What happened in the first Biden-Trump debate of 2024 -- PBS News Special

Join Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennet as they host a post-debate discussion with Lisa Desjardins, Laura Barrón-López, Kevin Madden, Guy Cecil, and Amy Walter. Plus, reports from Pamela Kirkland of Georgia Public Broadcasting.

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Amna Nawaz : All right, after 90 minutes, that is now the end of the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle, a rematch between former President Trump and President Biden, the first time the two men have squared off face-to-face since the fall of 2020.

You’re watching PBS News coverage. Thanks for staying with us.

Geoff Bennett : Let’s bring in our panel now.

We’re joined in studio by White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez, political correspondent Lisa Desjardins, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter, Democratic strategist Guy Cecil, and Republican strategist Kevin McCarthy. And watching the debate in Atlanta, Georgia, is Pamela Kirkland of Georgia Public Broadcasting.

With a welcome to all of you, Laura, we will start with you, because Democrats were desperate for President Biden to put on a show of vitality and mental sharpness amid questions about his age. Your phone has been blowing up for the last hour-and-a-half, as you have been texting with your sources.

Laura Barron-Lopez : Yes.

Geoff Bennett : What’s the word from the campaign and the Democrats with whom you’re in contact?

Laura Barron-Lopez : Well, the Democrats that I have been in contact with were not necessarily happy with the president’s performance.

They at the beginning were really nervous, thought he didn’t — that he did not get off to a strong start. They felt as though he got a bit stronger as the night went on, a bit more clear, drew more contrasts as the night went on. And — but, again, they wanted him to be able to strike really strong contrast with Trump on immigration, on abortion, on January 6.

And a lot of the folks I talked to don’t feel as though he necessarily did that in a way that is going to reach the voters, either whether it’s motivating his base or also reach those independent moderate voters.

The campaign, on the other hand, a campaign source was texting me, saying that their internal polling — this is, of course, campaign polling — but their live internal polling, their — the dials as they were listening to voters as the debate was going on.

They said that internal polling showed that, when Trump personally attacked Biden, called him the worst president, or when Trump tried to talk about the suckers and losers comments, which he made regarding veterans, which his chief of staff, John Kelly, said that he said, that, when Trump tried to talk about that voters didn’t like Trump’s responses on those things, that they weren’t happy with that at all.

And that they also were not — voters turned against Trump when they heard him talking about January 6 and the exchange between Biden and Trump on January 6 and when President Biden called Trump a convicted felon. That also seemed to register poorly for Trump with those voters.

Amna Nawaz : And, Lisa, we know you have been covering the Trump campaign. Obviously, it’s the job of every campaign and surrogate to spin this in the best possible light for the candidate at the end of the debate.

But this was Mr. Trump’s first debate this cycle. He did not show up for any of the primary debates. For his first time out, what are you hearing from your sources about how they think he did?

Lisa DesJardins : Yes, neither man has debated really in four years.

But the Trump team, Republicans are declaring victory. They think this was a fantastic night for them. They wanted to see Joe Biden look like someone who had a hard time finding his words. And, in the beginning of the debate especially, that was the case.

I’m also hearing from Democratic sources, and especially House Democrats are in a very dark place right now. They are very concerned about what this means for them downballot. There is, I will say — in the ether, there are some even sort of raising this idea like, should this be our nominee?

Now, that’s — this is the worst moment. This is the worst moment. Is it realistic to think there’s actually going to be a change in nominee? I — no, I don’t think so. And Democratic leadership that I’m also texting with says, no, that’s ridiculous.

But that is how bad this moment is. Everyone’s saying, of course, that Biden did improve his performance over the course of this debate. But, right now, you have Democrats really struggling even to form kind of responses to me, some of them telling me like that they have tears in — they’re joking, but they say they have tears in their throats about this.

I’m also texting with some undecided voters who are saying so far this did not sway them all the way, but, universally, they’re texting me that this was a bad night for Biden and raised their doubts about him. So I’m waiting to see over the next minutes if any of them come to a conclusion, but even — those undecided voters, who are the most important ones, also spot what Democrats and Republicans are telling us.

