Transcripts For MSNBCW First 20240628

Now to tonights debate between President Biden and former President Trump. Each will make his bed to the American People with just under four months before election day. Good evening. I am dana bash. I am jake tapper, lead an anchor of the state of the union. Dan and i will coanchor the state of the union. Our job is to facilitate a debate between the two candidates tonight. Before we introduce them, we want to show the rules of the debate with the audience at home. Former President Trump will be on the left side of the screen. President biden will be appearing on the right. A coin toss determined their positions. Each candidate will have two minutes to answer a question in one minute each for response and rebuttal. An additional minute for follow up clarification or response is that the moderators discretion. When it is time for candidate to speak, his microphone will be turned on and his opponents microphone will be turned off. Should a candidate interrupt when his microphone is viewed of muted, he will be difficult to understand for viewers at home. At the end of the debate each candidate will get two minutes for closing statements. There is no studio audience tonight. Prewritten props, notes or contact with Campaign Staff is not permitted during the debate. By accepting our invitation to debate, both candidates and their campaigns agreed to accept these rules. Now, please welcome the 46th president of the United States, joe biden. How are you . Great to be here, thank you. And, please welcome the 45th president of the United States, donald trump. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. Lets begin the debate and lets start with the issue voters consistently say is their top concern, the economy. President biden, inflation has slowed, but prices remain high. Since you took office, the price of essentials has increased. For example, a basket of groceries that cost 100 then now costs more than 120 and typical home prices have jumped more than 30 . What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump . You have to take a look at what i was left with when i became president. We had economy in freefall, the pandemic was so badly handled many people were dying and all he said is that it was not that serious. Just inject a little bleach in your arm. The economy collapsed. There were no jobs. The Unemployment Rate rose to 15 . It was terrible so what we had to do was try to put things back together again. That is exactly what we begin to do. We created 15,000 new jobs. We have 800,000 manufacturing jobs but there is more to be done. Workingclass people are still in trouble. I come from scranton, pennsylvania in a household where the Kitchen Table, the price of eggs, the price of gas, the price of housing, the price of a range of things. Thats why im working so hard to make sure i deal with those problems and we are going to make sure to reduce the price of housing. Were going to make sure we build new units. Were going to make sure we cap rents is a corporate greed cant take over. The combination of corporate greed is why we are in this problem right now. In addition to that we are in a situation where if you had to take a look at all that was done in his administration, he did not do much at all. By the time he left, things were in chaos, literally chaos and so we put things back together. We created jobs. We made sure we had a situation for we brought down the price of prescription drugs, major issue for many people. 15 for an insulin shot as opposed to 400. Morse no senior has to pay more than 200 for any drug. The situation is that we are going to make that available to everybody so we are working to bring down the prices around the Kitchen Table and that is what we are going to get done. Thank you. President trump. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country and we have never done so well. Everybody was amazed by it. Other countries are copying us. We got hit with covid and when we did, we spent the money necessary so we would not end up in the Great Depression the likes of which we had in 1929. By the time we finished we did a great job, we got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military and the words and so many other things. Everything was good but the thing we never got the credit for and we should have is getting us out of that covid mess. He created mandates that was a disaster for our country but other than that, we had given them back country where the stock market actually was higher than precovid and nobody thought that was even possible. The only jobs he created are for Illegal Immigrants and bounce back jobs to bounce back from the covid. He is not done a good job. Hes done a poor job in inflation is killing our country. It is absolutely killing us. Thank you. President biden. The greatest economy in the world, hes the only one who thinks that, i think. I dont know anyone who thinks we had the greatest economy in the world. The fact of the matter is we found ourselves in a situation where his economy he rewarded the wealthy. He had the largest tax cut in american history, 2 trillion dollars. He made the deficit larger than any president has. Hes the only president other than Herbert Hoover who lost more jobs than he had when he began. The idea that he did something that was significant in the military you know, when he was president , they were still killing people in afghanistan. He did nothing about that. When he was president we still found ourselves in a position where you had a notion that we were the safe country. The truth is, im the only president the century, this decade that does not have any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did. President trump, i want to follow up if i can. Im going to ask you a follow up. You want to impose a 10 tariff on all goods coming into the u. S. How will you ensure that does not drive prices even higher . Its not going to drive them higher. Its just going to cost countries that have been ripping us off for years, its going to force them to pay us a lot of money, reduce our deficit and give us a lot of power for other things but he made a statement the only thing he was right about is i give you the largest tax cut in history. I also give you the largest regulation cut in history. That is why we had all the jobs and the jobs went down and then they bounced back and hes taking credit for bounce back jobs. You cant do that. He also said he inherited 9 inflation. No, he inherited almost no inflation and it stayed that way for 14 months then blew up under his leadership because they spent money like a bunch of people that didnt know what they were doing and they dont know what they were doing. It was probably the Worst Administration in history. As far as afghanistan is concerned, i was getting out of afghanistan but we were getting out with dignity, with strength, with power. He got out it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our countrys life. President trump, over the last eight years under both of your administrations, the National Debt soared to record highs and according to a new nonpartisan analysis, your administration included 8. 4 trillion in National Debt while so far President Biden has approved 4. 3 million in National Debt so President Trump, many of the tax cuts you signed into law are set to expire next year. You want to extend them and go even further with the u. S. Facing trillion dollar deficits, why should top earners and corporations pay even less in taxes than they do now . Because the tax cuts spread the greatest economy weve ever seen just prior to covid and even after covid it was so strong we were able to get to through covid much better than almost any other country. When we cut the taxes, as an example, the corporate taxes cut down to 21 from 39 plus beyond that we took in more revenue with much less tax and companies were bringing back trillions of dollars into our country. The country was going like never before and we were ready to start paying down debt. We were ready to start using the liquid gold right under our feet, the oil and gas right under our feet. We were going to have something nobody else has had. We got hit with covid. We did a lot to fix it. I gave him an unbelievable situation with all of the therapeutics and all of the things we came up with. We gave him something great. Remember, more people died under his Administration Even though we had largely fixed it. More people died under his administration and our administration and we were right in the middle of it, something a lot of people dont like to talk about but we had formal people dying in his administration. He did the mandate, which was a disaster, mandating it. When heat the vaccine without he did a mandate on the vaccine which is the thing people most objected to about the vaccine and he did a very poor job, just a very poor job and i will tell you not only for their but throughout the entire world we are no longer respected as a country. They dont respect our leadership. They dont respect the United States anymore. We are like a third world between weaponization of his election trying to go after his political opponent, all of the things he is done, weve become like a third world nation and its a shame. The damage he has done to our country and i would love to ask him and will, why he allowed millions of people to come and hear from prisons, jails and mental institutions to come into our country and destroy our country. President trump, we will get to immigration later in this block. President biden, i want to give you an opportunity to respond to the question about the largest National Debt. He had the largest National Debt of any president in a four year period. He had 1 trillion tax cut that benefited the very wealthy. What im going to do is fix the tax system. We have 1000 billionaires in america and what is happening, they are in a situation where they dont pay 8. 2 in taxes. If they just paid 24 or 25 , that is 500 billion dollars in a 10 year period, we would be able to wipe out his debt and be able to help make sure all those things we need to do child care, elder care, making sure we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure we are able to make every single, solitary person knowledgeable from what ive been able to do with the covid, excuse me, with dealing with everything we had to do with look. We finally beat medicare. Thank you, President Biden. President trump. Is right. He did beat medicaid, beat it to death and hes destroying medicare because all of these people are coming in. Theyre putting them on medicare, putting them on Social Security. Theyre going to destroy Social Security. This man is going to single handedly destroy Social Security. These millions of people coming in, theyre trying to put them on Social Security. He will wipe out Social Security, wipeout medicare, so he was right in the way he finish that sentence and it is a shame. What has happened to our country in the last four years is not to be believed. In Foreign Countries im friends with a lot of people. They cannot believe what happened to the United States of america. We are no longer respected. They dont like us. We give them everything they wanted they think we are very stupid people, what we are doing for other countries and they do nothing for us, what this man has done is absolutely criminal. Thank you, President Trump. This is the first president ial election since the Supreme Court overturned roe v. Wade. This morning, the court ruled on yet another Abortion Case temporarily allowing emergency abortions to continue in idaho, despite that states restrictive ban. Former President Trump, you take credit for the decision to overturn roe v. Wade which returns the issue of abortion to the states. However, the federal government still plays a role in whether or not women have access to abortion pills. They are used in about two thirds of all abortions. As president , would you block abortion medication . First of all, the Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill, and i agree with their decision to have done that and i will not block it and if you look at this whole question that you are asking, the complex but not really complex 51 years ago we had roe v. Wade and everybody wanted to get back to the states, everybody without exception, democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives. Everybody wanted it back, religious leaders and what i did is i put three great Supreme Court justices on the court and they have to vote in favor of killing roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted. 10 years ago or so they started talking about how many weeks and how many