Trump, Biden presidential debate ends with sparks flying on immigration, inflation, mental fitness

President Biden told reporters Thursday night after the CNN presidential debate that he felt he performed well against former President Trump.

"I think we did well," Biden told reporters at an Atlanta area Waffle House.

When asked if he had any concerns about his performance, the president said, "No it's hard to debate a liar, New York Times pointed how he lied 26 times. Big lies."

Biden was then asked if he was suffering from a cold, which the campaign revealed following the debate performance where many expressed concerns about the sound of the president's voice.

"I am sick," Biden said.

His comments come after a flash poll conducted by CNN revealed that debate viewers believe Trump soundly defeated Biden.

Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

The National Border Patrol Council, the union for the U.S. Border Patrol, spoke out against President Biden's claim during the presidential debate Thursday night that they endorsed him.

"To be clear, we never have and never will endorse Biden," the union posted on X during the debate.

Biden then clarified he was referring to border agents who supported the border bill he backed and not the actual union.

Presidential debates in 2004 between George W. Bush and John Kerry

Sept. 30, 2004, at University of Miami

Oct. 8, 2004, at Washington University in St. Louis

Oct. 13, 2004, at Arizona State University

Presidential debates in 2008 between John McCain and Barack Obama

Sept. 28, 2008, at University of Mississippi

Oct. 7, 2008, at Belmont University

Oct. 15, 2008, at Hofstra University

Presidential debates in 2012 between Obama and Mitt Romney

Oct. 3, 2012, at University of Denver

Oct. 16, 2012, at Hofstra University

Oct. 22, 2012, at Lynn University

Presidential debates in 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

Sept. 26, 2016, at Hofstra University

Oct. 9, 2016, at Washington University in St. Louis

Oct. 19, 2016, at UNLV

Presidential debates in 2020 between Trump and Joe Biden

Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western Reserve University

Oct. 22, 2020, at Belmont University

A Fox News Digital focus group of Republicans, Democrats and Independents used dials to react live to former President Trump's criticism of President Biden's economic record during the CNN Presidential Debate Thursday night.

Moderator Jake Tapper asked Trump to account for his proposal for a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. on how he would ensure that it wouldn’t worsen inflation.

Trump said it wouldn’t drive prices higher, but force countries like China "who have been ripping us off for years" to pay the U.S. a lot of money, invoking a positive response from Republicans and Independents as indicated by the dials. Democrats’ reception was moderately negative.

Trump conceded his opponent’s point that he inherited "the largest tax [and regulation] cut in history." 

"That’s why we had all the jobs, and the jobs went down and then they bounced back. That’s why he’s taking credit for bounce-back jobs. You can’t do that," Trump said, with Republicans and Independents largely in agreement and Democrats' reactions ranging from neutral to negative.

Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz contributed to this story.

Republican and Independent voters reacted favorably when former President Donald Trump pushed back on President Biden's narrative regarding the 2017 Charlottesville riots, according to a live second-by-second reaction among voters.

"Both of you know that story has been totally wiped out, because when you see the sentence, it said 100% exoneration on there. So he just keeps it going," Trump said Thursday evening during his first debate against Biden this election season. Republican voters reacted favorably toward the comments.

"He's without question, the worst president, the worst presidency in the history of our country. We shouldn’t be having a debate about it. There’s nothing to debate," Trump said, as Independent and GOP voters notably showed support for the remark.

The live reactions were based on an equal number of Independent, Republican and Democratic voters responding to the debate from a Fox studio.

This is an excerpt from a story by Fox News Digital's Emma Colton. Click here to read it.

Last night's presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and President Biden was held in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Peach State – a swing state – voted Republican from the 90's until 2020 when Georgia voters selected Biden as their president.

While CNN is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia is also a top battleground state within the country, though this is the first time a general election presidential debate has been held in the state.

Missouri and New York lead the U.S. with five presidential debates held in each state. Missouri hosted a debate in 1984, 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2016. Two presidential debates were in New York in 1960, and one was held each year in 2008, 2012 and 2016.

California has hosted three presidential debates in its history while North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Virginia have hosted two presidential debates.

Finally, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Washington D.C. have each hosted one.

Potential vice presidential debates currently hang in the balance ahead of former President Donald Trump officially announcing his 2024 running mate. 

