression-era President Herbert Hoover.

When Biden took office in January 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found, all items increased by 1.4% before seasonal adjustment.

The president sounded like he needed a drink of water almost as soon as he started speaking, setting a subdued mood during his opening remarks in a debate at which many had anticipated yelling.

The first question came from Tapper, directed to Biden: "Since you took office, the price of essentials has increased. For example, a basket of groceries that cost $100 then now costs more than $120, and typical home prices have jumped more than 30%. What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump?"

Biden answered by hitting Trump's leadership during Covid and the economic downturn that came as a result of the virus.

Biden and Trump did not shake hands, bucking the traditional way candidates have opened debates. As Trump walked onstage, after Biden, he barely looked at his opponent.

They did not shake hands in 2020 because of Covid concerns.

Nikki Haley voters may be struggling with their options tonight.

So many of them — in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond — told NBC News the moment they could no longer support Trump was his actions on and around Jan. 6, 2021, be they the election denialism that led to the riot or his hours of inaction as it unfolded.

Both Biden and Trump are looking to win over Black voters in Philadelphia to secure their paths to victory. NBC News is watching the debate with a group of Black voters at The Cigar Code in Philadelphia.

All three of the voters cast their ballots for Biden in 2020. This time around, only one of them is currently supporting the president.

William Latif Little is one of those undecided voters who says this debate could be a deciding factor for him. The issue at the front of his mind is the economy — specifically, housing and gas prices.

The debate is about to get underway. Follow along for live coverage and analysis.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump toyed with the prospect of her father-in-law's vice presidential running mate pick shortly before the debate, telling NBC News: "He's told some people."

Asked by NBC News' Tom Llamas on NBC News NOW's debate pre-show whether she knew whom her father-in-law would pick, Trump responded: "Maybe, maybe not. We play it pretty close in the Trump family."

When Llamas replied by asking, "He's already told people, then?" Lara Trump replied: "He's told some people, yeah."

Biden took a swipe at Trump's baseless allegations that the president may be on drugs during the debate.

"I don’t know what they’ve got in these performance enhancers, but I’m feeling pretty jacked up," Biden said in a post on X with pictures of him holding a branded can of water. "Try it yourselves, folks."

The Biden campaign is now selling the water cans labeled as "Dark Brandon's Secret Sauce," nodding at the meme embraced by the campaign.

"The secret to a good debate performance? Staying hydrated," the campaign's website says. "Get yourself the same performance enhancers Joe Biden took before going on stage. 100% water, zero malarkey."

Inflation is slowing down, now around a 3.3% annual rate after having reached more than 9% in 2022. Still, grocery prices and shelter costs are more than 20% higher since December 2019, right before the pandemic hit. And Biden has paid a price in the polls, in which voters have regularly given Trump an overwhelming edge. So expect Trump to unload on Biden when it comes to inflation.

But Biden is likely to counter that a second Trump term could pour more gasoline on a so-far subsiding inflation fire. This week, 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists warned that Trump's goals — such as lower taxes on corporations, jacked-up tariffs on imported goods from trade partners and a Federal Reserve chair who favors low interest rates — would create more affordability problems for Americans.

Indeed, the Biden campaign has already seized on the economists' missive this week: "Top economists, Nobel Prize winners, and business leaders all know America can’t afford Trump’s dangerous economic agenda."

More inflation data is due tomorrow morning, by the way. The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, hits at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Jillian Wilson, 30, who hates both candidates and worries tonight’s debate will be a “hot mess,” said she hopes Biden and Trump discuss the issues affecting her community in Phoenix.

“I hope they talk about the cost of living and homelessness,” Wilson said.

Longtime adviser Corey Lewandowski, who flew with Trump to the debate, said moments before it began that the ex-president won’t let Biden get inside his head and provoke him, as NBC News has reported he will try to do.

“It reminds me of Tom Brady at the Super Bowl," Lewandowski told NBC News. "The other teams always think they’re going to get in his head — they’re going to do some trick play and they’re going to get to him — but the greats always play great. And tonight is a night that’s a big game night, and Donald Trump is ready for it."

“I don’t think there’s anything that Joe Biden could do or say there’s going to throw Donald Trump off his game," he added.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., posted a photo on her X account moments ago, showing a gaggle of close Trump allies and potential vice presidential running mate contenders gathered in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s debate. 

Visible toward the center of the group is former GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, who is hosting a watch party fundraiser tonight.

One notable absence from the picture: Burgum. The governor is however expected to be in the spin room tonight on behalf of the Trump campaign. 

Atlanta is a bastion of Black entrepreneurship and culture, so expect Trump to use his economic pitch to keep up his attempts to pick off Black voters, who traditionally vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

Under Trump, the Black unemployment rate fell from 7.5% when he took office in January 2017 to 5.3% in the late summer of 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was months before Covid forced millions out of work — disproportionately affecting Black workers.

Biden, meanwhile, can point to the fact that Black unemployment fell to an all-time low of 4.8% in April 2023 after having been as high as 10.2% in April 2021, according to the BLS. The rate has since ticked up, however, to 6.1% last month.

Biden could claim another win, as well. During his administration, as he has routinely pushed for good-paying union jobs, Black union membership rose to 2.26 million as of 2023, according to the BLS. The figure stood at 2.21 million during Trump's first year in office, 2017, and fell during his tenure to 2.06 million in 2020.

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said tonight that Trump has not asked him be his running mate.