this and getting into other things but every legal scholar throughout the world, the most respected, wanted it back to the states. I did that. Now the states are working it out. If you look at ohio it was a decision, it was an end result that was a little bit more liberal than you wouldve thought. Kansas, i would say the same thing in texas is different. Florida is different but theyre all making their own decisions right now and right now, the states control it. That is the vote of the people like ronald reagan, i believe in the exceptions. I am a person that believes and frankly, i think it is important to believe in the exceptions. Some people, you have to follow your heart. Some people dont believe in that but i believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the matter. The problem they have is they are radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month and ninth month and even after birth. After birth if you look at the former governor of virginia, he was willing to do this. He said we will put the baby aside and we will determine what to do with the baby meaning we will kill the baby. What happened is we brought it back to the states in the country is now coming together on this issue. It has been a great thing. Thank you. President biden. Its been a terrible thing, what youve done. The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported road when it was decided. That is this idea that they were all against it is ridiculous and this is a guy who says the state should be able to have for in six weeks you dont even know if youre pregnant or not but you cant see a doctor and have him decide on your do circumstances. The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying we are going to turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule. There are so many young women who have been including the young woman who just was murdered and he went to the funeral and the idea that she was murdered by an immigrant command to talk about that but heres the deal. There are a lot more young women facing rape by their inlaws, their spouses, brothers and sisters. Its ridiculous and they can do nothing about it and they try to arrest him and across the state line. Thank you. There have been many young women murdered by the same people he allows to come across our border. We have a border that is the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, consider the most dangerous place anywhere in the world and he opened it up and these colors are coming into our country and they are raping and killing women and its a terrible thing. States are voting and in many cases its a frankly very liberal decision and in many cases its the opposite but they are voting and its bringing it back to the vote of the people which is what everybody wanted, including the founders if they knew about this issue which frankly they did not but everybody wanted it brought back. Ronald ragan wanted it brought back. He was unable to get it. Everybody wanted it brought back in many president s have tried to get it back. I was the one to do it on again, this gives it the vote of the people and thats where they wanted it. Every legal scholar wanted it that way. Staying on the topic of abortion, President Biden, seven states have no legal restrictions on how far into her pregnancy a woman can obtain an abortion. Do you support any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to terminate pregnancy . I supported roe v. Wade which said three trimesters. The first time is between a woman and the doctor. The second time his pain between the doctor and an extreme situation. A third time is between the woman and the state. The idea that the politicians, that the founders want the politicians to be the one making decisions about a Womans Health is ridiculous. No politician should be making that decision. The doctor should be making that decision. If i am elected im going to restore roe v. Wade. So that means he can take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth because some states, democrat run, take it after birth. Again, the former governor of virginia put the baby down then we decide what to do with it. So, he is willing to come as we say, ripped the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby. Nobody wants that to happen. Democrat or republican, nobody wants it to happen. That is simply not true. Roe v. Wade does not provide for that. That is not the circumstance. When a womans life is in danger, shes going to die, that is the only circumstance where that can happen but we are not for lateterm abortion, period. And roe v. Wade you have lateterm abortion. You can do whatever you want depending on the state you can do whatever you want. We dont think thats a good thing. We think its a radical thing. We think the democrats are the radicals, not the republicans. For 51 years, that was the law. 51 years constitutional scholarships said it was the right way to go. 51 years and was taken away because this guy put conservative members on the Supreme Court and he takes credit for taking it away. What is he going to do if he gets elected and the mega republicans control the congress and they pass a universal band on abortion. Back across the board at six weeks or seven or eight or 10 weeks, something very conservative. Is he going to sign that bill . I will veto it. He will sign it. Lets turn now to the immigration of border security, President Biden, Record Number of migrants have illegally crossed the southern border on your watch, overwhelming border states and overburdening cities such as new york and chicago and in some cases, causing safety and security concerns. Why should voters trust you to solve this crisis . We worked very hard to get a bipartisan agreement to not only change all of that, but make sure we arent in a situation where you have no circumstance where they can come across the border with the number of Border Police there are now. We have significantly increased the number of asylum officers. By the way, Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position. In addition to that we found ourselves in a situation where when he was president he was taking babies away from their mothers and putting them in cages, making sure families were separated. That is not the right way to go. I have change the law. I have changed it in a way that now you are in a situation where there are 40 fewer people coming across the border. Its better than when he left office and im going to continue to move it until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what were going to do with more Border Patrol and asylum officers. President trump. I really dont know what he said at the end of that sentence. I dont think he knows what he said either. We have the safest border in the history of our country. All you had to do was leave it. He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons. People that are from mental institutions, insane asylums, terrorists. We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now. All terrorists all over the world not just in south america, all over the world. They come from the middle east everywhere, all over the world they are pouring in and this guy just left it open and he did not need legislation because i didnt have legislation. I said close the border. We have the safest border in history and that final couple of months of my presidency, we had according to Border Patrol, who is great and by the way who endorsed me for president but i wont say that they endorsed me for president random to speak to them but we had the safest border in history. Now, we have the worst border in history. Theres never been anything like it and people are dying all over the place including the people President Biden. The only terrorist to have done anything across the border is one that came along and killed three american soldiers and has a ministration. That is the only terrorist effect. Im not saying no terrorist ever got through but the idea they are emptying their prisons and we are welcoming these people simply not true. There is no data to support what he said once again he is exaggerating. He is lying. President trump, staying on the topic of immigration, he said youre going to carry out quote, the largest domestic deportation operation in american history. Does that mean you will report every undocumented immigrant in america including those who have jobs, including those his spouses are citizens and including those who have lived here for decades, and if so, how will you do it . Just one second. He said we killed three people. The people we cared were el baghdadi and soleimani, the two biggest terrorists anywhere in the world and had a huge impact on everything. He is the one that killed people with a bad border including hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they come in. We are living right now in a rats nest. They are killing our people in new york, california, in every state in the union because we dont have orders anymore. Every state is now a border and because of his ridiculous, insane and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they are killing our citizens at a level that weve never we call it migrant crime. I call it biden migrant crime. There killing our citizens at a level that weve never seen before and you are reading it like these three incredible young girls over the last few days, one of them i just spoke to the mother, and they just have the funeral for this girl, 12 years old. This is horrible what is taking place. What is taking place in our country, we are literally an uncivilized country now. He doesnt want it to be. He just doesnt know. He opened the borders. Nobody has ever seen anything and we have to get a lot of these people out and we have to get them out fast because theyre going to destroy our country. Take a look at where their living. They are living in Luxury Hotels in new york city and other places. Our veterans are on the street dying because he doesnt care about our veterans. He doesnt care, he doesnt like the military at all and he doesnt care about our veterans. I have the highest Approval Rating for veterans taking care of the va. He has the worst. Hes gotten rid of all the things i approved that i got through congress, all of the Different Things i approved, they abandoned. We have by far the highest and now it is down to less than half because he is done all these great things that we did and i think he did it just because i approved it, which is crazy. But, he is killed 70 people at our border. Thank you, President Trump. President biden, you have the mic. Every single thing you said is a lie, every single one. For example, veterans are a hell of a lot better off since i passed the p. A. C. T. Act. They now have insurance and their families have it in their families have it because whether it was agent orange or burn pits, theyre all being covered now. His Group Opposed to that. We are also in a situation where we have Great Respect for veterans. My son spent a year in iraq next one of those burn pits and came back with stage four glioblastoma. I was recently in france for d day and i spoke to all about those heroes who died. I went to the world were two cemetery, world war i cemetery he refused to go to. He was standing with a four star general and said i dont want to go in there because theyre a bunch of losers and suckers. My son was not a loser or a sucker. You are the sucker, you are the loser. President trump. First of all, that was a made up quote, suckers and losers. They made it up. It was in a thirdrate magazine that is failing, like many of these magazines. We had 19 people that said i didnt say it and think of this, who would say im at a cemetery or im talking about our veterans because nobody is taking better care im so glad this came up and he brought it up. There is nobody that is taken better care of our soldiers than i have. To think that i would in front of generals and others say suckers and losers, we have 19 people that said it was never said by me. It was made up by him just like russia was made up, just like the 51 intelligence agents are made up, just like the new thing with the 16 economists are talking. Its the same thing. 