CAIRO – 28 June 2024: US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs over the local economic situation, the US foreign policy, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza amid other topics during a CNN presidential debate on Thursday night.
Biden and Trump sparred over whose administration was to blame for the high inflation the US economy is experiencing and when it started, CNN reported.
"Well, let's take a look at what I was left when I became president and what Trump left me," Biden said in response to a question posed by moderator Jake Tapper that led off the debate.
"We had an economy that was in freefall. A pandemic that was so badly handled, many people were dying."
"The economy collapsed. No jobs. Unemployment rate rose to 15%. It was terrible," Biden said.
The president went on to add, "The combination of what I was left with and corporate greed is the reason why we're in this problem now."
In response, Trump stated, "We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. We have never done so well. Every – everybody was amazed by it. Other countries were copying us."
Replying to Trump, Biden said "Well, look, the greatest economy in the world, he’s the only one who thinks that, I think. I don’t know anybody else who thinks it was great – he had the greatest economy in the world."
"And, you know, the fact of the matter is that we found ourselves in a situation where his economy, he rewarded the wealthy," Biden added.
"He had the largest tax cut in American history, dlrs 2 trillion. He raised the deficit larger than any president has in any one term," Biden emphasized.
Tapper asked about imposing a 10 percent tariff on all goods coming into the US, How will you ensure that that doesn’t drive prices even higher?.
Trump said "he inherited 9 percent inflation. No, he inherited almost no inflation, and it stayed that way for 14 months. And then it blew up under his leadership because they spent money like a bunch of people that didn’t know what they were doing. And they don’t know what they were doing."
"It was the worst – probably the worst administration in history. There’s never been," Trump added.
He went on to say "And 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 country’s life."
As for the national debt, Biden said Trump had the largest national debt of any president in a four-your period, number one.
"Number two, he – that dlrs 2 trillion tax cut benefited the very wealthy. I – what I’m going to do is fix the tax system," he added.
"For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America – I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised dlrs 500 million – billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period," Biden said.
Destroying social security
Trump accused Biden of destroying social security, saying "This man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security.
These millions and millions of people coming in, they’re trying to put them on Social Security.
He will wipe out Social Security. He will wipe out Medicare. So he was right in the way he finished that sentence. And it’s a shame."
Trump added "What’s happened to our country in the last four years is not to be believed. Foreign countries, I’m friends with a lot of people. They cannot believe what happened to the United States of America. We’re no longer respected."
Immigration, border security
Shifting to the issue of immigration and border security, Biden said "We worked very hard to get a bipartisan agreement that not only changed all of that, but it made sure that we are in a situation where you had no circumstance where they could come across the border with the number of border police there are now.
We significantly increased the number of asylum officers. Significantly – by the way, the Border Patrol men endorsed me, endorsed my position."
Trump said "We had the safest border in the history of our country."
"But look, we had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border in history. There’s never been anything like it. And people are dying all over the place, including the people that are coming up in caravans," Trump added.
Biden said "Every single thing he [Trump] said is a lie, every single one. For example, veterans are a hell of a lot better off since I passed the PACT Act. One million of them now have insurance, and their families have it."
"We’re also in a situation where we have great respect for veterans," he added.
Ukraine war
Regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, Trump said "As far as Russia and Ukraine, if we had a real president, a president that knew – that was respected by Putin, he would have never – he would have never invaded Ukraine. A lot of people are dead right now, much more than people know."
"I’ll tell you what happened. He [Biden] was so bad with Afghanistan; 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 that he should – 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 added.
Asked about Putin’s terms and are they acceptable to him, keeping the territory in Ukraine?, Trump replied "No, they’re not acceptable. No, they’re not acceptable. But look, this is a war that never should have started. If we had a leader in this war, he led everybody along."
Trump added "And I’m not knocking him, I’m not knocking anything. I’m only saying, the money that we’re spending on this war, and we shouldn’t be spending, it should have never happened. I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as president-elect before I take office on January 20th. I’ll have that war settled."
Gaza war
As for Israel's offensive on Gaza, Biden said "We are the biggest producer of support for Israel than anyone in the world."
He said "But, you got to be careful for what you use these certain weapons among population centers."
Replying a question on supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state in order to achieve peace in the region, Trump said "I’ll have to see."
Capitol attack
When asked "what do you say to those voters who believe that you violated your constitutional oath through your actions, inaction on January 6th, 2021, and worried that you’ll do it again?", Trump said "Well, I didn’t say that to anybody."
"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, they say, what she’s saying, oh, no, it’s my responsibility, I was responsible for this. Because I offered them 10,000 soldiers or National Guard. And she turned them down. And the mayor of – in writing, by the way, the mayor, in writing turned it down, the mayor of D.C., they turned it down. I offered 10,000 because I could see – I had virtually nothing to do."
Biden accused Trump of encouraging those folks to go up on Capitol Hill, number one.
"I sat in that dining room off the Oval Office – he sat there for three hours, three hours watching, begging, being begged by his vice president and a number of his colleagues and Republicans as well to do something, to call for a stop, to end it," Biden said.
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