"We’ve had a lot of conversations about the future. He has not asked me to be his vice president," Ramaswamy said. "Whoever he asks is going to have, I think, a remarkable ability to serve this country and taking that America First agenda even further."

Denise Lewis, 57, is a double hater from Scottsdale, Arizona, who’s leaning toward writing her own name in come November.

Lewis doesn’t believe CNN’s mute button will have any effect on the outcome of the debate.

“He’s [a] loudmouth. You’ll be able to hear him,” Lewis said of Trump.

“You never know. He might walk over and go to Biden’s mic,” she said.

The New Hampshire Primary helped solidify Trump’s path to the Republican nomination while also making it clear that many Republican and independent voters were looking for an alternative in Nikki Haley. So what are those New Hampshire Haley voters watching for during the debate tonight?

Eric Garland, of Ebson, says he wants to see “substance, not theatrics.” He added, "If this becomes a circus, like four years ago, pretty sure Haley voters will turn it off."

Two of the most popular generative AI products, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, regurgitated false information about tonight's debate just hours after it first appeared online and was debunked.

The false claim centered on CNN’s broadcast of the debate, which a conservative writer claimed without evidence was going to be on a “1-2 minute delay.” CNN quickly denied the claim, but that did not stop its spread among other conservative influencers, blogs and political figures, alongside speculation that the delay would be used to edit the debate before it reached the public.

Read the full story here.

The 6-to-7 p.m. hour was the Biden campaign's best grassroots fundraising hour of the 2024 campaign — besting the 5-to-6 p.m. hour, which had been the record hour for grassroots fundraising, according to a campaign official.

The hour-by-hour fundraising updates from the Biden campaign come as Trump's campaign has experienced a windfall of grassroots donations recently, particularly since Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York last month.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a top Biden surrogate, held court in the spin room before tonight’s debate, chasing away disparagements of Biden and unleashing a series of criticisms of Trump.

“This has an impact around the globe. This is about electing the leader of the free world. America matters. It’s about our moral authority, not just our formal authority,” Newsom said.

“You got someone that brings a moral voice in the work as president and someone that did just the opposite and has no moral compass whatsoever,” he added.

Newsom answered questions for so long that his spokeswoman tried to cut the Q&A session off five times. Finally, on the sixth warning, Newsom walked away.

Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign's communications director, told NBC News that the campaign had a number of "issues" with the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debate, explaining why it agreed to pull out of the compact, which has hosted every presidential debate since 1988.

Tyler told NBC News Now that the main grievances included that Americans wouldn't have "the opportunity to hear from the candidates before they actually cast their ballots," because the CPD debates didn't begin until after early voting windows opened in some states.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is spending debate night doing his own thing on X (formerly known as Twitter) instead of onstage with Trump and Biden.

Why? Because the independent presidential hopeful fell short of the criteria CNN established for the event, which mainly required candidates to prove they had ballot access in enough states to mathematically win the presidency and to hit 15% in at least four polls recognized by the network.

Kennedy fell one poll and more than 100 electoral votes short, although he could have a better chance to make ABC's debate in September if he doesn't suffer any ballot access setbacks and can secure enough support in the polls. (Other candidates were even further from making the debate than Kennedy was.)

While Kennedy has cried foul and sought to petition the Federal Election Commission to intervene, he finds himself on the outside looking in tonight.

The 5-to-6 p.m. hour before the start of the debate was the “best fundraising hour of the entire campaign,” a Biden campaign official told NBC News.

It raised more money during that hour than any other, including during its launch, Biden’s State of the Union speech this year and the Trump verdict, the official said.

The source argued that it validates the campaign’s belief that many voters, including likely Biden supporters, have yet to fully engage with the campaign.

The Biden campaign's communications director, Michael Tyler, will travel on Air Force One alongside the president as he hits the campaign trail after the debate, the campaign told NBC News.

By deploying campaign staffers to travel with Biden, the Biden-Harris team expects to fill an information gap because “as we get closer to the election, more and more daily conversation is around the election and the politics of the campaign.” 

Trump is likely to be confronted for the first time by an elected Democrat over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his role in it when he squares off with Biden.

It wouldn't be the first time he has been pressed about the matter, given that he has dealt with questions from reporters. But Trump hasn't had to deal with a political opponent confronting him face to face on the subject.

Given that Jan. 6 and Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election are at the center of Biden's campaign messaging, it's likely the president will raise the issue early and often.

Trump avoided an earlier potential direct confrontation over Jan. 6 when he defied a subpoena issued by the House Jan. 6 committee. He has been indicted by special counsel Jack Smith over his role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6 attack; he pleaded not guilty, but that case has yet to go to trial.

The Biden campaign plans to forgo the typical postdebate spin room free-for-all by ditching the traditional cardboard signs used to identify surrogates and by also cutting down on their speaking time.

A campaign official says the plan is to send in a team of its top surrogates to deliver brief statements and take just a few questions before they leave. They’ll stand as a group and speak one at a time. 

The goal is to focus on substance and not spectacle, the official said.

A Phoenix woman who could be considered a “double hater” because of her frustration with both major-party choices in the presidential election predicted “a hot mess” at tonight’s debate, telling NBC News she hopes the candidates stick to issues rather than lean into personal attacks. 

“Like, what about what you’re doing for the people? I don’t care about you guys as gossips between each other,” Jillian Wilson, 30, said.

Wilson also described Biden as “tired” and “not being all the way there” and Trump as “off the wall,” anticipating that he would be “basically saying a whole bunch of nothing.”