Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News kicks off by saying none of the questions were shared with the commission or either of the candidates.
Trump defends his move to speedily appoint a Supreme Court justice at this stage: "We won the election. Elections have consequences. We have the Senate. We have the White House. We have a phenomenal nominee."
Biden waits about a minute into the debate to make his first Obamacare mention. "He's in the Supreme Court now trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act."
Joe Biden on Amy Coney Barrett (who hasn't yet been confirmed): "I'm not opposed to the justice. She seems like a very fine person."
He then notes Barrett's previous writings sympathetic to anti-ACA litigation.
Trump accuses Biden of supporting single payer. Biden does not. He notes that he doesn't and defeated Democrats who do in the primary. Trump says again that he and his party support it.
"That is simply a lie," Biden says.
Roe v. Wade "is also at stake now," Biden says.
Trump jumps in: "You don't know what's on the ballot. Why is it on the ballot?"
[INAUDIBLE CROSSTALK]
"Everything he's saying so far is simply a lie," Joe Biden says. "I'm not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he's a liar."
This debate so far is being fought on Biden's terrain of health care. Trump says he wants "better health care at a much lower price." Biden replies, "He has never offered a plan." Trump goes on to blame ACA for the problems in the health care system. Biden: "He has no plan."
"The fact is this man doesn't know what he's talking about," Biden says, and Chris Wallace moves on from health care.
Joe Biden dodges on whether he favors ending the filibuster and expanding the Supreme Court: "Whatever position I take, that'll become the issue. The issue is the American people should speak."
Trump interrupts to push him.
"I'm not going to answer the question," Biden says.
Biden tells Trump to "get out of the bunker and the sand trap in your golf course" and cut a deal with Congress to pass COVID-19 relief, says he has no plan.
Trump touts his travel ban from China. "You wouldn't have closed it for another two months."
Biden mocks Trump on floating a bleach mainline to kill the virus. Trump interrupts and says he was being sarcastic.
Biden: "A lot of people died. And a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter a lot quicker."
Trump: "You used the word SMART?"
The president says Biden is not smart.
Trump mocks Biden as overly cautious with masks: "He could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask I've seen."
Donald Trump: "I’m the one who brought back football."
Biden taunts Trump to release his tax returns, which baits the president into saying he's "totally under-leveraged because the assets are extremely good."
"I'm going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts," Biden says.
Trump keeps hitting Biden for failing to fix various problems over his decades in public office.
Biden claps back with a flash of irritation: "You're the worst president America has ever had. Come on."
Joe Biden: "We handed him a booming economy. He blew it."
Trump brings up Biden's son and keeps interrupting and jumping in, not letting him respond.
"It's hard to get any word in with this clown," Biden says. "Excuse me, this person."
Chris Wallace tells Trump to stop interrupting. Donald Trump says he should tell Joe Biden should stop, too. Wallace tells Trump (accurate) that he's doing it more.
This debate is out of control.
In the same answer, Trump evokes the tough-on-crime bill to say Biden has been too harsh on the Black community, then says he's in thrall to the anti-police left.
"Violence in response is never appropriate. Never appropriate. Peaceful protest is. Violence is never appropriate," Joe Biden says.
Joe Biden calls Donald Trump a "racist" to his face on the debate stage. Moments later, Biden says: "This is not 1950. All these dog whistles on racism don't work anymore. Suburbs are by and large integrated."
Presidents often struggle in the first debate because they haven't been on the same footing as an opponent in nearly four years. For Trump, he hasn't been able to control and steer the conversation as he usually can, hence all the interruptions and demands and changing of topics.
Asked if he's willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, Trump says sure, he's willing to, but "this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem."
Trump criticizes Biden for leaving him lots of judicial vacancies, saying he was a bad VP for it.
FACT: Obama-Biden did leave a lot of judicial vacancies because Mitch McConnell took over the Senate in 2015 and ground most Obama judge nominations, including to SCOTUS, to a halt.
Trump, asked if he believes the science of climate change, says "you've got to have forest management." Asked again, he again pivots to forest management.
BIDEN: "That is not my plan. The Green New Deal is not my plan."
Joe Biden: "No, I don't support the Green New Deal."
Joe Biden says it "doesn't matter" if Donald Trump refuses to accept the results of the election, "because if we get the votes it's going to be all over. He's going to go. He can't stay in power. It won't happen. Won't happen. So vote."
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Democrats remain haunted by what happened to Ginsburg. Rewind to 2014: She was 81, Obama was president, Dems had 55 Senate seats; liberals called on her to retire. She rejected them. And died in 2020, got replaced by Trump pick A.C. Barrett—the 6-3 SCOTUS. nbcnews.com/politics/supre…
BLUMENTHAL wants Sotomayor to “weigh the competing factors.”
“The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included.”
Sen. WHITEHOUSE warns of a “full MAGA court” if it goes to 7-2.
“Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have rethought her confidence in her own health.”
NEW: Republican Study Committee releases a sweeping budget plan
RSC chair is HERN; 170+ members incl Speaker and his full leadership team.
Highlights:
• Raises Social Security retirement age for future retirees
• Converts Medicare to "premium support" a la Paul Ryan plan
• Rolls back ACA
• Endorses Life At Conception Act
On Social Security, RSC budget endorses "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy." Calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries. No changes for current/imminent retirees. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
New RSC budget is a glimpse into how Republicans will seek to govern if they win power in 2024. It puts Trump in an awkward spot after he has been all over the map on what to do about Social Security and Medicare. One goal he and RSC agree on: undo ACA.
Ron Johnson: "How did we get ourselves in a situation where we’re being blamed for Biden's open border policy? How could that be possible? The answer is McConnell made that possible."
The Senate just unanimously agreed to fill committee slots vacated by Dianne Feinstein. Perhaps most significant: @LaphonzaB fills the empty Judiciary Committee slot and Democrats regain their majority on a key panel. Biden’s judicial nominees can now move without GOP support.
As we had been reporting for months, Republicans didn’t block Dems from filling the Judiciary Cmte seat. There were months of fabricated claims, amplified by figures like @HillaryClinton & @SenStabenow, that Rs would leave that seat open permanently if Feinstein vacated it. Nope.
Many were conflating two different things. What Republicans objected to was a *temporary* swap on one panel while Feinstein was still a senator. They didn’t threaten to permanently keep committee seats open if she left the Senate; unlikely that could’ve succeeded if they tried.
👀 @TedLieu tells me that a Speaker Jim Jordan could mean the House refuses to certify a potential Biden re-election win in 2024. “He will absolutely do everything he can to not certify a Biden victory. That’s what he did before.” nbcnews.com/politics/congr…