51 intelligence agents said that the laptop was russian disinformation. It wasnt. That came from his son, hunter. It was not russian disinformation. He made up the suckers and losers so he should apologize to me right now. The fourstar general was on your staff who said you started , period. That is number one and number two, the idea that i have to apologize to you for anything along the lines weve done more for veterans than any president has in american history, and their families. The only sacred obligation we have is a countries to care for our veterans when they come home and their families and equipment when they go to war. That is what we are doing. That is what the va are doing now, more for veterans than ever before in our history. Lets move to the top of the foreign policy. I want to begin with russias war against ukraine, which is now in its third year. Former President Trump, russian president Vladimir Putin said he will only end this war if russia keeps the ukrainian territory that is already claimed and ukraine abandons its bid to join nato. Are putins terms acceptable to you . First of all, our veterans and our soldiers cant stand this guy. They cant stand him. They think he is the worst commanderinchief if thats what you call him that weve ever had. They cant stand him so lets get that straight and they like me more than just about any of them and that is based on every single bit of information. As far as russia and ukraine, if we had a real president , the president that was respected by putin, he wouldve never he wouldve never invaded ukraine. A lot of people are dead right now, much more than people know, you know, they talk about numbers. You can double as numbers, maybe triple those numbers. He did nothing to stop it. In fact i think he encouraged russia from going in. He was so bad with afghanistan, it was such a horrible embarrassment, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country that when putin watched that and he saw the incompetence that he shouldve fired those journals like i fired the one that you mentioned and so hes got no love lost, but he shouldve fired those generals. The general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, afghanistan, when we left billions of dollars of equipment behind, we lost 13 beautiful soldiers and 38 soldiers were obliterated and by the way, we left people behind, too. We left american citizens behind. When putin saw that he said you know what . I think were going to go in and maybe take my this was his dream. I talked to him about it. The difference is he never wouldve invaded ukraine, never , just like israel wouldve never been invaded in 1 million years by hamas. You know why . Because i ran was broke with me. I would not let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They had no money for hamas, no money for terror. That is why you had no terror at all during my administration. This place, the whole world is blowing up under him. President biden. Never hurts so much malarkey in my whole life. The fact of the matter is that we are in a situation where lets take the last point first. Iran attacked american troops, caused brain damage for a number of these troops and he did nothing about it. When he was president they attacked he said theyre just having headaches, thats all it is but he didnt do a thing when they attacked the place, number one. Number two, we got over 100,000 americans and others out of afghanistan during that airlift. Number three, we found ourselves in a situation where if you take a look at what trump did and ukraine, this guy told trump do whatever you want , and do whatever you want and that is exactly what trump did to encourage putin. Do whatever you want. Listen to what he said when he went in. Youre going to take even five days because its part of the old soviet union. That is what he wanted to re establish, cave, and he did not do it at all. He was not able to get it done and they have lost thousands of troops, 500,000 troops. President trump, for one minute i want to go back to my original question, which is, are putins terms acceptable to you . No, theyre not acceptable but look, this is a war that never shouldve started. If we had a leader in this war he let everybody along. Hes given 200 million now or more to ukraine. Hes given 200 billion. Thats a lot of money. I dont think theres ever been anything like it. Every time zelenskyy comes in this country he walks away with 60 billion. Hes the greatest solo salesman ever and im not knocking him. Im only saying the money we are spending on this war, and we shouldnt be spending it shouldve never happened. I will have that were settled between putin and zelenskyy as president elect before i take office on january 20th. I will have that were settled. People being killed so needlessly, so stupidly and i will get it settled and i will get it settled fast before i take office. President biden, you have one minute. The fact is that putin is a war criminal. He has killed thousands of people and has made one thing clear. He wants to reestablish what was part of the soviet empire, not just a piece. He wants all of ukraine. That is what he wants and do you think he will stop there . Do you think he will stop if he takes ukraine . What do you think happens to pull in, what you think happens to those nato countries and so if you want to work, find out what is going to do because if in fact he does what he says and walks away by the way, all that money we give ukraine and weapons we make here in the United States we give them the weapons, not the money at this point in our nato allies have produced as much funding for ukraine as we have. That is why we are strong. Moving on to the middle east, and october, hamas attacked israel killing more than 1000 people and taken hundreds of hostages. Among those held and thought to still be alive or five americans. Israels response has killed thousands of palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis in gaza. President biden, you have put forward a proposal to resolve this conflict, but so far, hamas is not released the remaining hostages and israel is continuing its military offensive in gaza, so what additional leverage will you use to get hamas and israel to end the war . You have two minutes. Number one, everyone from the United Nations Security Council straight through to the g7 to the israelis and netanyahu himself have endorsed the plan i put forward. There are three stages to it. The first stage is trade the hostages for a ceasefire. The second phase is a cease fire with additional conditions. The third phase is no the end of the war. The only one who wants the war to continue is hamas, number one. They are the only ones still pushing hard to get them to accept. In the meantime, in israel, the only thing i have denied israel was 2000 pound bombs. They dont work very well and populated areas. They kill a lot of innocent people. Weve provided israel all the weapons they need and when they need them and by the way, i am the guy who organize the world against iran when they had a fullblown Intercontinental Ballistic Missile attack on israel. No one was hurt. No one was accidentally killed and it stopped. We saved israel. We are the biggest producer of support for israel of anyone in the world and so those are two Different Things. Hamas cannot be allowed to continue. We continue to send our experts and our intelligence people to how they can get hamas like we did bin laden. By the way, they have greatly weakened hamas, greatly weakened them and they should be, they should be eliminated but you have to be careful about using certain weapons among population centers. Lets go back to ukraine for one second. We have an ocean separating us. The european nations together have spent 100 billion or maybe more than that, less than us. Why doesnt he call them and say youve got to put up your money like i did with nato . I got them to put up hundreds of billions of dollars. The secretarygeneral of nato said trump did the most incredible job ive ever seen. They were going out of business. We were spending almost 100 of the money that was paid by us. He didnt do that. Hes getting all youve got to ask these people to put up the money. We are over 100 billion more spent in as a bigger impact on them because of location because we have a notion. Youve got to ask him as far as israel and hamas, israel is the one that wants to go. He said the only one that wants to keep going. Actually, israel is the one you should let them go and let them finish the job. He doesnt want to do it. He has become like a palestinian but they dont like him because he is a very bad palestinian. Ive never heard so much foolishness. This is a guy that wants to get out of nato. You going to stay in nato are you going to pull out of nato . The idea that our strength lies in our alliances, as well, there may be a big ocean but if we are able to avoid a major war in europe, what happens if in fact you have putin continue to go into nato . We have an article five agreement. An attack on one is an attack on all. They want to start a nuclear war he keeps talking about go ahead, let putin go in and control ukraine then move on to poland and other places and see what happens then. He has no idea what he is talking about and by the way, i have 50 other nations around the world to support ukraine including japan and south korea, because they understand this kind of dislocation has a serious threat to world peace. The major war in europe has ever been able to be contained just to europe. Just a followup, President Trump, would you support the creation of an independent palestinian state in order to achieve peace in the region . I would have to see but before we do that the problem we have is that we spend all the money so they kill us on trade. I made great trade deals with the european nations because if you add them up there about the same size economically. Their economies are about the same size as the United States and no cars, they dont want anything we have but we are supposed to take their cars, their food, their agriculture. I changed that but the big thing attains does that they dont want to pay and the only reason he can play games with nato was because i got them to put up hundreds of billions of dollars. I said, and he is right about this, i said no. Im not going to support nato if you dont pay. They asked me that question. Would you guard us against russia in a very secret meeting of the 28 states at that time, nations at the time they said no, if you dont pay, i wont do that and you know what happened . Billions and billions of dollars came flowing in the next day and the next months, but now we are in the same position. We are paying. Lets turn to the issue of democracy. Former President Trump, i want to ask you about january 620 21 after you rallied your supporters that day, some of them stormed the capital to stop the constitutionally mandated counting of electoral votes. As president , you swore an oath to quote, preserve, protect and defend,end quote, the constitution. What do you say to voters who believe you violated that oath to your actions and inaction on january 6th and worry you will do it again. I dont think too many believe that and on january 6th we had a great order. Nobody coming through, very few. On january 6th we were energy independent. On january 6th we have the lowest taxes ever. We have the lowest regulations ever. On january 6 we were respected all over the world, all over the world we were respected and then he comes in and we are now left at. We are like a bunch of stupid people that would happen to the United Statess reputation under this mans leadership is horrible including weaponization which im sure at some point you will be talking about where he goes after his political opponent because you cant be him fair and square. You have 80 seconds left. My question was, what you say to those voters who believe you violated your constitutional oath through your actions and in action on january 26, 2021. Well, i didnt say that to anybody. I said peacefully and patriotically in nancy pelosi if you just watch those from two days ago on tape to her daughter who is a documentary filmmaker, they say, she is saying oh no, its my responsibility, i was responsible for this because i offered her 10,000 soldiers were National Guard and she turned them down and in writing, by the way, the mayor in writing turned down, the mayor of d. C. They turned it down. I offense offered 10,000. I had nothing to do. They asked me to go make a speech. I could see what was happening. I said you know what, thats a lot of people coming. You could feel it. You could feel it, too. I said that i have some National Guard or whatever and they offered it to her and she now admits that she turned it down and it was the same day she was i dont know, you can be very happy with her daughter because it made her into a liar, she said i take full responsibility for january 6. President biden. Look, he encouraged those folks to go to the capital. I sat in the dining room off the oval office. He sat there for three hours watching, begging, being begged by his Vice President and a number of his colleagues to