STORY: :: A hoarse President Joe Biden has a shaky start in his debate with Donald Trump

A hoarse-sounding President Joe Biden verbally stumbled early on in the CNN presidential debate with Donald Trump while Trump rattled off a series of attacks, including a number of falsehoods.

:: June 27, 2024

:: Atlanta, Georgia

Biden: "When I (unclear) is to fix the taxes. For example, we have a 1000 trillionaires in America, I mean billionaires in America. And what's happening? They are in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% in taxes. If they just pay 24%, 25%, either one of those numbers, it may raise $500 million, billion dollars, I should say, in a ten year period. We would be able to right wipe out his debt, we'd be to be able to help make sure that all the things we need to do - childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary patient eligible for what I've been able to do with, with, with the COVID, excuse me, with - dealing with - everything we had to do with - look - if - we finally beat Medicare.

Moderator: "Thank you, President Biden. President Trump."

Trump : "He was right. He did beat Medicaid, beaten to death and is destroying Medicare."

:: Trump said he would accept election results but claimed, without evidence, there was fraud in 2020

Trump: "If it's a fair and legal and good election. Absolutely. I would have much rather accepted these, but the. The fraud and everything else was ridiculous. And if you want, we'll have a news conference on it in a week or we'll have another one of these on in a week. But I will. Absolutely. There's nothing I'd rather do. It would be much easier for me to do that.

Then I'm running again. I wasn't really going to run until I saw the horrible job he did. He's destroying our country."

Biden: "There is no evidence of that at all. And I tell you what, I doubt you. You'll accept it because you're such a whiner. The idea if you lose again, you accept it anything. You can't stand the loss. Something snapped in you and you lost the last time.

:: White House officials said Biden had a cold, but his performance may raise age concerns

"We've made significant progress from the debacle that was left by President Trump in his last term."