A presidential debate between incumbent United States president Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump took place on June 27, 2024. At the time of the debate, Biden was the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, while Trump was the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. The debate was hosted by CNN and held in Atlanta.

Both political columnists and surveyed viewers widely considered Trump as the debate's winner. Biden's performance was seen by many as disastrous for his re-election campaign, raising concerns about his age and health and capability to serve a second term in office. Though his campaign was initially defiant, Biden ultimately bowed to party pressure and withdrew from the election on July 21.

Prelude Agreement to debate

As the 2024 campaign developed, there was a serious possibility of no televised debates. Neither campaign favored use of the Commission on Presidential Debates that had brokered national debates since 1987. An agreement to debate was announced on May 15. Both campaigns agreed to two debates, with the first in June to be hosted by CNN.

A Biden campaign internal memorandum from April 15 outlined its logic for an early debate along with plans for debate preparation. The document noted that the Commission's earliest proposed date was after postal voting in the United States began, so proposed to schedule it to occur within a few weeks. "By holding the first debate in the spring, YOU will be able to reach the widest audience possible", the memo told Biden:

Another advantage of an early debate, the memo said, was that if Biden performed poorly the campaign would have time to recover. Not all of Biden's advisors wanted an early debate, and some did not want him to debate Trump at all. Jen O'Malley Dillon and Ron Klain were very supportive of an early debate; Anita Dunn and Steve Ricchetti were against it, but Dunn became supportive after the Hur special counsel investigation questioned Biden's memory. The campaign rejected a suggestion to prevent the president from debating from an unnamed donor, who became alarmed by the health of Joe Biden after attending a fundraiser with him.

Qualifications Although Trump claimed to have no objection to the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. participating in the debate, the Biden campaign opposed Kennedy's inclusion. On May 29, Kennedy filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the Biden and Trump campaigns colluded to prevent him from appearing at the debate.

The qualification criteria that were adopted for the June 27 CNN debate required participants to: Be constitutionally eligible to hold the presidency; File with the Federal Election Commission; Appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical possibility of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College; Agree to the rules of the debate; and Reach at least 15% support in four national public opinion polls selected by CNN between March 13 and June 20, 2024.

Seventeen polls met CNN's criteria, with Biden and Trump meeting the 15% threshold in every poll. Kennedy met the threshold in three, peaking at 16%. Both Justice For All Party candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein peaked at 4% support, and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver peaked at 1% support. No other candidate was included in any qualifying polls. Kennedy also did not meet the ballot requirement, having been confirmed in only five states at the time of the debate. Kennedy would counterprogram the debate with a livestreamed campaign event dubbed "The Real Debate", in which moderator John Stossel posed the questions from the debate to Kennedy Jr. using the same format.

Qualified candidates for the first debate Candidate Met polling criterion Met EV criteria Met both criteria/invited Biden Trump Oliver Kennedy Stein West

Preparations

The April 15 Biden campaign memo recommended that the president hold many informal question-and-answer sessions with the media, a town hall event, and prepare for at least five days before the debate. The Biden campaign hired Klain, Biden's former chief of staff, to assist him in debating Trump; Klain helped Biden during the 2020 presidential debates. White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed collected material on policy contrasts with Trump. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg reportedly had helped coach Biden in preparation for the debate. Biden engaged in preparations at Camp David, arriving on the night of June 20 and remaining there nearly until the debate. Biden was exhausted from traveling before the debate, needed to take naps during the debate preparations, and performed poorly during practice debates. Hunter Biden additionally suggested that President Biden's performance was hindered by using Ambien as a sleeping aid in the run-up to the debate.

According to political advisor Marc Lotter, Trump "views his rallies as debate prep" and engaged with limited debate preparation. The Trump campaign did not appoint a Biden stand-in for Trump to debate. At a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, Trump suggested Biden would be a formidable opponent, alleging Biden would be on cocaine and that the moderators would assist him.

Format

The debate was streamed or broadcast by most major U.S. news organizations. The debate ran for 90 minutes, with no audience members present. Trump's and Biden's microphones were only turned on when it was their turn to speak (in response to the events of the September 29, 2020 presidential debate). Debate rules written by CNN allocated two minutes for answering the question posed by the moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, and one minute for rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals. The primary issues addressed in the debate were immigration, the economy and inflation, abortion, foreign policy and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, legal issues of the participants, Social Security, the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the participants' ages.