do something, to call for a stop, to end it. Instead he talked about these people being patriots. In fact, he says he will not forgive them for what they have done. Theyve been convicted, he says he wants to commute their sentences but no, he went to every single court in the nation. I dont know how many cases, scores of cases including the Supreme Court and they said no, this guy is responsible for doing what was done. He did not do a thing and these people should be in jail and they should be held accountable and he wants to let them all out and now he says if he loses again, such a whiner that he is that there would be a bloodbath. Thank you, President Biden. President trump . What theyve done to some people who are so innocent you ought to be ashamed of yourself what you have done how youve destroyed the lives of so many people when they ripped down portland, when they ripped down many other cities you go to minnesota, minneapolis, what theyve done there with the fires all over the city, if i didnt bring in the National Guard that city wouldve been destroyed. When you look at all of it they took over big chunks of seattle. I was all set to bring in the National Guard. They heard that, they saw them coming and they left immediately. What he said about this whole subject is so off, peacefully patriotic. One other thing, the Unselect Committee which is basically two horrible republicans that are all gone now out of office and democrats, all democrats, they destroyed and deleted all of the information they found because they found out we were right. We were right and they deleted and destroyed all of the information. They should go to jail for that. If a republican did that they would go to jail. President biden, i want to give you one minute. The only person on the stage was a convicted felon is the man im looking at right now the fact of the matter is, what he is telling you is simply not true. The fact is that there was no effort on his part to stop what was going on and all of those people, everyone of those who was convicted deserved to be convicted. The idea that they didnt kill Somebody Just went in and broke down doors and broke the windows, occupied offices, turned over desks, turned over statues, the idea that those people are patriots come on. When i asked him in the first of the two debates we had the first time around, i said will you denounce the proud boys . He said no, i will tell them to stand by. The idea he is refusing to denounce these guys, denounce the people we are talking about now and denounce the people who attack the capital, what are you going to do . Im going to give you a minute, President Trump for a followup question i have. After a jury convicted you of 34 felonies last month, you said if reelected he would quote, have every right to go afterend quote, your political opponents. You just talked about members of the select committee on january 6 going to jail. Your main political opponent is standing on stage with you tonight. Can you clarify what it means about you feeling you have every right to go after your political opponents . When i said my retribution is going to be success. We are going to make this country successful again. My retribution is going to be success but when he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon at a very high level. His son is probably going to be convicted numerous other times. The Justice Department let the statute of limitations slaps on the most important things but he could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office. Joe could be a convicted felon with all of the things he has done. All of the death caused at the border, telling the ukrainian people we are going to want 1 billion or you change the prosecutor otherwise youre not getting 1 billion. If i ever said that, that is quid pro quo that we are not going to do anything. Were not going to give you 1 billion unless you change the prosecutor having to do with your son. This man is a criminal. This man youre lucky. Youre lucky. I did nothing wrong we have a system that is rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong. President biden, you have said you want to respond, go ahead. The idea that i did anything wrong relative to what youre talking about is outrageous. It is simply a lie, number one. Number two, the idea that you have a right to seek retribution against any american just because your president is simply wrong. No president has ever spoken like that before. No president in our history is spoken like that before. Number three, the crimes you are still charged with think of all the Civil Penalties you have. How many billions of dollars do you owe in Civil Penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star while youre not wife was pregnant. What are you talking about . You have the morals of an alley cat. I did not have sex with a porn star. Number two, that was a case that was started and moved, they moved a highranking official, a doj into the manhattan d. A. S office to start that case. That case is going to be appealed and won. We had a very terrible judge, horrible judge democrat , the prosecutor were all high ranking democrats appointed people and both the civil and criminal, he basically went after his political opponent because he thought it was going to damage me but when the public found out about these cases because they understand it better than he does, but when they found out about these cases do know what they did . My poll numbers went way up. You know that because you are reporting it and we took in more money in the last two weeks than we have ever taken in in the history of any campaign, i dont think any campaign has ever taken hundreds of millions of dollars came pouring in because the public knows its a scam and its a guy that is after his political opponent because he cant win fair and square. President biden, you of said quote, donald trump and his mag republicans are determined to destroy american democracy. Do you believe that the tens of millions of americans who are likely to vote for President Trump will be voting against american democracy . The more they know about what he is done, yes. The more they know about what he has done. He has a lot of cases down the road coming up. He has a range of charges to face. I dont know what the juries will do but i do know he has a real problem and so the fact that did you ever think you would hear a president say that im going to seek retribution . Did you ever hear a president say i thought i had some good ideas . What got me to run in the first place after my son had a died, i said after rock i wasnt going to run again until i saw what happened in virginia, people coming out of the woods carrying swastikas and torches and is singing the same anti semitic bile they sang back in germany, and when the young woman got killed i spoke to the mother and said what you think of those people, the people who got killed, the one who tried to stop it in the one who said i think there are fine people on both sides, what american president , whatever say coming out of fields carrying purchase seeming sing in the same antisemitic bile carrying swastikas are fine people. This is guy who says hitler has done some good things. I would like to know what they are. This guy has no sense of american democracy. Jake, both of you know that story has been totally wiped out because when you et cetera hundred percent exoneration on there so he just keeps it going. He says he ran because of charlottesville but he ran because it was his last chance. Hes not equipped to be president. You know it and i know it. Its ridiculous we have a debate we are trying to justify his presidency. His presidency, without question, the worst president , the worst presidency in the history of our country. We should not be having a debate about it. Theres nothing to debate. He made up the charlottesville story and youll see this debunked all over the place. Every anchor, every reasonable anger has debunked it and just the other day it came out where it was fully debunked. Its a nonsense story. He knows that and he did not run because of charlottesville. He used that as an excuse to run. It happen. All you have to do is listen to what we said at the time, and the idea that somehow that is the only reason i ran i ran because i was worried a guy like this could get elected. If you thought there were good people coming out of that forest carrying those torches then he did not deserve to be president , did not deserve to be president at all on the idea that he is talking about all of this being fabricated we saw it with our own eyes. We saw what happened on january 6. We saw the people breaking windows and occupying. His own Vice President. There is a reason why 40 of his 44 top cabinet officers refused to endorse him this time. His Vice President has not endorsed him this time, so why . They know him well. They served with him. Why are they not endorsing him. Thank you. We are going to be right back with more from the cnn president ial debate. From the cn president ial debate. We knew this was going to be a debate like no other. To stay with us right after for reaction at and analysis here at msnbc. Choose advil liquigels for faster, stronger and longerlasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. 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Black mothers are still three times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes and black americans are imprisoned at five times the rate of white americans. What do you say to black voters who are disappointed that you have not made more progress . We made a lot of progress, number one. The fact of the matter is, there are more small black businesses that have been started at any time in history. Number two, black and employment is the lowest level is been in a long time. Number three, we are finding housing for black americans and dealing with the segregation that exists to keep people out of houses. In addition to that, we find that the impact of the choice that black families have to make relative to childcare is incredibly difficult. We did the first major piece of legislation that passed. I was able to reduce black child care costs, cut them in half, in half. Weve got to make sure we provide for child care costs. When you provide those childcare protections, to increase Economic Growth because more people can be in the job market, so there is more to be done, considerably more to be done but weve done a great deal so far and im not letting up, and they know it. You have 49 seconds left. What do you say to black voters who are disappointed with the progress so far . I say i dont blame them for being disappointed. Inflation is still hurting them badly. For example, i provided for the idea that any black family firsttime homebuyer should get a 10,000 tax credit to be able to buy their first home so they can get started. I made sure we are in a situation where all those black families and those black individuals that had to take out Student Loans that were ballooning, that if they were engaged in nursing, or anything having to do with volunteerism if they paid their bills for 10 years on their student debt, all the rest is forgiven after 10 years. Millions of benefited from that and we are going to do a lot more for black families. Thank you. President trump. And he caused the inflation. His blaming inflation in his right as been very bad. He caused the inflation and it is killing black and has fast hispanic families, just about everybody. You look at the cost of food where it has doubled and tripled and quadrupled, and they cant live. They are not living anymore. Because this inflation. I gave him a country with no essentially no inflation. It was perfect. It was so good all you had to do is leave it alone. He destroyed it with his scam and all this money being thrown out the window. He caused inflation as sure as you are sitting there. The fact is that his big kill on the black people is the millions of people hes allowed to come in through the border. Theyre taking black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 Million People. Theyre taking black jobs and taking hispanic jobs and you have not seen it yet, but you are going to see something thats going to be the worst in our history. Thank you. President biden. There was no inflation when i became president. You know why . The economy was flat on its back. 50 unemployment. He decimated the economy. That is why there was no inflation at the time. There were no jobs. I provided thousands of jobs for individuals including minority communities. We made sure they have health insurance. I made sure there was 8000 per person in the family to get written off from healthcare but this guy wants to eliminate that. He wants to get rid of the aca again and they are going to try again if they win. We find ourselves in a position where the idea that we are not doing ive put more police on the street than any administration has. He wants to cut the cops providing for equity and making sure people have a shot to make it. There is a lot going on, but inflation, he caused it by his tremendous malfeasance in the way he handled the pandemic. Thank you. Another persistent challenges the Climate Crisis. 