Biden stumbles early, Trump fires out falsehoods at first debate

Update Biden stumbles early, Trump fires out falsehoods at first debate
Short Url
Updated 28 June 2024
Follow

Biden stumbles early, Trump fires out falsehoods at first debate

Biden stumbles early, Trump fires out falsehoods at first debate
  • The two men traded attacks on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza
  • A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions

ATLANTA: Democratic President Joe Biden delivered an uneven performance at Thursday’s debate, while his Republican rival Donald Trump rattled off a series of attacks that included numerous falsehoods, as the two oldest presidential candidates ever clashed on stage ahead of November’s US election.
The two men traded attacks on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and their handling of the economy as they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months.

The debate came at a pivotal juncture in their unpopular presidential rematch, a critical moment to make their cases before a national television audience. Biden’s uneven performance risked crystallizing voter concerns that at age 81 he is too old to serve as president, while Trump’s rhetoric offered a perhaps unwelcome reminder of the bombast he launched daily during his tumultuous four years in office.

Biden entered the debate looking to sharpen the choice voters will face in November. Trump, 78, looked for an opening to try to move past his felony conviction in New York and convince an audience of tens of millions that he is temperamentally suited to return to the Oval Office.

A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions during the debate’s first half-hour, but he found his footing at the halfway mark when he attacked Trump for his conviction for covering up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, calling him a “felon.”In response, Trump brought up the recent conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter, for lying about his drug use to buy a gun.
Moments later, Biden noted that almost all of Trump’s former cabinet members, including former Vice President Mike Pence, have not endorsed his campaign.
“They know him well, they served with him,” he said. “Why are they not endorsing him?“
Two White House officials said Biden had a cold. But his up-and-down evening could deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another four-year term.
Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of criticisms, some of which were well-worn falsehoods he has repeated on the campaign trial, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave and that Democrats support infanticide.
Biden and Trump, 78, were under pressure to display their command of issues and avoid verbal gaffes as they sought a breakout moment in a race that opinion polls show has been deadlocked for months. Biden, in particular, has been dogged by questions about his age and sharpness, while Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and sprawling legal woes remain a vulnerability.




People watch the presidential debate between US President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump at Wicked Willy's on June 27, 2024 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)

Trump was asked about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.

“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.

After he was prompted by a moderator to answer whether he violated his oath of office that day by rallying his supporters seeking to block the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory and not doing enough to call them off as they stormed the Capitol, Trump sought to blame then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Biden said Trump encouraged the supporters to go to the Capitol and sat in the White House without taking action as they fought with police officers.

“He didn’t do a damn thing and these people should be in jail,” Biden said. “They should be the ones that are being held accountable. And he wants to let them all out. And now he says that if he loses again, such a whiner that he is, that this could be a ‘bloodbath’?”

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.”

“This guy has no sense of American democracy,” Biden scoffed in response.

Biden also blamed Trump for enabling the elimination of a nationwide right to abortion by appointing conservatives to the US Supreme Court, an issue that has bedeviled Republicans since 2022. Trump countered that Biden would not support any limits on abortions and said that returning the issue to the states was the right course of action.
Trump said Biden had failed to secure the southern US border, ushering in scores of criminals.
“I call it Biden migrant crime,” he said.
Biden replied, “Once again, he’s exaggerating, he’s lying.”
Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans. The televised clash on CNN was taking place far earlier than any modern presidential debate, more than four months before the Nov. 5 Election Day.
The two candidates appeared with no live audience, and their microphones automatically cut off when it was not their turn to speak — both atypical rules imposed to avoid the chaos that derailed their first debate in 2020, when Trump interrupted Biden repeatedly.
As the debate began, the two men — who have made little secret of their mutual dislike — did not shake hands or acknowledge one another.
But there were plenty more moments in which their bad blood was evident. Each called the other the worst president in history; Biden referred to Trump as a “loser” and a “whiner,” while Trump called Biden a “disaster.”
At one point, the rivals bickered over their golf games, with Trump bragging about hitting the ball farther than Biden and Biden retorting that Trump would struggle to carry his own bag.


