President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are battling it out tonight in their first presidential debate of the 2024 election.
The CNN Presidential Debate is underway, and is scheduled to run until around 10:30 p.m. ET. Yahoo News is livestreaming the event right on this page, and we’ll also feature coverage and analysis in real-time from our editorial team throughout the night.
Hosted by CNN at the cable network’s studios in Atlanta, this telecast will be slightly different from debates past: there will be no studio audience, the candidates’ microphones will be muted when their opponent is speaking, no prewritten notes are allowed and neither candidate will present opening statements. Trump will get the final word during closing statements, as determined recently by a coin flip.
Tonight marks the first time in U.S. history a sitting president and former president will face off on the debate stage — and it’s the first time Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, will duke it out in person since 2020.
For exclusive postdebate analysis, watch on CNN.
Live34 updates
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Fact check: Biden falsely claims that Trump wants to ‘get rid of’ Social Security
Biden: “He wants to get rid of Social Security. He thinks that there’s plenty to cut in Social Security.”
This claim is false: Trump has said that there may be some room to reduce spending on Social Security and proposed a budget that included some cuts to the program, but has not stated any intention to eliminate Social Security.
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The scene inside the ‘Spin Room’ during the debate
Inside CNN’s “Spin Room” during the debate. (Dylan Stableford/Yahoo News) While the candidates debate inside CNN’s debate hall across the street, hundreds of media members including this one are watching a live feed of the event that is being simulcast on dozens of temporary flatscreens scattered around the McCamish Pavilion — and on the jumbotron above the floor of the “Spin room,” which is almost empty.
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Fact check: Trump says there was ‘no terror at all’ during his presidency
Trump: “You had no terror at all during my administration. This place — the whole world is blowing up under him.”
This is false: This is not the first time Trump has claimed the U.S. had no terrorist attacks during his presidency.
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In 2017, Trump’s Justice Department alleged that a mass murder in New York City, which killed eight people, was a terrorist attack in support of ISIS.
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In 2018, the Justice Department claimed there was evidence of a “domestic terrorist attack” when a Trump supporter mailed homemade explosive devices to Democratic officials and CNN offices.
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In 2019, Trump’s Justice Department claimed an attack that killed three U.S. servicemembers and injured others at a military base in Florida was motivated by an “associate” of al Qaeda.
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Again in 2019, a gunman, who was targeting Latinos, killed 23 people in a mass shooting in a Walmart in El Paso, Tx.
Read more from CNN: Fact check: Trump falsely claims the US had no terrorist attacks during his presidency.
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Fact check: Trump and Biden blame each other for inflation
Trump: “He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with essentially no inflation. … He destroyed it.”
Biden: “Inflation … he caused it with his tremendous malfeasance in the way he handled the pandemic.”
These claims needs context: Inflation is primarily the result of macroeconomic trends that presidents have little power to influence. Economists blame two recent factors, the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, for recent spikes in prices.
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Fact check: Trump presidency had ‘best environmental numbers ever’
Trump: “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air, and we had it. We had H2O,” Trump said, apparently meaning CO2, a greenhouse gas scientists say is helping to warm the planet. “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.”
This claim needs context: While greenhouse gas emissions fell during Trump’s term in office, they fell even more during Barack Obama’s presidency. Experts also note that the modest decline when Trump was president was aided by the decline in economic activity caused by the coronavirus pandemic, not because of any specific actions taken by the Trump administration.
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Biden refers to Trump as a ‘convicted felon’
President Biden debating on Thursday night. (Gerald Herbert/AP) During an exchange about Jan. 6, Trump argued that his supporters who were charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol insurrection were unfairly targeted, and that Black Lives Matter protesters and other activists in cities such as Portland, Ore., and Seattle are the real “felons.”
Biden used the opportunity to point out Trump’s historic conviction in the New York hush-money case.
“The only person on this stage that is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” the president said while glancing in Trump’s direction.
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Fact check: Trump claims he offered Pelosi 10,000 soldiers on Jan. 6
Moderator: What do you stay to the voters who believe you violated your oath of office on Jan. 6 and worry you may do so again?
Trump pointed to recently released documentary footage of then-House Speaker Nancy Speaker on Jan. 6 saying leaders like herself bore responsibility for not having prepared more for the riot. Trump then repeated a claim he’s made multiple times before: “Nancy Pelosi, I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard, and she turned them down.”
This claim is false: As CNN reported, Pelosi “would not even have had the power to turn down such an offer if she had received one — which she has said she never did.”
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Fact check: Biden falsely claims the Border Patrol has endorsed him
Biden: “By the way the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position.”
This claim is false: The Border Patrol Union has not endorsed Biden and said in a post on X during the debate, “To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden.”
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Fact check: Trump criticizes Afghanistan withdrawal without mentioning his administration’s role in the U.S. exit
Trump: “[Biden] was so bad with Afghanistan. It was such a horrible embarrassment. The most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.”
This claim needs context: Biden’s administration executed the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but it did so under terms of an agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban during the last year of Trump’s presidency.
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Trump calls Biden ‘Brandon’ during debate
Donald Trump gestures during the debate with President Biden. (Gerald Herbert/AP) During an exchange about border security, Biden pointed out that the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents the U.S. Border Patrol, endorsed a bipartisan bill he backed that included additional staffing for it and other agencies.
“The Border Patrol endorsed me — endorsed my position,” Biden said.
Trump quickly countered, saying the Border Patrol union endorsed him.
“They endorsed me for president,” Trump told Biden before adding a derisive nickname: “Brandon, just speak to them.”
Read more about how “Brandon” came to be via the Associated Press.
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How would Trump and Biden handle the war in Gaza if reelected?
Biden has been asked what additional leverage he would use to get Israel and Hamas to end their war.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been one of the world’s thorniest problems — a bloody, intractable dispute over land and statehood that has riven the region and vexed American presidents ever since the Jewish state was established in 1948.
But Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attacks — and Israel’s brutal response in Gaza — have taken things to a whole new level.
What they’ve done as president:
. What they want to do next:
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Fact check: Trump falsely claims Biden is allowing millions of people to come into the U.S. from ‘prisons, jails’
Trump: “I’d love to ask [Biden], and will, why he allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions to come into our country and destroy our country.”
This claim is false: There is no data to support the idea that foreign leaders are emptying their jails and sending former prisoners to the U.S.
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Fact check: Trump falsely claims that Democrats support “after birth” abortions
Trump: “They’re radical because they will take the life of a child in the 8th month, the 9th month, even after birth.”
This claim is false: Killing a person after birth is illegal in every U.S. state.
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Fact check: Trump says ‘everyone’ wanted Roe v. Wade overturned
Trump: “What I did was, I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted.”
This claim is false: Many wanted Roe preserved, and opinion polls have shown that a large majority of the U.S. did not want Roe overturned.
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Fact check: Trump overstates strength of the U.S. economy during his presidency
Trump: “We had the greatest economy in the history of our country.”
This claim is false: While the economy was quite strong for the majority of Trump’s term, it was not as strong as in the late 1920s or the post-World War II era, according to gross domestic product and unemployment figures. The economy then collapsed during the final year of his presidency because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Biden and Trump take the debate stage — without handshakes
President Biden, right, and former President Donald Trump take the stage at Thursday’s debate. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) As expected, the candidates did not shake hands. They did not shake hands the last time they debated, in 2020, though that was during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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(Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Benoit Tessier/Reuters, Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
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