2023 was the hottest year in recorded communities across the country, extreme heat, intensifying wildfires, starter hurricanes and rising sea levels. Former President Trump, you have vowed to end your opponents climate initiatives, but will you take any action as president to slow the Climate Crisis . Let me just go back to what he said about the police, how close the police are to him. Almost every police group in the nation from every status supporting donald j. Trump, almost every police group and what he has done to the black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them super predators in the 1990s. We cant forget that. Super predators was his name and he called it to them and theyve taken great offense at it but when they see what i did for criminal Justice Reform and for the historically black colleges and universities where i funded them and got them all funded and the opportunity zones with tim scott, as you know, tim scott was incredible. He did a great job, great senator from south carolina. He came to me with the idea and it was a great idea. One of the most Successful Economic Development acts ever in the country. Opportunity zones and the biggest beneficiaries are blacks and that is why we have the best numbers with the maybe ever. The best numbers. He is lost much of the black population because it done a horrible job for black people. He is also did a horrible job for hispanics but wait till you see these millions of people pouring into our country and theyre going to take the jobs and it has already started and you havent seen anything yet. Its a disaster. You have 38 seconds left, President Trump, will you take any action as president to slow the Climate Crisis . I want absolutely immaculate clean water and i want absolutely clean air and we had it. We had h2o. We had the best numbers ever and we did we were using all forms of energy, all forms, everything and yet during my four years i had the best environmental numbers ever in my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before i walked on the stage actually. I dont know where the hell he has been. The idea that anything he said is true. I passed the most extensive Climate Change legislation in history, in history. By the way, black colleges i came up with 50 million for historic black colleges because they dont have the kind of contributors they had to build these laboratories and the like. Any black student is capable of college and doing what any white student can do. He has to be able to get those jobs in high tech. We are in a situation where the idea that hes claiming to have done something to have the cleanest water . He hasnt done a thing for the environment. He pulled out of the paris climate accord. I immediately joined it. The only existential threat to humanity is Climate Change and he did not do a thing about it and wants to undo all that i have done. The paris accord was going to cost us 1 trillion in china nothing and russia nothing and india are nothing. It was a ripoff of the United States, and i ended it because i did not want to waste that money because they treat us horribly. It was costing us money. Nobody else was paying into it and it was a disaster. Everything that he said just now, i will give you an example i heard him say before insulin. Im the one who got the insulin down for the seniors. I took care of the seniors. What he is doing is destroying all of her medical programs because the migrants coming in, they want everybody a lot, i have the biggest heart on the stage, i guarantee you that and i want to take care of people but we are destroying our country. Theyre taking over our schools, or hospitals in the going to be taking over Social Security. He is destroying Social Security, medicare, and medicaid. The idea is that we in fact were the only ones of consequence. We are not. We are not members of the paris accord. How can we do anything if the United States cant get its polluters under control. We are making significant progress. By 2035 we will have cut pollution in half. We have made significant progress and we continue to make progress. We set up the climate accord for thousands of young people to learn how to deal with this just like the peace corps and we are moving in directions that are going to significantly change the cause of pollution but the idea that he claims that he has the biggest heart appear and is really concerned about pollution and about climate i have not seen any indication of that and by the way, with regard to prescription drugs, one company agreed they would reduce the price to 35, which i was calling for voluntarily. I made sure every company in the world, every Pharmaceutical Company [ inaudible ] every day millions of americans struggle to make ends meet. For many older americans, Social Security provides a critical lifeline. President biden, if nothing is done to Social Security, seniors will see their benefits cut in just over 10 years. Will you name tonight one specific step youre willing to take to keep Social Security solvent . Yes, make the very wealthy begin to pay their fair share. Right now everybody making under hundred and 70,000 pay 6 of their income every single time they get a paycheck from the first on the get when theyre 18 years old. The idea im proposing that everybody elses millionaires pay 1 . That would not raise the cost of Social Security for anybody under 400,000. After that i would begin to make the wealthy pay their fair share by increasing from 1 to be able to guarantee the program for life. You still have 82 seconds left. Are there any other measures you think would be able to help keep Social Security solvent or is that one enough . That one enough will keep us solvent but the biggest thing i will do, if we defeat this man, because he wants to get rid of Social Security, he wants to cut Social Security and medicare both times and if you look at the program put forward by the House Republican caucus that he supports his in fact wanting to cut it, as well. The idea that we dont need to protect our seniors is ridiculous. And by the way, the American Public has greater healthcare Coverage Today than ever before and as i said, 40 Million People would not have insurance because of a previous condition. What allows them to have that insurance is the fact they are part of the aca and by the way, the other thing is were in a situation where we talk about education for black communities, ive raised the amount of money for pell grants another 8000 for anybody making under 70,000 a year to be able to put 15,000 toward their tuition. He just doesnt know what hes talking about. Thank you, President Biden. President trump. Ive dealt with politicians. All my life ive been on the side of the equation for the last eight years. I have never seen anybody lie like this guy. He lies ive never seen he can look you in the face about so many other things, too and we mentioned the laptop, we mentioned russia, ukraine. Everything he does is a lie. It is misinformation and disinformation. The losers and suckers story that he made up is a total lie on the military. Its a disgrace but Social Security, he is destroying it because millions of people are pouring into our country and theyre putting them on to Social Security. Theyre putting them onto medicare and medicaid. Theyre putting them in or hospitals. They are taking the place of our citizens. What theyre doing to the va to our veterans is unbelievable. Our veterans are living in the street and these people are living in Luxury Hotels. He does not know what hes doing and it is really coming back. Ive never seen such anger in our country before. The idea veterans are not being taken care of i told you before by the way when i said suckers and losers, he said he acknowledged after that he fired that general. That general got fired because hes the one that acknowledged that is what he said. He was the one standing with trump when he said it number one. Number two, the idea that we are going to be in a situation where all these millions and millions he talks about illegally leans coming into the country and taking away our jobs, there is a reason why we have the Fastest Growing economy in the world, the reason why we have the most successful economy in the world, we are doing better than any other nation in the world and by the way, those 15 Nobel Laureates he talked about being phony, those 15 Nobel Laureate economist also that if trump is reelected we are likely to have a recession and inflation is going to go up and by the way, worst president in history, 159 president ial scholars quoted on the worst president in the history of the United States of america. Lets turn to the cost of childcare which Many American families struggle to afford. Former President Trump, both you and President Biden have tried to address this issue but the average cost of child care in this country is risen to more than 11,000 per year per child for many families. The cost of childcare for two children is more than the rent. In your second term, what would you do to make childcare more affordable . Just to go back, the general got fired because he was no good, and if he said that, thats why he made it up. We have 19 people that said i didnt say it in there very highly respected, much more so than him. The other thing is he doesnt fire people. He never fired people. Ive never seen them fire anybody. I did fire a lot. I fired a lot of the top people in the fbi drained the swamp they were no good. Not easy to fire people. You pay a price for it but they were no good. I inherited these people. I didnt put call me there. This guy didnt fire anybody. He never fires he shouldve fired every military man that was involved with that afghan the afghanistan horror show, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. Did you fire anybody . Did you fire anybody that is on the border that has allowed us to have the worst order in the history of the world . Did anybody get fired for allowing 18 Million People, many from prisons, many from mental institutions, did you fire anybody that allowed our country to be destroyed . Joe, our country is being destroyed is you and i sit up here and waste a lot of time with this debate. This should not be a debate. He is the worst president. He just said about me because i said it but look, hes the worst president in the history of our country. He is destroying our country. Now all of a sudden is trying to get a little tough on the border, he came out with a nothing deal and it reduced it a little bit, like this much. Its insignificant. He wants open borders. He wants our country to either be destroyed or he wants to pick up this people as voters and i dont think we just cant let it happen. If you once the selection our country doesnt have a chance, not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably wont have a country left anymore. That is how bad it is. He is the worst in history by far. President biden. We are the most admired country in the world. We of the United States of america. There is nothing beyond their map capacity. We have the finest military in the history of the world. No one thinks we are weak, no one wants to screw around with us, nobody. Number one. Number two, the idea that we are talking about worst president s, i wasnt joking. Go online. Hundred and 59 president ial historians have meeting and voted the worst president in american history. They said he was the worst in all of american history. Thats a fact. Thats not conjecture. He can argue theyre wrong but that is what they voted. The idea he is doing anything to deal with child care he did virtually nothing. We should significantly increase the child care tax credit. We should significantly increase the ability for Single Parents to be able to go back to work and encourage businesses to thank you, President Biden. The question was what would you do to make childcare more affordable. Just to understand, we have poland, we have other things that rate him the worst because what he is done is so bad and i will show you. They write me one of the best, okay, and if im given another four years i will be the best. I think i will be the best. Nobody has