The 5 weirdest moments from the grim first Biden-Trump debate

The first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign was pretty much a disaster.

Joe Biden struggled, Donald Trump lied and CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, hamstrung by agreed-upon rules and not fact-checking, pretty much just sat there.

It was ugly, start to finish, and touched off a panic in the Democratic Party. I've written about a lot of debate coverage, and the reaction to this was unlike anything I've ever seen. Imagine the election as a horror movie and you'll have the idea.

Not surprisingly, the debate was filled with some weird moments. These are the five that stood out.

RFK Jr.'s shadow debate

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as a third-party candidate, didn't qualify for the CNN debate. Undaunted — if you can deny the proven effectiveness of vaccines then nothing is an obstacle, apparently — he conducted a shadow debate on X. Former ABC News reporter John Stossel "moderated" and truly, does anything speak better to the political moment?

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

It was one of the more impressive exercises in salving ego in recent memory, and that's saying something in a race that includes Trump.

No handshake between Biden and Trump

Typically the two candidates in a presidential debate would shake hands. An exception was 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. No one was shaking anyone's hand then, for fear of spreading the virus.

Well, 2020 and Thursday night. Biden and Trump entered the debate stage in Atlanta, serious looks on their faces (Trump looked kind of mad, actually) and just took their places behind the lecterns. In 2020, you could blame health concerns. In 2024, not so much. It seemed more like a lack of civility, and an acknowledgment of the enmity between the two candidates. Things only got worse from there.

Kamala Harris' debate reaction on CNN

The vice president appeared on CNN after the debate, in an interview with Anderson Cooper.

It didn't go smoothly.

Cooper, appropriately, quizzed Harris about Biden's performance. Harris wasn't having it.

“Yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong finish," she said. "What became very clear through the course of the night is that Joe Biden is fighting on behalf of the American people. On substance, on policy, on performance — Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong.”

Cooper pressed on. "I’m sorry, on substance and policy and performance tonight, the president’s performance tonight clearly was disappointing for his supporters," he said.

Again, Harris was not taking the bait.

"I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes," she said, "when I’ve been watching the last three and a half years of performance."

Trump's bizarre shrug

The debate went on for more than half an hour before the moderators brought up the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, and Biden was the first to bring up Trump's felony convictions.

"The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man I'm looking at right now," Biden said, looking at Trump. You might think someone with 37 felony convictions on his record, who has been found liable for sexual assault, might react strongly.

Not Trump. Rather than blanch or cloud up, he just sort of nodded, along with a kind of "whaddya gonna do" shrug. In Trump world, this counts as discipline.

CNN's branding demands

CNN had exclusive broadcast rights to the debate and could have simply aired it solely on its TV network and online platforms. CNN is a mess right now and could have used the massive ratings an exclusive broadcast would have brought in. The network did the right thing, though, and allowed other networks to air it — but with some conditions.

The most obvious was that anyone airing it had to call it the CNN Presidential Debate, so you had the odd visual of, say, Fox News showing Biden and Trump with its competitor's name on the screen. Not that this stopped Fox News in particular from being, you know, Fox News. In the run-up to the debate, Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt praised Eric Trump for saying CNN had probably already given Biden the debate questions. Class acts to the end.

Finally, MSNBC and Fox News agree:The CNN Presidential Debate was a grisly mess

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.