After the candidates walked directly to the podium and did not shake hands as has been customary before the COVID-19 debates ended that tradition, Donald Trump opened with a hit on President Joe Biden's inflation struggles.
The CNN Presidential Debate simulcast on Newsmax opened with a COVID-19 question to get Biden started Thursday night.
"He has not done a good job," Trump responded after Biden was given the first word to hit the Trump administration on a COVID-19 pandemic from over four years ago. "He's done a poor job.
"Inflation's killing our country. It is absolutely killing us."
The next question went from COVID-19 to abortion, carrying the Democrat election issues that had been polling far down the importance ladder for voters this year.
The economy, border, immigration, foreign policy, and inflation lead the way for most Americans, but COVID-19 and abortion led the way for CNN's questions for the candidates.
Immigration and the border was the third question, posed to Biden, and a fourth posed to Trump.
Trump hit Biden for his mumbling about 22 minutes into the broadcast.
"I really don't know what he said at the end of their sentence," Trump said, responding to Biden's answer to the border question. "I don't think he knows what he said either.
"Look, we had the safest border in the history of our country."
Biden reportedly had a "cold," sources told NBC News.
Biden, the Democrat incumbent, was trying reassure voters that, at 81, he is capable of guiding the U.S. through a range of challenges, but his voice was raspy and he needed to clear his throat multiple times in the early minutes.
The debate got heated from there as Biden brought up the debunked "suckers and losers" hearsay from a liberal media report about Trump allegedly from a general.
"Where one cemetery refused to go to, he was standing with his four-star general and he told me said, 'I don't want to go in there because they're suckers and losers,'" Biden said. "My son was not a loser, was not a sucker.
"You're the sucker, you're the loser."
Trump called that a "made-up story" but noted Biden should not claim to be for veterans.
"First of all, our veterans and our soldiers can't stand this guy," Trump said. "They can't stand him. They think is the worst commander in chief, if that's what you call him, that we've ever had.
"They can't stand him. So let's get that straight, and they liked me more."
After a discussion about Ukraine and foreign policy, CNN turned the debate clock back four years to talk about Jan. 6.
"I said peacefully and patriotically, and Nancy Pelosi, if you just watched the news from two days ago, on tape to her daughter — who's a documentary filmmaker, or they say what she is — she's saying, 'Oh, no, it's my responsibility. I was responsible for this,'" Trump said.
"Because I offered them 10,000 soldiers from our National Guard. And she turned them down and the mayor of — in writing, by the way, turned them down."
After Jan. 6 questions, CNN, instead of pressing the sitting president, pressed the challenger on his legal troubles, and Trump told Biden he was a "criminal" but is "lucky" he is the sitting president.
"Well, I said my retribution is going to be success," Trump responded to moderator Jake Tapper. "We're going to make this country successful again, because right now it's a failing nation. My retribution is going to be success, but when he talks about a convicted felon, his son as a convicted felon at a very high level.
"His son has been convicted — going to be convicted probably numerous other times — should have been convicted before, but his Justice Department let the statute of limitations lapse on the most important things.
"But he could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office," Trump continued, turning to Biden. "You could be a convicted felon with all of the things that he's done. He's done horrible things: all of the death caused at the border; telling the Ukrainian people that we're going to want $1 billion unless you change your prosecutor, otherwise, you're not getting $1 billion.
"Have I ever said that? That's quid pro quo? That we're not going to do anything. We're not going to give you $1 billion unless you change the prosecutor having to do with the son.
"This man is a criminal. You're lucky. You're lucky. I did nothing wrong.
"We'd have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing."
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