ever created an economy like us. Nobody ever cut taxes like us. He is the only one i know. He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybodys taxes by four times. He wants the trump tax cuts to expire so everybody including the two of you are going to pay four to five times. Nobody ever heard of this before. All my life i grew up and see politics since talking about cutting taxes. When we cut taxes we did more business. All these companies were bringing money back into our country. The worst president in history by far and Everybody Knows it. Look, the fact of the matter is that he is dead wrong. He has increased and will increase the taxes on middle class people. I said i would not raise the tax on anybody making less than 400,000 and i didnt. These 10 tariffs, everything coming into the country, you know what economists say . Thats going to cost the average american 2500 per year more because theyre going to have to pay the difference in all the things we are importing. Number two, he is in a situation where he talks about how he somehow help the middle class. The middle class of been devastated by you. Now you want a new tax cut of 5 trillion over the next 10 years, which is going to fundamentally bankrupt the country. We have the largest deficit of any president in american history. Number one. Number two, you have not in fact made any progress with china. We are in the lowest trade deficit with china since 2010. Thank you, President Biden. Lets discuss an epidemic impacting millions of americans that both of you have made a top priority in your first term, the opioid crisis, and for both of you, the number of Overdose Deaths in this country has gone up. Under your term it went up. Under your term it has gone. Former President Trump, despite the efforts both of you have made, more than 100,000 americans are dying from overdoses every year primarily from fentanyl and other opioids. What will you do to help americans right now in the throes of addiction who are struggling to get the treatment they need . To finish up, we now have the largest deficit in the history of our country under the sky. We have the largest deficit with china. He gets paid by china. Hes a manchurian candidate. He gets money from china so i think hes afraid to deal with them or something but you notice he never took out my terrace because we bring in so much money with the test that i imposed on china. He never took them away. He cant because it is too much money and we saved our Seal Industries and is more to come but he hasnt done that but he hasnt cut the terrace because he cant because its too much money but hes got the largest deficit in the history of our country and hes got the worst situation with china. China is going to onus if you keep allowing them to do what they are doing to us as a country. They are killing us as a country and you cant let that happen. You are destroying our country. President trump, the question was, what are you going to help americans in the throes of addiction right now who are struggling to get the treatment they need. Jake, we are doing very well at addiction until the covid came along. We had 2 1 2 almost three years like nobody has ever had before any country in every way and then we had to get tough and it was the drugs pouring across the border where it started to increase. We got great equipment. We bought the certain dog that is the most incredible thing that youve ever seen the way they can spot it. We did a lot and we were getting very low numbers, very low numbers then he came along. The numbers have you seen the numbers now . Its not only the 18 Million People that i believe is even more because they dont even talk about got a ways but the numbers, the amount of drugs and Human Trafficking in women coming across our border, the worst thing ive ever seen at numbers that nobody has ever seen under him because the borders so bad but the number of drugs coming across our border now is the largest weve ever had before. President biden . Fentanyl and the byproducts of fentanyl went down for a while and i want to make sure we use machinery that can detect fentanyl, these big machines that roll over everything that comes across the border and it costs a lot of money. That was part of this deal we put together, this bipartisan deal. More fentanyl machines to be able to detect drugs, more agents, more people at the border and when we had that deal done, he went and called his republican colleagues and said dont do it, its going to hurt me politically. He never argued its not a good bill. Its a really good bill. We need those machines. We need those machines, and we are coming down very hard on every country in asia in terms of precursors for fentanyl in mexico is working with us to make sure they dont have the technology to be able to put it together. That is what we have to do. We need those machines. Thank you, President Biden. President trump again, the question is about americans in the throes of addiction right now struggling to get the treatment they need. He ended remain in mexico, he ended catch and release. I made catch and release in mexico, not catch and release here. We had so many things we had done, hard negotiations with mexico. We got it all for nothing just like when we have a hostage we always pay 6 billion every time we save a hostage. Now we have a hostage, the wall street journal reporter. I think, a good guy, and he is over there because putin is laughing at this guy probably asking for billions of dollars for the reporter. I will have him out very quickly as soon as i take office before i take office. I said bye literally as soon as i win the election, i will have that reporter out. He shouldve had a metal long time ago but putin is probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time. We had two cases we paid 6 billion for five people. I got 58 people out of my paid essentially nothing. Thank you. Lets turn to the concerns voters have about each of you. President biden, you would be 86 at the end of your second term. How do you address concerns about your capability to handle the toughest job in the world well into your 80s . First of all, i spent half my career being criticized for being the youngest person in politics. I was the second youngest person ever elected to the United States senate and now im the oldest. These this guy is three years younger and a lot less competent. Look at the record. Look at what ive done to turn around the horrible situation he left me. 50 million new jobs, 800,000 manufacturing jobs, more investment in america, millions of dollars in private investment in enterprises we are growing. By the way, we brought a lot of people in the whole idea of computer chips. We invented those chips and we lost them because he was sending people to find the cheapest jobs overseas and bring home a product so i went to south korea. I convince something to invest billions of dollars here in the United States, and guess what, those fabs to build this chips pay over 100,000. You dont need a College Degree for them and there are about 40 billion already been invested in been built right now in the United States creating significant jobs for americans from all over the world. You have 40 seconds left. Would you like to add anything . I would. The idea that somehow we are this failing country ive never heard a president talk like this before. We are the envy of the world. Name me a single major country president who wouldnt trade places with United States of america for all of our problems and all of our opportunities . Where are the most progressive country in the world and getting things done. We are the strongest country in the world. We are a country in the world who keeps our word. Those she cuddles up to from kim jongun and sends love letters to putin, et cetera, they dont want to screw around with us. Thank you. Former President Trump, you would be 82 at the end of your second term. What you say to voters who have concerns about your capabilities to serve . Well, i took two cognitive tests. I aced both of them. We made it public. I would like to see him take one, a real easy one like go through the first five questions you can do it but i took two cognitive tests. I took physical exams every year and you know, knock on wood wherever we may have would that im in very good health. I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way and i do it. He doesnt do it. He can hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. I think im in very good shape. I think imminent as good of shape as i was 25 or 30 years ago, probably a little bit lighter but in as good of shape as i was years ago. A very feel very good. I feel the same but i was willing to take a cognitive test and if i didnt do well, i aced them. Dr. Ronny jackson who is a great guy when he was a white house doctor and then i took another one, a similar one and one of them said they had never seen anybody aced it. Thank you. President biden. You can see he is 65 and only 255 pounds. Anyway. Take a look at what he says he is. I would be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap when i was Vice President , down to a six. And by the way, i told you before im happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it . That is the biggest lie that he is a six handicap of all. Ever. President trump lets not act like children. Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted, that you will accept the results of the selection regardless of who wins and you will say right now that Political Violence in any form is unacceptable . Well, i shouldnt have to say that but of course i believe that. It is totally unacceptable and if you would see my statements that i made on twitter at the time and also my statement that i made in the rose garden you would say its one of the strongest statements youve ever seen in addition to the speech i made in front of i believe the largest crowd ive ever spoken to and i will tell you nobody ever talks about that. They talk about a relatively small number of people who went to the capital and in many cases were ushered in by the police and as nancy pelosi said, it was her responsibility, not mine. She said that loud and clear but the answer is if the election is fair, free, and i want that more than anybody and i will tell you something. I wish it was a great president because i wouldnt be here right now. I would be at one of my many places enjoying myself. I would not be under indictment because i would not of been his political opponent because he indicted me because i was his opponent. I wish he was a great president. I would rather have that. I wouldnt be here. I dont mind being here but the only reason im here as he is so bad is a president that im going to make America Great again. We are a failing nation right now. We are seriously failing nation and we are a failing nation because of him. His policies are so bad. His military policies are insane. They are insane. These are words that will never end with him. He will drive us into world war iii and we are closer to world war iii than anybody can imagine. We are very very close to world war iii and his driving is there an kim jongun and president xi, they dont respect him, they dont fear him. They have nothing going with this gentleman and he is going to drive us into world war iii. You want a world war iii, let him follow and win and let putin say do what you want. Just do what you want. Theres a thing called article five. An attack on one is an attack on all. The idea the idea. I cant think of a single major leader in the world who wouldnt trade places with the job ive done because we are a powerful nation. Because of the people, not me, its because of the American People capable of anything in the step up when needed and right now we are needed to protect the world because our own safety is at stake and again we are going to have war, just let putin go ahead and take kyiv. The question was, will you accept the results of the selection regardless of who wins . Just to finish what he said if i might, russia, they took a lot of land from bush. They took a lot of land from obama and biden. They took no land, nothing from trunk, nothing. He knew not to do it. Theyre going to play games with me he knew that. I get along with him very well but he knew not to play games. He took nothing from me but now hes going to take the whole thing from this man right here. That is a war that shouldve never started. It wouldve never started ever with me. And hes going to take ukraine and you asked me a question before what you do this. Hes got us in such a bad position right now with ukraine and russia because ukraine is not winning that war. He said i will never