ATLANTA, June 27 (Reuters)i – President Joe Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance while his Republican rival Donald Trump battered him with a series of often false attacks at their debate on Thursday, as the two oldest presidential candidates ever exchanged personal insults ahead of the November election.

The two men traded barbs on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, their handling of the economy and even their golf games as they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months.

Biden’s allies tried to put a brave face on the evening, and two White House officials said Biden had a cold.

But the president’s poor performance rattled his fellow Democrats and will likely deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another four-year term.

One top Biden donor, who did not want to be identified while criticizing the president, called his performance “disqualifying” and said he expected a fresh round of calls for him to step aside ahead of the party’s national convention in August.

Vice President Kamala Harris, appearing on CNN after the debate, acknowledged what she called Biden’s “slow start” but argued that voters should judge him and Trump based on their years in office.

“I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I’ve been watching the last three-and-a-half years of performance,” she told CNN host Anderson Cooper.

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 over 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?”

Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of criticisms, many of which were well-worn falsehoods he has long repeated, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave, that Democrats support infanticide and that he actually won the 2020 election.

Biden and Trump, 78, were both under pressure to display their fitness for office. Biden has been dogged by questions about his age and sharpness, while Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and sprawling legal woes remain a vulnerability.

“Obviously, the biggest factor is that Biden still seemed old and raspy and less coherent than when he ran last time,” said Matt Grossmann, a political science professor at Michigan State University. “I don’t think Trump really did anything to help himself beyond his existing supporters, but I think it’s eclipsed by people’s impressions of Biden on his biggest vulnerability.”

Asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, the former president refused to accept any responsibility and claimed that many of those arrested were innocent.

“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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

NAME-CALLING

The televised 90-minute clash on CNN took 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.

The two men – who have made little secret of their mutual dislike – did not shake hands or acknowledge each other before or after the debate.

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.

The first question 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 U.S. Capitol.

Trump took the stage as a felon who still faces a trio of criminal cases, including for 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.

The second and final debate in this year’s campaign is scheduled for September.

See a Reuters photo slide show of previous debates.

Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president Thursday night in a lengthy speech that weaved in calls for unity but also featured claims that were misleading and false.

“Our crime rate is going up while crime statistics all over the world are plunging,” Trump told the crowd at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. “That’s because they’re delivering their murderers, drug dealers, terrorists and criminals of all shapes and forms into the United States.”

While people might feel like crime is going up, the statistics tell a different story. Violent crime has actually been on a downward trend over the last several decades, according to FBI data. The statistics show a 49% drop from 1993 to 2022. Furthermore, multiple studies have shown that undocumented immigrants are less likely to be arrested or convicted of crimes than U.S.-born citizens.

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The former president also made false claims about the economy.

“Under this administration, groceries are up 50%, gasoline is up 60%, mortgage rates have quadrupled, and you can’t get the money anyway,” Trump stated.

While prices are up, Trump exaggerated the increases. According to an analysis of government data, grocery prices are up about 20%, gasoline has climbed 46% and mortgage rates have doubled, not quadrupled.

Trump’s claim about giving Americans “the largest tax cut” was also false. Trump’s tax cuts rank as the eighth largest, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

In his speech, Trump also repeated false claims about the 2020 election.

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“We have people that are a lot less than fierce except when it comes to cheating on elections,” he said.

Multiple audits, recounts and lawsuits have revealed no evidence of election interference or major fraud in the election.

CNN’s fact-checking reporter Daniel Dale on Thursday debunked and corrected just some of the false claims made by former president and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump during his address at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Trump’s 92-minute speech was “remarkably long” and “remarkably dishonest,” Dale told anchor Jake Tapper.

Dale counted “at least 22 false claims from Donald Trump on first listen,” he said.

One of the “wildest” was about the state of the world when Trump was in office, said Dale, before explaining why Trump’s claims of global peace were far from the truth. Dale also busted Trump’s spin on crime, inflation, trade with China, gas prices and more.