Amna Nawaz : Amy, pick up on what we just heard from Lisa and Laura there.

Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report : This is — yes.

Amna Nawaz : Your takeaways after what we just saw, especially knowing the discontent with both candidates going into the debate. What did you take away from what you just saw?

Amy Walter : So, for the folks that we call the double haters, the people that say they dislike both candidates, I don’t think they’re going to walk away saying, you know what, I made up my mind, I like this candidate better than the other one.

They’re still going to walk away saying, these two candidates, I still don’t find acceptable.

The problem for Biden from this — from this debate — and Lisa really hit it on the head, the freak-out, the collective freak-out from Democrats is at the highest level you can imagine. The response tomorrow is going to be very important to watch, especially from Democratic leaders, about what happens next.

Remember, we do not have — he is not officially the nominee until the convention in August. So there will be conversations about this. But I think this is the problem for Biden. It’s not that — where the double haters or the undecided voters go. It’s that the base itself, the donors, the folks who are downballot, as Lisa pointed out, who — those are the ones who now are depressed and anxious.

And that is not helpful for you this close to an election.

Geoff Bennett : What about that, Guy?

Because we should remember it was the Biden campaign that wanted this debate and all but dared Donald Trump to participate because they wanted to draw the contrasts, as Laura said, and they wanted to litigate the case, as they see it, against Donald Trump.

In hindsight, was that the right approach? I mean, rate what you saw based in terms of style and policy points.

Guy Cecil, Democratic Strategist : Yes.

Well, I’m reminded that there was a conversation a lot like this in 2012. during President Obama’s first debate, and a lot of Democrats concerned about his performance on the first debate, a lot of coverage about presidents who go into the first debate.

There’s no question that Joe Biden started out slow. The rasp certainly didn’t help. Apparently, he’s overcoming a cold.

I think there are two things, though, that I took from this debate. Number one, he got better as he went on. And, number two, it really was a different type of debate without any real-time fact-checking. And you saw that when he said things like he lowered the price of insulin.

But, also, there’s a bit of a double standard here. We had a former president say that, when he was president, he had H2O, that his solution to the addiction crisis was that they bought a brand-new dog that can really do some amazing things.

And I think the most important thing for Biden coming out of this was his comments essentially defending the January 6 defendants. And I think that’s something you will see the Biden folks repeatedly say over and over.

But there’s no question that, in total, I think Biden probably won policy. But in terms of presentation, it was certainly a rough start.

Geoff Bennett : Kevin, I want to get your reaction to what you saw today. And on the issues, this is all unfolding amid an intense national debate over abortion access.

We heard Donald Trump say that he personally is for exceptions, but that it should be left up to the states. He says that he personally supports access to mifepristone. Is that a winning argument right now for Republicans, generally speaking?

Kevin Madden, Republican Strategist : Well, look, I think first, overall, on the debate, these things are at their core performances.

And the voters at home judge them on presence, energy, command. And in that regard, this was a blowout. I think, as you start to drill down and you start to see like, OK, where did some of the candidates make up some ground on some of the issues, look, on abortion, I think the — President Biden was pretty solid.

He made his points. Trump made his points. But I don’t think that that’s going to be what people take away or remember from this debate. I think that’s largely going to be litigated on the ground by a lot of activists that are going to be out there trying to meet as many voters as possible out on the in the districts and the counties that really are going to matter.

But, overall, I think the biggest takeaway from this debate was the sort of enthusiasm that President Biden needed to get from his base activists, right now, a lot of those activists might not show up tomorrow. Right now, the phone banks might be harder to staff.

And that’s a huge, huge problem at this juncture in the campaign. So I think that’s one of the things that I’m looking for in the next couple of weeks is, how does the Biden campaign recalibrate and try to recover from this and start to use issues like abortion to their advantage in driving that base turnout that they’re going to need in some of these battleground states?