settle until such time. Theyre running out of people. Theyre running out of soldiers. Theyve lost so many people. It is so sad theyve lost so many people and they have lost those gorgeous cities with the golden domes that are 1000 years old all because of him and stupid decisions. Russia wouldve never attacked. President trump, the question was will you accept the results of the election regardless of who wins. Yes or no please. Of it is a fair and legal and election, absolutely. I wouldve much rather accepted these but the fraud and Everything Else was ridiculous and if you want we will have a News Conference on it in a week. We will have another one of these in a week but i will absolutely there is nothing i would rather do. It would be much easier for me to do that them running again. I wasnt really going to run until i saw the horrible job he did. Hes destroying our country. I would be very happy to be someplace else in a nice location someplace and again, no indictments, no political opponent stuff because its the only way he thinks he can win but unfortunately it is driven up by numbers and driven up to very high levels because people understand it. We will see what your numbers are when the selection is over. Lets see. You are a whiner. When you lost the first time you continued in appeal to courts all across the country. Not one single court in america set any of your claims had any merit, state or local, none, but you continued to provoke this lie about somehow there is all this misrepresentation, all the stealing. There is no evidence of that at all and i tell you what, i doubt you will accept it because you are such a whiner. The idea if you lose again you accepted you cant stand the loss. Something snapped in you when you lost last time. Well be right back with more from the cnn president ial debate live from georgia. The debate live from georgia. The there will be a lot to say about what is going on in this debate. Youre going to get our reaction as soon as it is overplus we have California Governor Gavin Newsom joining us here lives on msnbc. We have every moment of this debate right to the bitter end coming up. Stay with us. Coming up. Stay with us. It is now time for the candidates to deliver the closing statements. As predetermined by a coin toss, we begin with you, President Biden. You have two minutes. We have made significant progress from the debacle left by President Trump in his last term. We found ourselves in a situation where number one, we have to make sure that we have a fair tax system. I ask anyone out there in the audience, everyone out watching this debate, do you think the tax system is fair . The fact is, nobody making it a 400,000 had a single penny increased in the taxes and if i am reelected, that will be the case again but this guy has increased your taxes because of the deficit. Number one, he has increased inflation because of the debacle he left when he handled the pandemic and he finds himself in a position where he now wants to tax you more by putting a 10 tariff on everything that comes into the United States of america. For example, he wants to get away to get rid of the ability for medicare to negotiate drug prices with the big pharma companies. We got it down to 35 for insulin instead of 400. No more than 200 for every senior matter how much prescription they need. That reduced the federal debt by 160 billion over 10 years because the government doesnt have to pay exorbitant prices. Im going to make that available to every senior, and everybody in america. He wants to get rid of that. Were going to make sure we have childcare. Were going to increase the credits people have for child care and make sure we do something about what we are doing for lead pipes and all the things causing Health Problems for people across the country. We are going to continue to fight to bring down inflation and give people a break. President trump, you have two minutes for your closing statements. Like so many politicians this man is just a complainer. He said we want to do this, we want to get rid of this tax on that tax but he doesnt do anything. All he does is make our country and safe by allowing millions and millions of people to pour in. Our military doesnt respect him. We will look like fools in afghanistan. We did not stop israel. It was such a horrible thing that wouldve never happened that shouldve never happened. Iran was broke. Anybody that did business with iran, including china, they could not do business with the United States. Iran was broke. They had no money for hamas or hezbollah. Again, ukraine shouldve never happened. He talks about all the stuff but he did not do it for 3. 5 years we are living in hell. We have the palestinians and everybody else rioting all over the place. You talk about charlottesville, this is 100 times charlottesville, 1000 times. The whole country is exploding because of you because they dont respect you and they have to respect the president and they dont respect you throughout the world. What we did was incredible. We real built the military. We got the largest tax cut in history, the largest regulation cut in history. The reason he has got jobs is because i cut the regulations that gave jobs but hes putting a lot of those regulations back on. All of the things we have done, nobody has ever seen even from the medical standpoint or we can try spaceage materials instead of going to asia were going to europe and trying to get when you are terminally ill now you can go and get something. You sign a document. Theyve been trying to get it for 42 years but you know what we did for the military was incredible. Choice for our soldiers instead of waiting for three months to see a doctor can go out and get themselves fixed up and readied up and take care of themselves and their living and that is why i had the highest Approval Rating in the history of the va so all of these things you are a failing nation but its not going to be failing anymore. Were going to make it great again. Thank you, former President Trump. President biden, stay with us because we have full analysis of this debate. Anderson cooper and erin burnett starts now. And, that is the first president ial debate of the 2024 election cycle and a very unusual time with a very unusual format and i think with probably strange results. We will see. The response from both sides, but if you are the Biden Campaign you wish this night will be remembered in reverse as the president became sort of stronger, including literally his voice, the strength of his voice over the course of the night, probably peeking toward the very end of the debate for the trump campaign. I think it is fair to say it was the inverse. President trump, just in terms of his coherence and finishing a sentence and seeming to be in control of his own emotions started off as strong as he was, the strongest point was at the beginning of the debate and then over the course of the night, he became less coherent and more visibly flustered. I dont think either of these candidates is going to feel like this was a shining moment for them, but i think that first initial impression, nicole, of President Biden walking out in his voice being hard to hear, it was hard to tell what he was saying because his voice was so weak in his halting delivery is got to have put a shock into the campaign at least at the start before he started against him. Yes. I was on the phones for some of it after that became clear and there is a conversation happening inside biden circle and certainly a much more frank conversation inside the Democratic Coalition and i think there will be stories about a lot of concern about the performance tonight. When you say conversations happening, what do you mean . I think people are talking. Conversations range from whether she should be in this race tomorrow morning and what was wrong with him. He has a cold. Kelly odonnell reported on that. Those things are the reason reporters were reporting on the cold is because of what you articulated. The voice was very soft. It was not the joe biden performance of the state of the union. It was not seizing a moment to go on the offensive on immigration. It was not joe biden on the offensive on january 6. It was not joe biden on the offensive on abortion. His two shining issues. It was exactly what chris hayes predicted. It was trump moderating not just tonally but sounding as crazy as he lied as often as he breathed. The debate moderators did not fax check one thing, but they did give joe biden time to fact check and he didnt do much of it either. It is not our job to tell people what to see in here but i think what i heard from a biden aid is we cant necessarily spend too much what people did see and hear. I understand not feeling well and obviously joe biden comes in with certain deficits. He has a stutter, its more difficult for him to communicate for that reason so there is a lot to mitigate the way he speaks and you can understand it when youve looked at him for a long time. That said, i was on the phone, too, throughout much of the debate with obama, world people, democrats, with people who were political operatives, campaign operatives. My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout, and the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic. The people who are texting with me were very concerned about President Biden seeming extremely feeble, seeming extremely weak and you know, i will reiterate what i said earlier. President biden had one job tonight, one primary job and yes, it was to litigate Donald Trumps criminality and all of those things but he had to settle his own party. He needed to settle democrats. They always talk about democrats or bedwetters and democrats are always panicking. Yes, democrats are always panicking. Democrats are pessimistic. They are, they are neurotic but joe bidens job was to reassure them tonight. His job was to calm his party, to make them feel that yes, i can do this. I have four more years in me. I have the ability and the stamina and the strength to do four more years. He did not do that. He did the opposite of that. He made the more panic. People who were texting me were even more panicked. They actually expected it to be better than it was and now, they are in i will say a fullfledged panic but its getting there. The people you are talking to expressing these concerns, are these people involved in Government Politics . These are campaign people. These are people who are either democratic operatives, obama or administration people, civilians are also panicking, there texting me, but i was trying to ignore the civilians and talk to the campaign folks. People are worried and is not a full drumbeat yet but there is talk of heres the thing. I know a lot of politicians in a lot of levels. They all believe they have a unique ability to run the race they passionately want to run and i know for a fact that joe biden passionately believes he is the only person who can beat donald trump and he has evidence of it because he did it before. He knows he has certain demographic strengths that donald trump cannot counter. He is the real workingclass white guy that is actually Donald Trumps base so he knows how to talk to them. He believes he is the only person that can do it. The problem is after tonight, he doesnt believe that. I want to go to alex wagner on site in atlanta. Shes been watching the debate from the spin room. What is the reaction youve been hearing there . Im not going to put a fine machine on it for a spin on it, even though i am in the spin room, rachel, there has been a uniformly negative reaction to bidens performance tonight, surely this is about revealing who donald trump was but it was also joe biden battling a caricature of himself as an enfeebled person, and oppression trump has been eager to convey to the country and he did nothing to disabuse the country of the notion that he is very old and was lost frequently in that debate. On answers that shouldve been, to put it bluntly, a layup for him, whether it was abortion or the attack on abortion medication, his answers were rambling and incoherent. He turned the response on abortion into a mention of migrant killing. This is a person who clearly was over prepared and had a lot of different points sort of swimming around in his head and as a result, it felt like the answers that were legible, if you will, were not nearly delivered with the force and the clarity that they should have been, and i will say donald trump was in some ways the most trump he he has been lately, full of lies and misinformation, but it was almost an afterthought. I think the press that i have spoken with in the focus in this room is just you know, the