Takeaways from the Biden-Trump presidential debate


On health care, “Look, we finally beat Medicare,” Biden said, as his time ran out on his answer.

Trump picked right up on it, saying, “That’s right, he did beat Medicaid, he beat it to death. And he’s destroying Medicare.”

Trump falsely suggested Biden was weakening the social service program because of migrants coming into the country illegally.

Trump and Biden entered the night facing stiff headwinds, including a public weary of the tumult of partisan politics and broadly dissatisfied with both, according to polling. But the debate was highlighting how they have sharply different visions on virtually every core issue — abortion, the economy and foreign policy — and deep hostility toward each other.

Their personal animus quickly came to the surface. Biden got personal in evoking his son, Beau, who served in Iraq before dying of brain cancer. The president criticized Trump for reportedly calling Americans killed in battle “suckers and losers.” Biden told Trump, “My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You’re the sucker. You’re the loser.”

Trump said he never said that and slammed Biden for the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

Biden directly mentioned Trump’s conviction in the New York hush money trial, saying, “You have the morals of an alley cat,” and referencing the allegations in the case that Trump had sex with a porn actress.

“I did not have sex with a porn star,” replied Trump, who chose not to testify at his trial.

Trump retorted that Biden could face criminal charges “when he leaves office.” Trump said, though there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, “Joe could be a convicted felon with all the things that he’s done.” He added of the president, “this man is a criminal.”

Biden insisted that Trump was more focused on “retribution” against his political rivals than leading the nation.

Pressed to defend rising inflation since he took office, Biden pinned it on the situation he inherited from Trump amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden said that when Trump left office, “things were in chaos.” Trump disagreed, declaring that during his term in the White House, “Everything was rocking good.”

By the time Trump left office, America was still grappling with the pandemic and during his final hours in office, the death toll eclipsed 400,000. The virus continued to ravage the country and the death toll hit 1 million over a year later.

Trump repeatedly insisted that the three conservative justices he appointed to the Supreme Court helped overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and returned the issue of abortion restrictions to individual states, which is what “everybody wanted.” Biden countered that abortion access was settled for 50 years and that Trump was making it harder for women in large swaths of the country to get access to basic health care.

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.

“This place, the whole world, is blowing up under him,” Trump said.

“I never heard so much malarkey in my whole life,” Biden retorted.

The current president and his predecessor hadn’t spoken since their last debate weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration after leading an unprecedented and unsuccessful effort to overturn his loss that culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by his supporters.

Trump has promised sweeping plans to remake the US government if he returns to the White House and Biden argues that his opponent would pose an existential threat to the nation’s democracy.

Aiming to avoid a repeat of their chaotic 2020 matchups, Biden insisted — and Trump agreed — to hold the debate without an audience and to allow the network to mute the candidates’ microphones when it is not their turn to speak. The debate’s two commercial breaks offered another departure from modern practice, while the candidates have agreed not to consult staff or others while the cameras are off.

Heading out of the debate, both Biden and Trump will travel to states they hope to swing their way this fall. Trump is heading to Virginia, a onetime battleground that has shifted toward Democrats in recent years.

Biden is set to jet off to North Carolina, where he is expected to hold the largest-yet rally of his campaign in a state Trump narrowly carried in 2020.

Polarized nation
The first questions focused on the economy, as polls show Americans are dissatisfied with Biden’s performance despite wage growth and low unemployment.
Biden acknowledged that inflation had driven prices substantially higher than at the start of his term but said he deserves credit for putting “things back together again” following the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump asserted that he had overseen “the greatest economy in the history of our country” before the pandemic struck and said he took action to prevent the economic freefall from deepening even further.