The Commission on Presidential Debates has sponsored both presidential and vice presidential debates since 1988. This election cycle, however, the Trump and Biden campaigns have bypassed the commission, with CNN hosting the first presidential debate Thursday, and ABC hosting another presidential debate on Sept. 10. 

The commission did offer a Sept. 25 as a date to hold a vice presidential debate, but it is unclear if the Trump and Biden campaigns will agree to the event. 

For her part, Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this year agreed to debate Trump’s eventual running mate on CBS on either July 23 or August 13. 

Trump also agreed to his eventual running mate taking the debate stage against Harris. He accepted Fox News Media’s offer for a vice presidential debate on either July 23 or August 13, or for other dates "following both nomination conventions." 

Trump is anticipated to officially announce his running mate some time next month around when the Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee from July 15-18. Trump said this month that he's already made up his mind on who will serve as his running mate, but has not told anyone, and that the individual will "most likely" attend Thursday's debate.

Former President Donald Trump, during the CNN Presidential Debate Simulcast Thursday night, repeatedly hammered President Biden over the ongoing crisis at the southern border -- saying Biden had wrecked a secure border and turned the U.S. into a "rats nest."

"He's the one that killed people with the 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," Trump said.

The U.S. has been facing a historic border crisis, with numbers of migrant encounters that have repeatedly smashed records. While numbers have dropped sharply in recent months from a record high in December, the crisis has overwhelmed communities across the U.S. there have been a number of high profile crimes committed by illegal immigrants.  Republicans have blamed Biden-era policies, while the administration has said it needs more funding and reform from Congress to fix a "broken" system.

Trump returned repeatedly to the crisis in the debate, noting crimes including a murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray allegedly by two Venezuelan illegal immigrants in Texas.

President Joe Biden hoped that Thursday night’s debate would put to bed concerns that he is mentally and physically unfit for the office of the presidency. Instead, his performance was a cacophony of alarm bells announcing his time is clearly up.

The presidential debate showdown between Biden and Donald Trump was a festival of the unprecedented, from the eerie silence of the crowdless hall, to the game-show style microphone manipulation, to the fact that it is only June.

Let’s be clear on one thing, there are caves deep in the Pacific Ocean that are lower than Biden’s expectations were heading to Atlanta. Basically, if he could look normal, literally just clearly make a case, he’d pass the test and remain secure in the nomination.

He failed that test, and failed it badly.

For Trump, the challenge was entirely different. Could he behave? Would the Rube Goldberg rules and the potentially hostile moderators get under his skin? Could he remain, at least his version of presidential and blunt Biden’s attack about his supposed danger to democracy?

In this, Trump largely succeeded.

Critics of President Biden are posting footage following the debate Thursday evening showing first lady Jill Biden appearing to lead the 46th president off the stage.

"Look at DOCTOR Jill Biden having to lead Joe Biden off the stage after the debate. She is guilty of extreme elder abuse. This was shameful to allow and defend," OutKick founder Clay Travis posted on X.

"Zoomed in video of Jill Biden leading Joe off the debate stage. This is insane," another social media post read.

The scene followed Biden's 90-minute debate against former President Donald Trump.

Biden, 81, has repeatedly faced criticisms for gaffes and missed cues, including allies, family members and world leaders seen assisting the president during public events in recent weeks.

Former President Trump blasted President Biden in CNN's presidential debate on Thursday for not firing any of the generals who oversaw the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 U.S. soldiers dead. 

"He was so bad with Afghanistan," Trump said during the CNN presidential debate on Thursday night. "It was such a horrible embarrassment. Most embarrassing moment in the history of our country that when Putin watched that and he saw the incompetence."

"He should have fired those generals like I fired the one that you mentioned and so he's got no love lost but he should have fired those generals," Trump continued. "No general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan, where we left billions of dollars of equipment behind. We lost 13 beautiful soldiers and 38 soldiers were obliterated."

Trump went on to say that the world is "blowing up" under President Biden.

"You ever heard so much malarkey in my whole life?" Biden responded.

Biden went on to defend his pullout of Afghanistan and blasted Trump for his positions on the war in Ukraine and comments made about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Joe Biden repeated the claim that former President Donald Trump said there were good people on "both sides" during the deadly Charlottesville rally in 2017 despite Snopes recently acknowledging the claim is false.