Amna Nawaz : Let’s turn now to Pamela Kirkland from Georgia Public Broadcasting. She’s joining us from Atlanta. She’s been watching the debate with us in real time, and I understand, Pam, talking to voters there as well.

Georgia is obviously a critical state, one of about six or seven battlegrounds that we’re following. Obviously, President Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes back in 2020. What are you hearing from folks on the ground about what they were expecting going into the debate and what they took away?

Pamela Kirkland, Georgia Public Broadcasting : Yes, Amna, if there’s anything that the past few days have shown me going to campaign events here in Georgia, it’s been that both campaigns, the Trump and Biden campaign, are committed to making inroads here in the state.

In the run-up to the debate, the Biden campaign held over 200 events, some of them small-scale events like barbecues, a couple debate watch parties, some events with campaign surrogates. The Trump campaign didn’t hold quite that many, but they did hold an event yesterday at a barbershop in Atlanta geared toward Black voters that I did attend.

Now that the debate’s over, what we’re waiting to see is whether or not it moved the needle for some of these undecided voters here in Georgia. We spoke with a lot of people at these campaign events who had already made up their mind for the most part. They know who they’re voting for in November.

But my colleague Sarah Kallis was actually at an event yesterday where both campaigns were represented, speaking with undecided voters, who said that they were tuning into the debate tonight specifically to see what the candidates were going to say on certain issues that were top of mind for them and if it was going to be enough for them to make a decision.

So far, I have not heard from anyone that has said that this debate has swayed them one way or another. But what I do know is that some of the issues that we have heard from Georgia voters that they want to know more about, they want more coverage around are things like abortion to access, things like — access to abortion, rather — things like the economy, as well as political division and democracy.

So we’re still waiting to see if this debate did indeed move the needle. But I think what is apparent is that, at least for both campaigns, they know that Georgia is going to be critical when it comes to determining who’s going to be the next president of the United States.

Amna Nawaz : It is indeed. We will be following your reporting as well.

Pamela Kirkland from Georgia Public Broadcasting joining us tonight.

Pam, good to see you. Thank you.

Geoff Bennett : Laura Barron-Lopez, I want to pick up on a point that Kevin made about the Biden campaign aiming to recalibrate now.

I’m reminded of what Vice President Kamala Harris said a few months back. She said, in her view, their main competition wasn’t Donald Trump. It was, in her words, the couch, meaning voters staying at home because they were apathetic, indifferent, not enthusiastic about this race.

What does that look like in a real way for the Biden campaign now to make an overt appeal to base voters, to the winning coalition from 2020?

Laura Barron-Lopez : Well, I think assuming that the Democratic freak-out is one that is temporary — I mean, if it’s lasting, and the questions about whether or not President Biden stays in the race become real — I don’t think they will.

But I think the way that President Biden does that is that he gets surrogates out there with him, younger surrogates, surrogates like Wes Moore, who are about to hit the trail, the governor of Maryland about to hit the trail for him in Wisconsin.

He gets Republicans out there, former Republican lawmakers, who have been talking to the campaign saying that they want to hit the trail for President Biden very soon in those swing states, to talk to the double haters, to talk to the Nikki Haley voters, because they think that they would be good at creating a permission structure.

And I think voters want to see President Biden out there on the trail as well. That’s what voters say. That’s also what the campaign thinks that they’re going to be doing, which is that they want to — he’s going to be out there in North Carolina, a state that the campaign, Biden’s campaign, thinks is maybe gettable, even though it isn’t necessarily one — considered one of the true battlegrounds this year.

He’s going to be there, President Biden, with the first lady tomorrow. So I think that it’s going to have to be a full-court press across the battleground states, as well as really activating the grassroots, in terms of the abortion initiatives in battlegrounds, like Arizona and Nevada, where we think we will see it on the ballot.

Geoff Bennett : Lisa, there was something that happened at the end of the debate that really struck me.

President — former President Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the election. He did not explicitly answer. He was asked a second time, and he pivoted to something else entirely.

Lisa DesJardins : Russia.

Geoff Bennett : Russia.

Lisa DesJardins : Yes.