The debate took place at a time of profound polarization and deep-seated anxiety among voters about the state of American politics. Two-thirds of voters said in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll that they were concerned violence could follow the election, nearly four years after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Trump took the stage as a felon who still faces a trio of criminal cases, including to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The former president, who persists in falsely claiming his defeat was the result of fraud, has suggested he will punish his political enemies if returned to power, but he will need to convince undecided voters that he does not pose a mortal threat to democracy, as Biden asserts.
Biden’s challenge was to deliver a forceful performance after months of Republican assertions that his faculties have dulled with age. While national polls show a tied race, Biden has trailed Trump in polls of most battleground states that traditionally decide presidential elections. Just this month he lost his financial edge over Trump, whose fundraising surged after he was criminally convicted of trying to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Neither Biden nor Trump is popular and many Americans remain deeply ambivalent about their choices. About a fifth of voters say they have not picked a candidate, are leaning toward a third-party candidate or may sit the election out, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
Trump’s niece Mary Trump, who has been critical of her uncle, will join Biden’s campaign in its media spin room following the debate, a campaign official said.
Several contenders to be Trump’s vice presidential pick — North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and US senators J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio — traveled to Atlanta and were expected to make Trump’s case in the post-debate spin room.
The second and final debate in this year’s campaign is scheduled for September. See a Reuters photo slide show of previous debates.

 

 

 

 


US Supreme Court appears likely to uphold Obamacare’s preventive care coverage mandate

A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro, San Diego, California, U.S., October 26, 2017. (REUTERS)
A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro, San Diego, California, U.S., October 26, 2017. (REUTERS)
Updated 10 sec ago
Follow

US Supreme Court appears likely to uphold Obamacare’s preventive care coverage mandate

A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro, San Diego, California, U.S., October 26, 2017. (REUTERS)
  • The plaintiffs argued that requirements to cover those medications and services are unconstitutional because a volunteer board of medical experts that recommended them should have been Senate- approved

WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court seemed likely to uphold a key preventive-care provision of the Affordable Care Act in a case heard Monday.
Conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with the court’s three liberals, appeared skeptical of arguments that Obamacare’s process for deciding which services must be fully covered by private insurance is unconstitutional.
The case could have big ramifications for the law’s preventive care coverage requirements for an estimated 150 million Americans. Medications and services that could be affected include statins to prevent heart disease, lung cancer screenings, HIV-prevention drugs and medication to lower the chance of breast cancer for high-risk women.
The plaintiffs argued that requirements to cover those medications and services are unconstitutional because a volunteer board of medical experts that recommended them should have been Senate- approved. The challengers have also raised religious and procedural objections to some requirements.
The Trump administration defended the mandate before the court, though President Donald Trump has been a critic of the law. The Justice Department said board members don’t need Senate approval because they can be removed by the health and human services secretary.
A majority of the justices seemed inclined to side with the government. Kavanaugh said he didn’t see indications in the law that the board was designed to have the kind of independent power that would require Senate approval, and Barrett questioned the plaintiff’s apparently “maximalist” interpretation of the board’s role.
“We don’t just go around creating independent agencies. More often, we destroy independent agencies,” said Justice Elena Kagan said about the court’s prior opinions.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas seemed likely to side with the plaintiffs. And some suggested they could send the case back to the conservative US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That would likely leave unanswered questions about which medications and services remain covered.
A ruling is expected by the end of June.
The case came before the Supreme Court after the appeals court struck down some preventive care coverage requirements. It sided with Christian employers and Texas residents who argued they can’t be forced to provide full insurance coverage for things like medication to prevent HIV and some cancer screenings.
They were represented by well-known conservative attorney Jonathan Mitchell, who represented Trump before the high court in a dispute about whether he could appear on the 2024 ballot.
Not all preventive care was threatened by the ruling. A 2023 analysis prepared by the nonprofit KFF found that some screenings, including mammography and cervical cancer screening, would still be covered without out-of-pocket costs.
The appeals court found that coverage requirements were unconstitutional because they came from a body — the United States Preventive Services Task Force — whose members were not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

 


Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s purse stolen at DC restaurant, officials say

Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s purse stolen at DC restaurant, officials say
Updated 7 min 21 sec ago
Follow

Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s purse stolen at DC restaurant, officials say

Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s purse stolen at DC restaurant, officials say
  • The department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter

WASHINGTON: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse was stolen at a Washington, D.C. restaurant Sunday night, according to department officials.
The department in an email said Noem had money in her purse to buy gifts for her children and grandchildren and to pay for Easter dinner and other activities.
The department in an email didn’t specify what was stolen, but CNN — which was first to report the story — said the thief took about $3,000 in cash, as well as Noem’s keys, driver’s license, passport, checks, makeup bag, medication and Homeland Security badge. The department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter.
The Homeland Security Secretary is protected by US Secret Service agents. The Secret Service referred questions about the incident to Homeland Security headquarters.

 


US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant

US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant
Updated 23 min 47 sec ago
Follow

US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant

US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant
  • Yassamin Ansari: ‘I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home’
  • Maxwell Frost: ‘Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process’

SAN SALVADOR: A delegation of Democratic lawmakers arrived in El Salvador on Monday in a new push to secure the release of a wrongly deported US resident at the center of a mounting political row.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent back to his country and remains imprisoned despite the Supreme Court ordering the administration of President Donald Trump to facilitate the man’s return to the United States.
“I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona said on social media.
“We want to make sure that Kilmar is still alive. We want to make sure that he has access to counsel,” added Ansari, who was accompanied by fellow US House Democrats Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost and Maxine Dexter.
“Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process,” Frost wrote on X.
“We must hold the Administration accountable for these illegal acts and demand Kilmar’s release. Today it’s him, tomorrow it could be anyone else,” the Florida representative added.
The visit comes days after Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen managed to meet with Abrego Garcia, though only after a considerable effort.
Van Hollen, who represents Maryland where Abrego Garcia and his family have lived for years, accused the Central American nation of staging a photo of him supposedly sipping margaritas with Abrego Garcia.
Trump’s administration has paid El Salvador President Nayib Bukele millions of dollars to lock up nearly 300 migrants it says are criminals and gang members — including Abrego Garcia.
The 29-year-old was detained in Maryland last month and expelled to El Salvador along with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans who were deported shortly after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime authority.
The Trump administration admitted that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error,” and the Supreme Court ruled that the government must “facilitate” his return.
But Trump has since doubled down, insisting Abrego Garcia is in fact a gang member.
Bukele, who was hosted at the White House last week, said he did not have the power to return Abrego Garcia.
The migrant’s supporters note he had protected legal status and no criminal conviction in the United States.
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran where people were ‘disappeared’ — I refuse to sit back and watch it happen here,” Ansari said in a statement.
“What happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not just one family’s nightmare — it is a constitutional crisis that should outrage every single one of us,” said Dexter, a congresswoman from Oregon.
Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen that he was initially imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison for gang members, but was later transferred to a jail in the western department of Santa Ana.


Asian scam center crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN

Asian scam center crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN
Updated 45 min 56 sec ago
Follow

Asian scam center crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN

Asian scam center crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN
  • A new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands
  • Illicit cryptocurrency mining — unregulated and anonymous — has become a “powerful tool” for the networks to launder money, the report said

BANGKOK: Asian crime networks running multi-billion-dollar cyber scam centers are expanding their operations across the world as they seek new victims and new ways to launder money, the UN said on Monday.
Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year targeting victims through investment, cryptocurrency, romance and other scams — using an army of workers often trafficked and forced to toil in squalid compounds.
The activity has largely been focused in Myanmar’s lawless border areas and dubious “special economic zones” set up in Cambodia and Laos.
But a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands.
“We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organized crime groups,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC Acting Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
“This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new ways and places to do business, but also a hedging against future risks should disruption continue and intensify in Southeast Asia.”
Countries in east and southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023, the UNODC report said, adding that “much larger estimated losses” were reported around the world.
The syndicates have expanded in Africa — notably in Zambia, Angola and Namibia — as well as Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu.

