PHOENIX (AP) — They passed on a handshake at the start, and from there President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump went right to mixing it up on policy — and each other — in their first 2024 presidential debate on Thursday night.
Personal animosity between the two men was palpable as they argued, sometimes in deeply personal terms, over abortion, the economy, age, the criminal convictions of Trump and Biden’s son Hunter, and even their mettle on the golf course.
Biden arrived with a raspy voice and spoke softly, the result, his campaign said, of a cold. Biden sometimes mumbled, got tongue-tied or lost his train of thought, a performance unlikely to calm anxiety among Democrats and many Americans about the 81-year-old president.
The 78-year-old Trump, as he often does, spoke with force but with plenty of falsehoods.
Some key moments from their 90-minute debate.
Trump and Biden went after each other throughout the debate.
Trump twice cited Hunter Biden, who was convicted this month on three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018 while he allegedly was addicted to drugs. Trump, who last month became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes, labeled the president’s son a “convicted felon.”
Biden referenced Trump’s own criminal convictions, saying he had had “sex with a porn star” while his wife was pregnant, which Trump denied. Biden also said Trump had been found civilly liable for “molesting a woman in public.”
Biden was referring to actor Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had sex with Trump in 2006, a claim that precipitated a $130,000 hush money payment weeks before the 2016 election, and to writer E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump sexually abused her in a New York department store.
Biden's claim that Melania Trump was pregnant during Trump's alleged affair with Daniels was wrong. Barron Trump was born in March 2006. Daniels said she had sex with Trump in July 2006.
“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden charged.
More than 80 minutes into the debate, Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, were asked about their age and ability to serve well into their 80s.
Biden spotlighted a litany of policy achievements and said Trump is "three years younger and a lot less competent.” Biden also used the answer to slap at Trump for bad-mouthing the United States.
“The idea that we are some kind of failing country? I’ve never heard a president talk like that before,” Biden said.
In his retort, Trump said he was in as good a shape as he was 25 years ago and perhaps “even a little bit lighter.” He said he's “aced” cognitive tests.
Though the men are not far apart in age, more voters worry that Biden is too old.
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say they are “very concerned” that Biden is too old to be president, according to Gallup data collected in June. Only 18% had the same level of concern about Trump.
With a hoarse voice, Biden was difficult to hear and understand from his first remarks, and his verbal miscues continued throughout.
Biden lost his train of thought while trying to make a point about tax rates and the number of billionaires in America. He trailed off and looked down before mumbling about COVID-19 and saying something to the effect that “we finally beat Medicare.”
When he tried to come back to finish his point, moderator Jake Tapper cut him off because his time was up.
Trump quickly interjected: “He’s right he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”
During a response to a question about abortion, Biden mentioned, seemingly out of nowhere, a young woman who was recently murdered by an immigrant — an apparent reference to a 12-year-old Houston girl who was strangled to death, allegedly by two Venezuelan men who entered the country illegally. The connection to abortion was unclear.
He also stumbled while delivering his prepared closing statement.
Trump lied about his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol, and tried to deflect by pivoting to other issues.
Pressed on his role, he said he encouraged people to act “peacefully and patriotically,” then changed the subject to launch an attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
He said Biden ought to “be ashamed” for the way the Jan. 6 defendants have been handled.
Trump, who has floated the idea of pardons for the rioters, suggested his supporters who stormed the Capitol were actually peaceful and are now being politically persecuted.
In fact, the rioters engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police and used makeshift weapons to attack officers. More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal offenses stemming from the riot, and more than 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.
“The only person who’s on this stage that’s a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now” Biden said of his rival.
Trump was asked three times, but he never directly affirmed that he would accept the election results, no matter who wins.
Several times Trump noted that he would accept the results “if it’s a fair and legal and good election” but he would not give a yes or no answer.
Biden was not buying it, saying, “I doubt whether you'll accept it; you're such a whiner.”
Trump did denounce political violence as “totally unacceptable” — even as he minimized the conduct of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Biden blamed Trump for eroding abortion rights after the Republican's three nominees to the Supreme Court voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, which had recognized a nationwide constitutional right to abortion. The reversal has energized many voters who support abortion rights and it helped power Democratic victories in the 2022 midterms and special elections.