Geoff Bennett : He was asked a third time, and then he said the 2020 election was stolen.

What does that portend for November?

Lisa DesJardins : He’s clearly setting up a situation where he can lose and still win, which we saw last time was and is and remains dangerous.

The 2020 election was proven to be one of the least fraudulent in American — there’s no evidence that there was any level of fraud. In fact, the AP found something like under 500 cases across the entire country of fraudulent votes. So you’re right. That’s something we have to watch.

As to the battleground states, I think it’s important to note where President Trump is going tomorrow, which is Chesapeake, Virginia. And what this debate does is, it adds some backbone to what seemed like sort of exuberant claims by the former president that he was going to grow the map, he was going to compete in places like Virginia, places like Minnesota, which sounded like you’re just trying to get the Democrats to spend money there.

This adds a little bit of wind to those sails. And it’s very smart timing for his staff to be going to Virginia tomorrow.

Amna Nawaz : Amy, what about that? You think the map does change coming out of this somewhat?

Amy Walter : Well, the question really to me is whether you’re going to see — well, let me put it this way. The map, I think, has changed.

This debate was going to — for the Biden campaign was theoretically going to get the map back to where they wanted it to be, because, essentially, if you look at where this race sits right now, Biden needs to move the numbers in his direction.

Where it sits today, Donald Trump is doing about five points better than he did in 2020. So, essentially, what we’re seeing in polling, whether it’s in Virginia or New Hampshire or Minnesota, is Biden’s doing five points worse, where Donald Trump’s doing five points better than he did in 2020. That makes a state like Virginia that he won, Biden won by 10 points, now more like a four-or-five point race.

It’s closer. And while I don’t believe that right now a state like Virginia flips, what it does say is that Trump is the one on the offense. Trump is the one that is able to expand the map. And it’s the Biden team — and we have been hearing this from Democrats for a while. The Biden team is really now focused on this tiny, tiny map of, well, we can lose those states in the Sun Belt, as long as we win Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Lisa DesJardins : But it does matter for Congress. That’s a congressional race in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Amna Nawaz : That’s right, and the downballot consequences are real.

Amy Walter : Well, the downballot is a whole other matter.

Amna Nawaz : That’s a whole ‘nother conversation for another time as well.

Amna Nawaz : But, Guy, I have to get your take on this. Do you think there will be another debate?

Guy Cecil : I do.

Amna Nawaz : Yes?

Guy Cecil : I do.

I don’t think there’s a change in the map, by the way.

Amna Nawaz : OK.

Guy Cecil : I think the map that we had last time is the map we’re probably going to have this time.

And I just want to go back to one thing. I do think, look, we can lob criticisms. Biden got out off to a slow start. He was inartful in wording at the beginning. He had a raspy voice.

I don’t want to gloss over that we had a former president of the United States defend people that attacked the Capitol, lied about his own lawsuits, and then on top of that said he would not commit to accepting the results of the election.

So — so, yes, would I prefer a stronger performance? Obviously so. Would I prefer a president that’s not a serial liar, who has 36 felony convictions, and defends the attack on the United States Capitol that put lives in danger? I think the case there is much stronger — is a much stronger one.

Amna Nawaz : A few seconds left, Kevin.

Those remain weaknesses, right?

Kevin Madden : We saw the last presidential debate of 2024. I don’t think there’s going to be another one after this.

Amna Nawaz : You think that…

Geoff Bennett : So, we may or may not see you back here in September.

Kevin Madden : It’s been great being with you all.

Amna Nawaz : Well, it has been wonderful having you all here. To all of you at home, thank you for joining us.

That concludes our special coverage of the first presidential debate of 2024. Thank you to all of our guests here in studio. Thank you to all of you.

And you can always find continuing coverage on our Web site any time, including fact-checking, at PBS.org/NewsHour.

Geoff Bennett : And be sure to join us tomorrow night on the “News Hour,” as we further explore the impact of the debate on the 2024 presidential race.

I’m Geoff Bennett.

Amna Nawaz : And I’m Amna Nawaz.

Thank you for joining us.