Biden struggles in first joust with Trump: 5 takeaways from the presidential debate

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump clashed in a high-stakes debate Thursday, lobbing personal insults and staking out stark policy differences to set the stage for the bitter campaign ahead.

In the first-ever debate between a current and former president, Biden and Trump began without a handshake.

"You're the sucker. You're the loser," Biden said at one point, referring to reports that Trump used those words to describe American service members.

"Our veterans and our soldiers can't stand this guy," Trump fired back. "They can't stand him."

Biden trails his Republican rival in most battleground state polls and entered the debate needing to reset the narrative about his candidacy and inject new life into his campaign. But a hoarse voice and uneven performance spoiled those goals and rattled many Democrats into a panic.

The mission for Trump was to continue seizing on Americans' anxieties about the economy and security at the U.S. southern border.

Yet the former president also needed to convince wary independent voters, who − given his recent conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and three other pending criminal cases − may hold serious misgivings about his character and returning him to power.

Here are five takeaways from the debate:

Biden, with hoarse voice, fails to ease anxieties on age

The 81-year-old Biden didn't do himself any favors in terms of easing concerns about his age and acuity − which polling shows continues to be one of his biggest liabilities.

Biden's voice was raspy and low from the start. (His campaign said he has a cold.) He stumbled over words and had to correct himself with numbers. One one occasion, the president appeared to loose his train of thought, concluding with "we finally beat Medicare."

Trump, who is 78, was energetic and clear. He jumped at that moment saying: "He did beat Medicare, he beat it to death."

Although Biden did better as the debate continued, he was slow out of the gate, allowing Trump to steer control.

"I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence," Trump said during one exchange on immigration. "And I don't think he knows what he said either."

Ahead of the debate, Biden joked about being on "performance enhancers" in a social media post shortly before the start of the debate – mocking the conspiracies pushed by Trump and some Republicans that Biden would have to take drugs to keep up.

But such attacks from Republicans will only continue after Biden's performance Thursday.

Two presidents, two economies

Voters continuously rank the economy and inflation as among the top issues on their minds, and it was the first subject raised by the CNN moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper.

Biden walked a tightrope in his response, trying to note his economic achievements without discounting the sting of high prices. He started off by blaming any economic woes on Trump's handling of the COVID-19 virus in 2020, arguing a free fall started when unemployment spiked on his predecessor’s watch. The president also called out the 2017 tax cuts as a giveaway to the rich.

"Things were in chaos," he said.

For much of his answer, Biden spotlighted the gains under his administration such as record-low unemployment and lowering prescription drug costs.

But as voters express that they’re still feeling inflation hangover, the Democratic incumbent acknowledged: "there’s more to be done."

Compared to four years ago, Trump took a more methodical approach in his responses throughout the debate, but he didn’t take that lying down. He argued the U.S. economy was roaring before the pandemic and that currently, “inflation is killing our country.”

Asked about his proposal to impose 10% tariff on all imports, Trump defended the idea against criticism that it will drive prices even higher. Instead, he said, it will stop foreign countries from, “ripping us off.”

Clashes over abortion and Roe v Wade

One of the more substantive exchanges during the 90-minute debate was when the conversation turned to abortion, an issue the Biden campaign thinks it can use to its advantage in the election.

Like he has throughout the campaign, he blamed Trump for the overturning of Roe v. Wade with his three Supreme Court justice appointments.

"It's been a terrible thing, what you've done," Biden said, adding that he would reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade if reelected.

Trump has been careful when discussing abortion on the campaign trail, as many evangelical voters want the GOP to pursue a national ban on abortion but such a move might turn off moderates.

The former president did give a nod to anti-abortion voters when he accused Biden and the Democrats of wanting to: "rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby."

Biden said Democrats only favor legal late-term abortions when the mother's life is in jeopardy.

Trump said he won’t block abortion medication and that he "believes in exceptions" to allow abortions in cases of rape and incest.

"We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans," he said.

'Rat's nest:' Immigration, border

Trump flexed his muscles the most when the debate turned to the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, accusing Biden of allowing a wave of crime endangering Americans.

"We are living right now in a rat's nest," Trump said. "Every state is now a border state and it’s because of his ridiculous, insane and very stupid policies."

Biden outlined how his administration sought a bipartisan border security deal in Congress earlier this year, but that Trump torpedoed the plan. He also reminded viewers about Trump's past controversies.

"When he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers and putting them in cages, making sure they were the families were separated," Biden said.

Trump ducked answering when pressed by CNN's moderators to explain his plans to carry out the "largest domestic deportation operation" in U.S. history, and whether his next administration would deport all undocumented immigrants, and instead returned to his attacks.

"We're literally an uncivilized country now," he said.

Things get personal on Hunter Biden, Trump's conviction

Biden and Trump have never been warm, and the lack of a handshake at the start of the debate was noticeable.

The animus toward each other couldn't be denied as things got ugly with personal attacks.

Biden brought up Trump's conviction in a case that allegedly involved "having sex with a porn star," and that Trump lost a $83.3 million civil judgment for "molesting a woman."

Trump responded by calling out the president's son, Hunter Biden, who has been convicted on federal gun charge and claimed that without evidence Joe Biden will be a convicted felon in the future.

When both were asked about their age, Biden and Trump both said their physical health isn't an issue. But at one point the two men rabbled about their athletic prowess, and even fought over who had a better golf handicap.

"Let’s not be children," Trump said.

Biden replied: "You are a child."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bad night for Biden: 5 presidential debate takeaways