Debate

Excluding the closing, the debate moderators asked 20 questions. Four questions centered on the economy, four on democracy, three on foreign policy, two on immigration, two on abortion, and one each on climate change, age, opioids, race, and tax reform.

Moderator Jake Tapper began the debate with inflation figures. Biden attributed the state of the economy to Trump's presidency. Trump rebutted by saying he built the "greatest economy in the history of our country" before the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump said that Biden supported the job growth of illegal immigrants, defending his ten percent tariff, and criticized the 2020–2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. He argued that Biden began his term with successes from the Trump presidency, but chose to implement negative reform.

Viewers were immediately chagrined by Biden's struggling delivery.https://apnews.com/article/voter-voices-presidential-debate-b220822262965fd3e48e1b47529fe983 In the assessment of Politico,

About an hour into the debate, Democratic operatives informed the media that Biden's hoarse voice was explained by a cold.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/biden-debate-performance-democrats-panic-rcna157279 According to the Columbia Journalism Review, "Some journalists wondered aloud why Biden's campaign hadn't leaked his cold beforehand as an expectation-management measure, though others weren't buying it as an explanation for his verbal shortcomings."https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/biden_trump_debate_cnn.php

At one point, after a question on the national debt, Biden trailed off, saying: "Making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to deal with ... the COVID ... Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with ... look ... if... we finally beat Medicare." Trump retorted, "Well, he's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death."https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/28/politics/key-lines-cnn-debate-what-matters Tapper later said he wrote "holy smokes" on his iPad after the answer, and Bash wrote a note to Tapper saying Biden had just lost the election.

On illegal border crossings, Biden said, "I'm going to continue to move until we get to total ban—on the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more border patrol and more asylum officers", with Biden seeming to mumble at the end of his sentence. Trump responded, "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either." At one point, Trump and Biden briefly had an argument over golfing abilities during a question regarding their fitness as president due to age.

Responding to a question on the Gaza war, Trump used the word "Palestinian" as a slur to attack Biden, calling him a "very bad Palestinian."

According to Tapper, he and Bash felt that Biden did not understand how bad his performance was after the debate ended.

Statistics and fact-checking

Trump spoke more than Biden in the debate, with CNN reporting the former to have spoken 40 minutes and 12 seconds, and the latter 35 minutes and 41 seconds. Trump went off topic about 50% of the time, while Biden went off topic about 30% of the time during the debate.

During the debate, Trump and Biden used personal attacks against each other. NBC News found that Trump made 106 attacks during the debate, while Biden made 72.

The moderators did not fact check the candidates. News organizations published articles after the debate documenting the truthfulness of the candidates' claims, finding that Trump made more exaggerated and false statements, while Biden had incorrectly cited information. The New York Times called Trump's statements "often fact-free and absurdly hyperbolic." However, some fact-checkers also noted that Trump's dishonesty was likely to be overshadowed by Biden's poor performance. Numerous news outlets also mentioned lies and falsehoods and fact-checked the candidates.

Glenn Kessler, fact-checker for The Washington Post, summarized "35 of the most noteworthy claims that initially caught our interest", claims which he analyzed in depth. FactCheck.org summarized its coverage of the many false and inaccurate claims made by the candidates, which were also analyzed. The Associated Press also analyzed a number of false claims.

Viewership NetworkViewers CNN 9,530,000 Fox News 9,276,000 ABC 9,210,000 NBC 5,390,000 CBS 5,011,000 MSNBC 4,122,000 Fox 3,677,000 Fox Business 397,000 Broadcast networks

Cable news networks

CNN reported that 47.9 million people watched the first debate, down from 73 million viewers during the first 2020 presidential debate. Nielsen Media Research later reported the number of viewers at 51.3 million; this does not include individuals who watched the debate through social media, streaming services, or listened through radio.

Reception and aftermath

Overview

In the aftermath of the debate, the Biden campaign was flooded with requests for comment. The Trump campaign received only a few media requests the next morning, as reporters continued focusing on Biden. "No one was more shocked at Biden's performance than Donald Trump", an advisor told the Washington Post. Trump reportedly told aides that he could not even look at Biden. Several political analysts, including Susan Glasser, Tim Miller and Jeff Greenfield, described it as the worst televised presidential debate ever, with Biden's weak performance overshadowing Trump's falsehoods. Several congressional Democrats thought that Biden "didn't even clear the lowest bar".