“It just went on and on and on in terms of falsehood just like the speech went on and on and on itself,” he said.

Watch Dale’s full analysis here:

On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was engulfed in chaos as a mob stormed the building, leading to a tragic and historic event that left the nation and the world in shock. As the anniversary of that day approached, former President Donald Trump continued to cling to his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Reacting to President Joe Biden’s remarks that Trump’s falsehoods had fueled the riot, Trump issued a statement saying, “That’s what you get when you have a rigged Election.” Despite the assertions of widespread fraud, numerous investigations and court rulings have found no evidence to support these claims. Biden himself has emphasized that the 2020 election was the most scrutinized in American history.

Indeed, the aftermath of the election saw many states altering their voting procedures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an effort to make voting more accessible and safer, especially in the face of public health concerns, various states either expanded mail-in voting or relaxed the requirements for absentee ballots.

For instance, Kentucky, a state traditionally leaning towards the Republican side, saw its Republican Secretary of State and Democratic Governor working in unison to authorize no-excuse mail-in voting and early voting. This was not part of a partisan scheme but a pragmatic response to unprecedented times.

Similarly, Republican Trey Grayson, a former Secretary of State for Kentucky, remarked, “Changing election laws or policies to successfully conduct an election in the middle of a pandemic when those changes are authorized by law is not cheating.” He added that unauthorized changes, not those made through legal and public processes, would constitute cheating.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) noted numerous examples of state adaptations. In January 2020, sixteen states required voters to provide a reason for absentee voting. By the general election in November, fourteen of these states had altered their rules to make absentee voting more accessible.

Among these changes, California, Vermont, and the District of Columbia temporarily joined Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington in using primarily mail-in elections. Furthermore, drop boxes for mail ballots, which were previously scarce, became commonplace in forty states and Washington, D.C., ensuring that voters had more options to submit their ballots safely and conveniently.

Despite the clear benefits and legal grounding of these measures, Trump has continuously alleged that the Democrat Party used the pandemic to implement fraudulent voting. On multiple occasions throughout his 2024 campaign trail, Trump reiterated this claim, yet without substantial backing from evidence.

The AP Fact Checkers and multiple sources have consistently debunked these allegations. Comprehensive reviews of the voting process in several battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, revealed minimal instances of fraud—certainly not enough to affect the election outcome.

Rachel Orey, an elections expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center, explained that the changes made were necessary and lawful responses to an unprecedented global health crisis. These measures helped both Democrats and Republicans by providing a safe and accessible means for all citizens to exercise their right to vote.

Additionally, historical data supports the legitimacy of increased voter turnout. Voter participation in the 2020 election was the highest in over a century, which, according to the Census Bureau, saw over 66% of eligible voters casting their ballots. This significant turnout can be attributed to the efforts made to ensure voting was accessible during the pandemic.

It is also important to recognize the broader context of these allegations. To gain a more comprehensive understanding, it’s essential to highlight how different perspectives add depth to this ongoing narrative. For example, while some see the changes as necessary adaptations, others might view them with skepticism due to the high-stress environment and politically charged atmosphere surrounding the election. However, esteemed experts across the political spectrum argue that these were required to maintain electoral integrity in unprecedented times.

In a democracy, ensuring that every eligible voter can participate is paramount. While debates about election integrity will persist, it is crucial to remember that the bedrock of the American electoral system relies on fairness and transparency.

As the nation reflects on the events of January 6, it must also consider the importance of maintaining trust in the democratic process. Ironically, the very measures some claim undermined the election were instituted to preserve the health and safety of voters amidst a pandemic. However, the controversy has undoubtedly cast a shadow over American politics, highlighting the need for continuous dialogue on electoral reforms.

Joe Biden stated on the anniversary of the Capitol riot, “You can’t love your country only when you win.” His words serve as a poignant reminder that democracy thrives on the acceptance of outcomes and the continuous effort to uphold institutions that honor the voice of every citizen.