"I said I wasn't going to run again until I saw it happen in Charlottesville, Virginia," Biden said on the CNN debate stage on Thursday night. 

"People coming out of the woods carrying swastikas on torches, torches and and singing the same anti-Semitic bile they sang when back in Germany and a young woman got killed I spoke to the mother and they asked him what do you think of those people…and he said I think a fine people on both sides."

Critics of Trump have claimed for years that he equated neo-Nazis with counterprotesters following the event while conservatives have pushed back and pointed to the transcript where Trump says there were fine people on both sides but clarified that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and White supremacists and said they should be "condemned totally."

Former President Trump said President Biden "could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office." 

Trump made the comments during the CNN Presidential Debate Thursday night. 

Biden called the presumptive Republican nominee out for being a "convicted felon," after a jury found Trump guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in New York v. Trump last month.

But Trump defended himself. 

"When he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon at a very high level," Trump said of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. 

President Biden and former President Trump faced off on the CNN presidential debate stage Thursday night, but suggested another showdown--this time, in an unlikely setting. The golf course.

During the CNN Presidential Debate, CNN moderator Dana Bash presented the age Biden and Trump would be at the end of a potential second term.

Biden would be 86. Trump would be 82.

Biden defended his age, saying he "spent half my career being criticized about being the youngest person in politics. I was the second youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I’m the oldest. This guy is three years younger and a lot less competent."

But Trump reminded that he has taken two cognitive tests.

"I aced both of them, as you know, we made it public. He took none. I’d like to see him take one. Just want a real easy one, like, go through the first five questions—he couldn’t do it. But I took two cognitive tests I took physical exams every year and you know, we knock on wood wherever we may have wood, that I’m in very good health," Trump said.

Trump, an avid golfer, said Thursday night that he recently "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," Trump said. "He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match—he can’t hit a ball 50 yards."

Members of the media expressed shock and horror at President Biden's debate performance right out of the gate Thursday."

Look. This debate was a total and complete disaster for Biden. He looked old. His answers trailed off repeatedly. He was hard to understand. He would stop in mid sentence and move on to something else," former CNN commentator Chris Cilizza wrote. "I NEVER thought he would be this bad. Stunning. Truly."

"Biden’s hoarse voice and resting face overwhelming the actual back and forth, but early yet," Politico columnist Jonathan Martin reacted to the president's presentation. 

"The Biden team hates stories about Biden's age. They are about to get a lot more," Axios reporter Alex Thompson warned.

Former President Donald Trump took aim at President Biden on Thursday for the amount of drugs, such as fentanyl, and migrants coming across the southern border.

Trump claimed that numbers had gone down during his presidency, but that all changed when Biden took office.

"Then he came along, The numbers, have you seen the numbers? Now it's not only the 18 million people that I believe is even low because the gotaways, they don't even talk about gotaways. But the numbers of the amount of drugs and human trafficking in women coming across our border, the worst thing I've ever seen -- at numbers that nobody's ever seen, under him, because the border is so bad," he said on the CNN Presidential Debate Simulcast on Fox News.

"But the number of drugs coming across our border now is, is the largest we've ever had by far," he said.

President Joe Biden has a cold, the president's team told reporters, after sounding gravelly and congested during the CNN Presidential Debate.

NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell reported that President Biden’s team is telling journalists that Biden “has a cold."

The president was examined by his doctor, Kevin O'Connor, at Camp David prior to the debate.

O'Connor determined it was a cold and the president tested negative for COVID-19.

Biden's age and mental acuity has been in the forefront of the presidential election.

At 81, Biden is three years older than Trump, who turned 78 this month.

Former President Trump tore into President Biden for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war during the CNN Presidential Debate on Thursday, insisting he's "become like a Palestinian."

Insisting that Biden should let Israel "finish the job" in its fight with Hamas, Trump said, "He doesn't wanna do it. He's become like a Palestinian, but they don't like him because he's a very bad Palestinian. He's a weak one."

President Biden was reportedly checked out by the White House's doctor while he was at Camp David ahead of the debate, who determined the president has a cold.

"White House official says POTUS was examined by his doctor, Kevin O'Connor, at Camp David in recent days, and O'Connor determined it was a cold. POTUS tested negative for COVID," CBS Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes tweeted Thursday evening.

The report comes as critics on social media ripped Biden for appearing to have a "weak" and raspy voice.