Biden Shares His Impression of the First GOP Primary Debate

President Joe Biden delivers remarks as he visits an area devastated by wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 21, 2023. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Aug. 25 reacted to the first Republican primary debate, as well as former President Donald Trump’s interview with Tucker Carlson.

The president, who vacationing near Lake Tahoe in Nevada, spoke to a group of reporters on the California side of the lake outside a pilates studio.

When asked his thoughts on the Republican primary debate, the president said he did see most of the event but implied that he wasn’t impressed. “I don’t remember them speaking to any of the issues,” he said.

“There was a lot of talk. But what are they going to do to deal with economic growth? What are they going to do to deal with the notion that maintaining the job pace that we have now? What are they going to do to deal with education?”

When asked by reporters whether he watched President Trump’s interview with Mr. Carlson, a former leading host at Fox News, which is the network where the debate aired, the president said he did not.

President Biden said he “didn’t have an interest or inclination” to watch the interview, which aired on X, formerly Twitter, at the same time as the GOP debate.

Despite President Trump’s absence, around 13 million viewers watched the first Republican presidential debate. Approximately 2.8 million viewers aged 25 to 54 were among the 13 million who viewed the debate on multiple platforms.

More than 256 million individuals are shown to have viewed the interview uploaded to X by Mr. Carlson; however, due to the way views are counted on X, it is challenging to determine how many individuals watched the entire or majority of the interview.

For a video to be considered “viewed” on the platform, it must fill at least half the screen and play for several seconds.

President Trump disclosed on Wednesday night who he believes won the first Republican presidential debate. In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the former president posted a clip of one of Vivek Ramaswamy’s comments during the debate and wrote: “This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big win in the debate because of a thing called truth. Thank you, Vivek!”

The clip included Mr. Ramaswamy’s praise of the former president about an hour into the event, where he said, “I'll just speak the truth. President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century.”

Directing his comments toward fellow candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christi: “Your claim that Donald Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a lot more credible if your campaign were not based on vengeance and grievance against one man,” referring to President Trump.

Later, Mr. Ramaswamy posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “if folks at home want to watch a bunch of people blindly bash Trump, they can just flip the channel and watch MSNBC right now. But I’m not running for President of MSNBC; I’m running for President of the United States.

President Biden was also asked on Friday what his reaction to President Trump’s mug shot was, soliciting a laugh: “Handsome guy. Wonderful guy,” the president said.

The first-ever mug shot of a President of the United States was taken on August 24, when President Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail in response to a 13-count indictment charging him with racketeering for challenging the results of the 2020 Georgia election.

Earlier in the day on social media, President Trump wrote that he would “proudly be arrested” for fighting for election integrity like “nobody has ever.” The photograph was published approximately one hour after the arrest. President Trump was released on a $200,000 bond.