President Joe Biden froze up for the first 15 minutes of the 2024 presidential debate and had to be rescued by CNN host Jake Tapper.
The Biden-Trump debate began with Tapper and moderator Dana Bash suddenly talking about the US economy, asking them about the national debt and taxes. After Trump responded that high-income earners and corporations pay too little in federal taxes, Tapper ceded the floor to Biden. (Related article: Experts say Biden administration's new rules will benefit insurers at the expense of consumers)
But as Biden made his case, his answers spun out of control and he paused multiple times.
“We can cancel his debt, we can help make sure that we get to child care, elderly care, all the other things that we have to do, we can continue to strengthen our health care system and make sure that everybody gets the same things that I've been doing with COVID, excuse me, dealing with all the things that we have to do,” the president said, pausing before looking down.
Biden was silent for a few minutes, then said, “Look, we finally defeated Medicare,” before Tapper interrupted him to continue.
'We're going to defeat Medicare': Biden freezes mid-answer before being helped by moderator pic.twitter.com/Z0gs7P4hJP
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 28, 2024
Just before the pause, Biden noted that Trump's increase in the national debt has been “greater than any president in four years.”
“Number one, he's run up a larger national debt than any president in four years. Number two, his $2 trillion tax cuts have benefited the super-rich. What I'm going to do is fix the tax code. For example, we have 1,000 trillionaires – billionaires – in America. So what's going on?” Biden said.
“They're in a situation where they're actually paying 8.2 percent tax. If they were paying 24 percent, 25 percent, whichever number they had, they could have raised $500 million, maybe even $1 billion over 10 years.”
The Biden administration has continually advocated for higher capital gains taxes and income-based taxes on assets to reduce racial wealth inequality for minorities.