Biden Campaign wanted this debate. This was their idea and this is what happened as part of their strategy. It is confounding. We were told earlier this evening that the biden spin team would be only making brief remarks in the room, but i dont know whether that is indicative of a group of people who understood the weaknesses that their candidate had in advance of this debate but you can surely understand the logic of that after the fact. Alex, we had confirmation just as weve been speaking with you just this moment that in just a moment, we are going to have Vice President Kamala Harris joining us live so thats going to happen here just within a matter of moments. Lawrence, i want to get your response. One of the interesting things alex said there is that some of the poor coherence and poor answers from donald trump are being viewed as standard trump and therefore not newsworthy while the performance from President Biden is being viewed as newsworthy because it came in below expectations. In any sort of normal universe you would think, the candidate who during the president ial debate said i didnt have sex with the porn star was the loser of that debate. That would be the normal scorecard, so lets just remember that so far the only thing weve been concentrating on here is optics, that thing we call optics. In this case, also audio because of the aging voice of joe biden but the question is that we dont know the answer to this. Voters out there who went into this debate thinking they are for biden or for trumper thinking whatever they were thinking, what if, in this debate, of substance, that was true, if anything, move their vote, so if you really wanted to look at in terms of what is it supposed to be, is supposed to be an illuminating form in which you learn something about a candidate that you did not know before that is true, not that you learn a lie from the candidate. That is not what the objective is, but given that the optics is the way the game is played, but we dont yet know and will know in polling a week from now or so, is what was the effect of all of this . What was the effect of the guy who said you know, i did not have sex with the porn star . What was the effect of the convicted criminal candidate pointed to the other candidate and calling him a criminal . What is the effect of all of that back and forth and i think we are guessing about what the effect is of the realization that joe biden is actually as old as his birth certificate says he is. His voice is settled, too, but he is 10 years younger than Warren Buffett and both of them have a job that is essentially making decisions, and what was not shown to me in a way that was true and that debate is that joe biden has made bad decisions in the presidency. I dont see the set of bad decisions and what was done in the biden presidency was certainly underdeveloped in a debate where you never heard the word infrastructure. It was pretty undeveloped as this went on and that has a lot to do with the nature of the rules of these debates. You just put your finger on the whole issue around where we find ourselves. The job of the president is making decisions. The job of a president ial candidate is to communicate. It just is. It is a communications job. It is talking to people and communicating, persuading them, trying to get people who dont agree with you and i think joe biden has a very good record on making decisions and i think is a very poor communicator right now and that inability to communicate i see this all the time. We cover things on our show all the time, the big oil trade they did where they bought oil very cheap and then sold very high, they made all this money kind of broke the back of opec, people say, i didnt know that. Thats awesome, thats cool. Joe biden should be the person communicating that. Joe biden is not good at communicating his own record and in the context of the campaign, right now, his job, number one, is communicating. So, and i dont disagree with you. I think you are right about the decisionmaking but i think the reason there is all this anxiety is because ultimately and particularly in the television age, a lot of the presidency is communicating but particularly when youre running for re election when that is the most important thing. But, even prior to the television area, there is that reason fdr was never shown in his wheelchair. Theres a reason john f. Kennedy pretended to be a vigorous man when he was certainly not. And, kennedy accelerated it and i think reagan super accelerated because he was an actor and a hollywood figure and is only gotten more intense until he got to president obama who became popular partly because rap artists were taking his speeches and turning them into music videos. It is accelerated but it was even true during the roosevelt era. The president is an avatar for the American People, and the American People have a very high opinion of themselves. The American People think of themselves this country invented the concept of the superhero for a reason because the American People think we are captain america. They think we are strong and robust and they want their president to look that way. William howard taft had lived in an era when you saw pictures of the president , he would not of been the president. Americans want the president to represent them in the world in a certain way that has bigger, that has strength. Al gore was a brilliant man, an excellent decisionmaker, made excellent decisions as Vice President. Americans didnt care. They wanted the guy they thought was cooler. That is just real talk about americans and about American Voters and so to your point, joe biden yes, you can look at his record and it is actually one of the best records of any modern president. It is a top 10 president s record, but you cant become president again what america looks at you and that avatar to them looks broken. Lets sort of pretend this is a good thing. Lets just remember that what is happening here is imagery has taken control of the way we see president ial campaigns. Fdr could not possibly have survived a debate like this at any time, and he was arguably our best president. Could not possibly have done it. He was in much worse physical shape in his last president ial campaign, and was, in effect, much older because it turned out he was in the butt last year of his life in his last president ial campaign, which he won, but we dont have a better government because we have turned to the most superficial components of politics to decide our candidates. If we did that in the 1940s, fdr would not of been president and you know, good luck with world war two. Can i say one very quick thing which is the John Fetterman debate in pennsylvania which i think is quite relevant. After he had the stroke, he had the debate, he had a really hard time recuperating communicating while recuperating from a stroke. That was universally the judgment of people and not wrong with. The man was dealing with speech issues after a stroke. Polling turned out that [ inaudible ] and he won that race so again just would like everyone to check themselves a little bit to your point, lawrence, about what people will say out there. I dont know. The only thing i would add though is that the record of the decisions, and i love what you said at the beginning, that a debate is such a false contest because the president is about being in a room surrounded by the smartest people i work for you making decisions. The smartest people around biden made the decision to do this, so i think there is a fair question about the performance and about the smartest people around biden had thought this was a good idea. And his thought that putting them on the right just small things like that. Why would you put them on the right . Because that meant for the camera because by the looks over biden looks over at the moderators and looks away. He looked like he was looking off camera. Every decision they made exacerbated the problem. Now that there is the problem, what does the campaign do . I have worked on campaigns and it is the job of a campaign to take the hit, right . It is the job of the campaign to take the blame and that is a better scenario than it being the candidate, you know. There were people talking tonight about how that process works and that conversation is live and active advice of the Democratic Party. Lets bring in someone who has operated the highest levels of the Democratic Party and still has many contacts there and has been talking to people for us so we can find out what is happening in those circles, msnbc political analyst, president obamas Campaign Manager in 2008, david pluses with us. I know youve been talking to democratic politicians, what we call the donor class. What was a personal take on what you saw tonight . Well, consistent with your reaction and others on the panel, it is kind of a defcon 1 moment. I do think lawrence and chris give a very important caveat. I have been deeply involved in Residential Campaign debates. Somewhat well, some did not. The only thing that matters and you wont really know for three or four days is how the voters that will decide this election will react. I will also add i have deep suspicion that donald trump, with swing voters, bombed, as well and that is the tragedy because with joe biden, the biggest thing in the selections , the biggest concern is with his age and those were compounded tonight so what this campaign is going to do is try to run ads. Biden will go out tomorrow and the next day been massive. It was not just his craziness and his lives, but donald trump and even answer questions about childcare or the opioid crisis. Talk about someone who is consumed with his himself, which is the message the Biden Campaign wanted to land but the concern level is quite high. This is a race that reminds me a little bit of 2012 but in reverse. We had a small but significantly important lead in battleground states. Biden is behind right now. He is the one who asked to change the equation here, and the biggest barrier that is keeping his ceiling to low his concerns about age and i think that is the tragedy because i think trump had so many openings that you could have just desert him up on tonight and biden did have a couple of good moments but i think at the end of the day, the overwhelming reaction again it doesnt matter what People Like Us say. It is what voters say and if they are already concerned about is he up for it, the way i think about it, it pains me to say this. They are about three years apart. They seemed about 30 years apart tonight and thats going to be the things voters really wrestle with coming out of this. In terms of people in politics and people who have the kind of influence that donors have in Democratic Politics, which there is a phd thesis to be done right there even in the premise of this question, what kind of reactions are you hearing in terms of the changes they want to say, what sort of reaction they want to see from team biden in response to what happened tonight . I mean, there are really only two scenarios. One, which is not going to happen, would be joe biden decides to step down and we have a fascinating sevenweek campaign to get the support of delegates in chicago. The only other option is somehow to right the ship here. Im not sure whether trump will debate again. Is fascinating. He may think this went well for him. You could certainly see him saying im done, im not going to do this again so that is a huge . Because biden needs that next debate now but all you can do if you are a democrat is ask yourself what i can do, which is yeah, we missed an opportunity here tonight, a significant opportunity, but it is still a close race and youre running against donald trump and again i think this will come out but i have talked to people who are doing dial groups and focus groups with swing voters and is much as they were concerned about bidens performance, and they were, you know, no one was saying im really excited about donald trump winning back the presidency. He reconfirmed all the reasons they voted against him in 2020 and again, i look at that is a huge missed opportunity because he really provided a lot of openings for biden or any candidate to really exacerbate that so iink mocrats will spend 24, 48, 72 hours in some state of crisis, but then we have to find a way forward but this was obviously a significant moment, the most important argument of the campaign and therefore was a missed opportunity. I know you are going to be continuing to talk to people in Democratic Politics over the course of the night. We will bring you back as you learn more. It is 11 00 p. M. On the east coast right now. If you are watching