Joe Biden Stumbles During Debate: Six Moments That Hurt the President

The first of this year’s scheduled debates between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump ended with the incumbent president facing heavy criticism for a series of shaky moments.

Biden and Trump faced off in Atlanta for an audience-free studio debate hosted by CNN on Thursday night. While Democrats and Republicans predictably offered different takes on both candidates and the lasting impact of the debate remains to be seen, Biden’s unsteady performance had seemingly raised the most eyebrows when the debate concluded.

Here are six debate moments that may have hurt the president’s hopes of reelection.

A Rocky Start

Biden’s troubles began almost immediately, with the president’s hoarse and raspy voice quickly triggering questions about his physical health. As has been the case in a number of other recent public appearances, Biden could also be heard clearing his throat frequently throughout the debate.

In a post to X, formerly Twitter, political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz said that a focus group of undecided voters with whom he watched the debate were “surprised and concerned about Biden’s voice,” while adding that “this doesn’t bode well for questions about his health.”

A Biden aide later told Newsweek that the president was battling a cold during the debate.

‘A Thousand Trillionaires’

At the beginning of a particularly rough sequence for Biden, the president claimed that the U.S. had “a thousand trillionaires” before quickly correcting himself to say “billionaires.” The moment came while Biden was discussing Trump’s economic policies, which he said “benefited the very wealthy.”

“What I’m going to do is fix the tax system. For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America,” Biden said before clearing his throat. “I mean, a thousand billionaires.”

While the moment may have been a relatively minor verbal gaffe, Biden opponents may consider it evidence of alleged cognitive decline, which has been an increasingly frequent criticism as the election approaches.

Defeating Medicare

In what may have been the single most damaging moment of the night for the president, Biden seemed to completely lose his train of thought as he was discussing plans to spend money saved by reversing Trump-era tax cuts.

“We’d be able to wipe out [Trump’s] debt,” Biden said. “We’d be able to help make sure all those things we need to do: child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system.”

“Making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the … with the COVID, excuse me, with um, dealing with everything we have to with, uh …” he continued. “Look, if we finally beat Medicare …”

Moderator Jake Tapper then cut off Biden seemingly mid-sentence, saying, “thank you, President Biden” before turning to Trump, who responding by saying that Biden “did beat Medicare … He beat it to death, and he’s destroying Medicare.”

Immigration Confusion

While defending his record on immigration, Biden delivered a sentence that was confusing enough to prompt Trump to claim that neither man could decipher it.

“Since, I’ve changed the law, what’s happened? I’ve changed it in a way that now, you’re in a situation where there are 40 percent fewer people coming across the border illegally, it’s better than when [Trump] left office,” the president said.

“And I’m going to continue to move it until we get the total ban on … the total initiative relative to what we’re going to do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers.”

Trump responded with the following: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Paris Peace Accords

Biden appeared to briefly confuse the Paris Climate Accords, an international agreement meant to combat climate change, with the Paris Peace Accords, an agreement that marked the end of the Vietnam War.

“He hasn’t done a damn thing for the environment,” Biden said of Trump. “He pulled out of the Paris Peace Accords … uh, Climate Accord.”

Although it was another relatively minor gaffe, Trump supporters quickly pounced on social media.

“Biden just confused the Paris Climate Accord with the peace treaty that ended the Vietnam War 52 years ago,” Turning Point USA found Charlie Kirk wrote on X.

A Stuttering Closing Statement

After a rocky start and several gaffes during the debate, Biden appeared to stutter and at times have difficulty speaking while delivering his closing statement.

The RNC Research X account highlighted a 13-second clip of the 2-minute statement, featuring Biden stuttering while accusing Trump of planning to “get rid of” the ability to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.

“He wants to get away with, get re … rid of the ability of Medicare to, for the ability for the us to be able to negotiate drug prices with the Big Pharma companies,” Biden says in the clip.

While the president has had a well-documented stutter for most of his life, Republicans claimed that the moment was evidence the president is not “playing with a full deck.”

“Biden ends his disastrous and humiliating debate performance just as he began— rambling incoherently,” the RNC Research account wrote. “He’s not only not playing with a full deck—he can’t even find the deck. SAD!”

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Biden campaign via email on Thursday night.