Besides seeking new bases and new victims, the criminal gangs are broadening their horizons to help launder their illicit income, the report said, pointing to team-ups with “South American drug cartels, the Italian mafia, and Irish mob, among many others.”
Illicit cryptocurrency mining — unregulated and anonymous — has become a “powerful tool” for the networks to launder money, the report said.
In June 2023 a sophisticated crypto mining operation in a militia-controlled territory in Libya, equipped with high-powered computers and high-voltage cooling units, was raided and 50 Chinese nationals arrested.
The global spread of the syndicates’ operations has been driven in part by pressure from authorities in Southeast Asia.
A major crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar this year, pushed by Beijing, led to around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen counrties being freed.
But the UN report warns that while such efforts disrupt the scam gangs’ immediate activities, they have shown themselves able to adapt and relocate swiftly.
“It spreads like a cancer,” UNODC’s Hoffman said.
“Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply migrate.”
Alongside the scam centers, staffed by a workforce estimated by the UN to be in the hundreds of thousands, the industry is further enabled by new technological developments.
Operators have developed their own online ecosystems with payment applications, encrypted messaging platforms and cryptocurrencies, to get round mainstream platforms that might be targeted by law enforcement.
 

 


Pakistan, UAE sign multiple pacts to strengthen trade and culture cooperation

Pakistan, UAE sign multiple pacts to strengthen trade and culture cooperation
Updated 21 April 2025
Follow

Pakistan, UAE sign multiple pacts to strengthen trade and culture cooperation

Pakistan, UAE sign multiple pacts to strengthen trade and culture cooperation
  • UAE Deputy PM Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan is in Islamabad on 2-day visit

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the UAE on Monday signed multiple agreements to further cooperation in trade, culture and consular affairs.

This took place during a visit by the UAE’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to Islamabad.

Sheikh Abdullah arrived in Islamabad on Sunday for a two-day visit aimed at strengthening cooperation in energy, trade and security, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in an earlier statement.

Pakistan and the UAE have deepened their economic partnership in recent years.

The UAE is Pakistan’s third-largest trading partner after China and the US, and a major source of foreign investment, with over $10 billion invested in the last two decades.

“I must say that our relationship has been growing on a good pace,” Sheikh Abdullah said during a joint media briefing with his Pakistan counterpart Ishaq Dar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“I think both our leaders, the people of Pakistan and the UAE do want to see more development in the relationship,” he added.

Sheikh Abdullah said relations between the two countries, over the past few years, have been “moving faster than they have for a while.”

“And I really look forward that the good spirit that has been moving the relationship in the last few months would continue on so many different cycles, if it’s trade, investment, aviation,” he added.

Dar and Sheikh Abdullah signed several agreements to promote cooperation between the two countries in multiple sectors including culture, trade and consular affairs, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.

They signed a pact between the UAE’s Ministry of Culture and its Pakistan counterpart. And they also inked an agreement to establish a joint committee for consular affairs.

The officials also witnessed the signing of a pact to set up a UAE-Pakistan Joint Business Council. The agreement was inked between the Federation of UAE Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The UAE royal is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during his visit.

The UAE is home to over a million expatriates from the Asia nation, the second-largest overseas Pakistani community globally, and a major source of remittances.

Policymakers in Islamabad view the UAE as an ideal export destination due to its geographic proximity, which lowers freight costs and facilitates smoother trade.

In recent years, the two countries have signed a series of agreements to boost economic ties.

In February, during the Abu Dhabi crown prince’s visit to Pakistan, the two sides signed accords in mining, railways, banking and infrastructure.

Last year in January, Pakistan and the UAE signed deals worth more than $3 billion covering railways, economic zones and infrastructure development.

The UAE has become a crucial partner for Pakistan amid Islamabad’s efforts to achieve sustainable growth after suffering from a prolonged macroeconomic crisis.