“It’s been a terrible thing what you’ve done,” Biden said, turning to his rival. He pledged to restore the law under Roe if given a second term but didn’t say how he’d accomplish that. He said the idea of turning abortion laws back to states “is like saying we’re going to turn civil rights back to the states.”
Trump said his presidency returned the issue of abortion to the people through state laws. He said he supports abortion ban exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, and he repeated his false claim that Biden supports abortion up to and after birth.
“We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans,” Trump said.
Between debating the nation’s biggest problems, Biden and Trump also argued about their golf game.
Trump bragged about winning two golf tournaments recently, “and not even senior, two regular club championships.” He said the feat requires a golfer to be “quite smart” and able to hit the ball a long way.
Biden said he’d happily take on Trump in a driving contest, bragging he got his handicap “down to a six” when he was vice president.
“I’m happy to play golf with you if you carry your own bag,” Biden said to Trump. “Think you can do it?”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, gestures during a presidential debate with President Joe Biden, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
President Joe Biden speaks during a presidential debate with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Seen through a beer glass, patrons look on during a watch party of the presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at Old Louisville Tavern on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Beginning Monday, a California law will require credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard to provide banks with special retail codes that can be assigned to gun stores in order to track their sales.
But new laws will do the exact opposite in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming by banning the use of specific gun shop codes.
The conflicting laws highlight what has quietly emerged as one of the nation's newest gun policy debates, dividing state capitols along familiar partisan lines.
Some Democratic lawmakers and gun-control activists hope the new retail tracking code will help financial institutions flag suspicious gun-related purchases for law enforcement agencies, potentially averting mass shootings and other crimes. Lawmakers in Colorado and New York have followed California's lead.
“The merchant category code is the first step in the banking system saying, `Enough! We’re putting our foot down,'” said Hudson Munoz, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Guns Down America. "`You cannot use our system to facilitate gun crimes.’”
But many Republican lawmakers and gun-rights advocates fear the retail code could lead to unwarranted suspicion of gun buyers who have done nothing wrong. Over the past 16 months, 17 states with GOP-led legislatures have passed measures prohibiting a firearms store code or limiting its use.
“We view this as a first step by gun-control supporters to restrict the lawful commerce in firearms,” said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry group that backs laws blocking use of the tracking code.
The new laws add to the wide national divide on gun policy. This past week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis, citing a rising number of firearm-related deaths, including more than 48,000 in 2022. The move was quickly criticized by the National Rifle Association.
States have dug opposing trench lines on other gun policies. On July 4, for example, Republican-led Louisiana will become the 29th state to allow residents to carry concealed guns without a permit.
By contrast, Democratic-led New Mexico this year tightened laws for people who don't have concealed-carry permits, requiring a seven-day waiting period for gun purchases, which is more than double the three-day period for a federal background check.
States also have responded differently to recent mass shootings. In Maine, where an Army reservist killed 18 people and wounded 13 others, the Democratic-led Legislature passed a variety of new gun restrictions. Following school shootings in Iowa and Tennessee, the Republican-led legislatures there took steps that could allow more trained teachers to bring guns into classrooms.
The surge of legislation targeting firearm store category codes addresses a behind-the-scenes aspect of electronic financial transactions. The International Organization for Standardization, based in Geneva, sets thousands of voluntary standards for various fields, including category codes for all kinds of businesses, from bakeries to boat dealers to bookstores.
Those category lists are distributed by credit card networks to banks, which assign particular codes to businesses whose accounts they handle. Some credit card issuers use the category codes for customer reward points.
The codes can be used by financial institutions to help identify fraud, money laundering or unusual purchasing patterns that are reported as suspicious activities to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Banks and other depository institutions filed more than 1.8 million confidential reports in 2022 flagging more than 5.1 million suspicious activities. About 4% of annual reports lead to follow-up by law enforcement and an even smaller percentage to prosecution, according to the Bank Policy Institute, a trade group representing large banks.
Stores that sell guns have previously been grouped with other retailers in merchant category codes. Some have been classified as sporting goods stores, others as miscellaneous and specialty retail shops.
At the urging of New York-based Amalgamated Bank, which worked with gun-control groups, the International Organization for Standardization adopted a new four-digit category code for gun and ammunition shops in 2022. Major credit card networks initially said they would implement it but backed off under pressure from conservative politicians and the gun industry.
Munoz, who helped lead the effort to establish the firearms store code, noted credit cards were used to buy weapons and ammunition for some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings.
The intent of a gun merchant code is to spot suspicious patterns, like a person with little history of gun purchases who suddenly spends large amounts at multiple gun stores in a short period. Once alerted by banks, authorities could investigate, potentially thwarting a mass shooting, Munoz said.
California's new law requires credit card networks to make the firearms code available to banks and other financial institutions by Monday. Those entities then have several months to determine which of their business clients should be categorized as gun stores and assign them new codes by May 1.
Visa, the nation's largest payment network, recently updated its merchant data manual to add the firearms code to comply with California's law.
Democratic-led legislatures in Colorado and New York this year also passed firearms code mandates aligned to kick in with California's next May.
“If there was someone suspiciously purchasing a large number of firearms, right now it would be very difficult to tell," said California state Assemblymember Phil Ting, a Democrat who sponsored the new law. “You couldn’t tell if they were soccer balls or golf balls or basketballs."
Even with a firearms store code, it won't be possible to know whether a particular sale is for a rifle, storage safe or some other product such as hunting apparel.
The state laws prohibiting gun store codes have varying effective dates but typically allow state attorneys general to seek court injunctions against financial institutions using the codes, with potential fines reaching thousands of dollars.
The merchant code could lead more people to buy guns with cash instead of credit in order to protect their privacy, said Dan Eldridge, owner of Maxon Shooter’s Supplies in suburban Chicago. Though his business has yet to be recategorized, Eldridge said he already has placed an ATM in his store.
“Viewed most benignly, this code is an effort to stigmatize gun owners," Eldridge said. "But a more worrisome concern is that this is another private sector end run around the prohibition against the federal government creating a gun registry.”
Iowa state Sen. Jason Schultz, a Republican sponsor of legislation banning the firearms code, said he feared federal agents could gain access to data about gun store purchases from financial institutions, then use that as justification to raid gun owners' homes and infringe on their Second Amendment rights.
“States are going to have to make a choice," he said, "whether they want to follow California or whether they’d like to support the original intent of the U.S. Constitution.”
Guns for sale are displayed at Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., Tuesday, June 25, 2024. A new national divide is emerging among states over whether to track sales by gun stores. A California law taking effect Monday will require credit card networks to provide banks with special retail codes to assign to gun stores. By contrast, new laws taking effect in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming will prohibit the use of special gun shop codes in financial transactions. A total of 17 states have passed some sort of limit on category codes for gun retailers, while California has been joined by Colorado and New York. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Maxon Shooter's Supplies owner Dan Eldridge poses in his store in Des Plaines, Ill., Tuesday, June 25, 2024. A new national divide is emerging among states over whether to track sales by gun stores. A California law taking effect Monday will require credit card networks to provide banks with special retail codes to assign to gun stores. By contrast, new laws taking effect in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming will prohibit the use of special gun shop codes in financial transactions. A total of 17 states have passed some sort of limit on category codes for gun retailers, while California has been joined by Colorado and New York. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Guns for sale are displayed at Maxon Shooter's Supplies in Des Plaines, Ill., Tuesday, June 25, 2024. A new national divide is emerging among states over whether to track sales by gun stores. A California law taking effect Monday will require credit card networks to provide banks with special retail codes to assign to gun stores. By contrast, new laws taking effect in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming will prohibit the use of special gun shop codes in financial transactions. A total of 17 states have passed some sort of limit on category codes for gun retailers, while California has been joined by Colorado and New York. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
Maxon Shooter's Supplies owner Dan Eldridge poses in his store in Des Plaines, Ill., Tuesday, June 25, 2024. A new national divide is emerging among states over whether to track sales by gun stores. A California law taking effect Monday will require credit card networks to provide banks with special retail codes to assign to gun stores. By contrast, new laws taking effect in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming will prohibit the use of special gun shop codes in financial transactions. A total of 17 states have passed some sort of limit on category codes for gun retailers, while California has been joined by Colorado and New York. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)
