Plus, key lines from the debate explain Democrats' distress.

06.28.24

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Questions? Comments? what.matters@cnn.com

CNN's presidential debate has dominated news coverage, and for good reason. But Friday was also a major day at the Supreme Court as it released more decisions. A few still remain, including the key question over former President Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity from prosecution.

On Friday, the court:

Limited some January 6 prosecutions. In a case that turned entirely on what Congress meant with the word "otherwise," the court limited obstruction charges and sided with a January 6, 2021, rioter, who was also found guilty on other charges. The case could have wide-ranging implications, including for Trump.

Overturned a 40-year precedent. The old ruling gave the federal government some deference in interpreting laws related to the environment, public health and the workplace. Read more about the now-defunct "Chevron Deference."

Ruled that homeless people can be ticketed for sleeping outside. Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote an epic dissent that began with this: "Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime."

Rejected Steve Bannon's bid to avoid prison. The former Trump adviser had been convicted by a federal jury for not complying with a subpoena from the House’s January 6 investigation. Must report by Monday.

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: What if Biden left the race?

Joe Biden’s spotty debate performance immediately triggered new questions from worried Democrats about whether he would leave the presidential race.

What's below is from CNN's Ethan Cohen and me:

It would not be an easy process since Biden is already the Democrats’ presumptive nominee and the overwhelming choice of primary voters. He faced little opposition during the primary season, and the fact that he won nearly all of the party’s delegates means it’s very unlikely he’d be forced out of the race against his will.

“This isn’t the ’60s. Voters choose the nominee. He is the nominee,” said CNN analyst and Democratic strategist David Axelrod, reacting to Biden’s performance at the debate Thursday night on CNN.

That current primary system, which empowers primary voters over party bigwigs, essentially sprang from discontent after Democrats selected Vice President Hubert Humphrey as their nominee in 1968. Even after President Lyndon Johnson bowed out of the presidential race that year, recognizing his fading popularity and opposition to the war in Vietnam, Humphrey represented a continuation of Johnson’s Vietnam policy at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Violence broke out when protesters clashed with police as Humphrey accepted the nomination.

Things would be very different in 2024 if Biden decided to leave the race, although Democrats’ convention will return to Chicago in August.

Watch key moments and analysis of the debate here.

And below, see Biden's fiery speech on Friday at a rally in North Carolina after his shaky debate performance the night before:

As we first wrote back in February, if the leading candidate was to drop out of the campaign after most primaries or even during the convention, individual delegates would need to select the party’s nominee on the convention floor (or, potentially, during a virtual roll call).

That would shine a spotlight on the normally niche question of who those actual delegates are. The Democratic Party set a deadline of June 22 for states to select the more than 3,900 delegates – almost all of them currently pledged to Biden – allocated as part of the primary process.

These delegates aren’t just pledged to vote for Biden; they’re also approved by his campaign. So while a majority of convention delegates could decide to pick a new nominee, doing so would require massive defections from the president’s own supporters. It also means that if Biden dropped out of the race, it would largely be Biden backers who would be responsible for picking his replacement.

Who could replace Biden?

You can assume, for instance, that Vice President Kamala Harris would be a top contender to be on the ballot in such a scenario. But there would be other potential candidates who previously argued they could run a more effective campaign against former President Donald Trump.

Would someone like California Gov. Gavin Newsom – who offered unqualified support for Biden in the wake of Thursday’s debate – challenge Harris at the convention? Settling on a replacement could be divisive and ugly. It would be up to the delegates to decide, in a series of votes after frantic lobbying, who to pick.

On the Democratic side, there is also another group to consider: the “superdelegates,” a group of about 700 senior party leaders and elected officials who are automatically delegates to the convention based on their position. Under normal party rules, they can’t vote on the first ballot if they could swing the nomination, but they’re free to vote on subsequent ballots.

For more on this, including what happens if a candidate leaves the race after the convention, read the full story.

: Key lines explain Democrats' distress

I watched the debate and gathered some key moments. A sampling is below. Read my full list here.

It is difficult to include detailed quotes about their policy statements, Trump’s in particular, because they were so misleading. Read CNN’s full fact check.

When Biden trailed off

The president was making a point about the tax cuts, enacted by Trump, which have helped grow the national debt. Biden was trying explain that he supports tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to pay for many social goals, but the words got jumbled.

We’d be able to right wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do – child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the Covid. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with – look, if – we finally beat Medicare.

-Biden

It was an awkward moment since it was not clear what Biden meant. Trump was quick with a misleading response.

Well, he’s right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death. And he’s destroying Medicare because all of these people are coming in, they’re putting them on Medicare. They’re putting them on Social Security. They’re going to destroy Social Security.

-Trump

That’s misleading since Medicare and Social Security also need more younger workers paying into them to cover the costs of older workers currently looking toward retirement.

On abortion rights

Trump said “everybody” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, which is not at all true since opinion polls suggested most Americans wanted it kept in place. Not in Trump’s telling.

Fifty-one years ago, you had Roe v. Wade, and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. Everybody wanted it back. Religious leaders. And what I did is I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted.

-Trump

Trump also misread the divided politics of abortion rights at the moment, in which voters in some states are protecting abortion rights and legislatures in other states are curtailing them. Voters, given the opportunity, have generally tried to protect abortion rights. That’s hardly a picture of unity.

I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. I think it’s very important. Some people don’t. Follow your heart. But you have to get elected also and – because that has to do with other things. You’ve got to get elected.

-Trump

Trump then said some incorrect things about late-term abortions under Roe v. Wade before trying to end on a high note.

We brought it back to the states and the country is now coming together on this issue. It’s been a great thing.

-Trump

Biden clearly disagreed and argued allowing states to each have completely different abortion policies is like allowing states to have completely different civil rights laws.

It’s been a terrible thing, what you’ve done.

-Biden

But on an issue that Democrats hope will unify voters against Trump and Republicans, Biden offered one of his least coherent answers. Instead, apparently trying to make a point about the need for abortion access for people who have been raped, the president fed Trump’s flawed narrative about migrant crime. Try to follow this:

Look, there’s so many young women who have been – including a young woman who just was murdered and he – he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by a – by – by an immigrant coming in, and they talk about that. But here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their – by their in-laws, by their – by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by – just – it’s just – it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they tried to arrest them when they cross state lines.

-Biden

On immigration

This a top issue for Trump, and he kept returning to it, arguing the country was safer under him.

We had the safest border in the history of our country. The border – all he had to do was leave it. All he had to do was leave it. He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists.

-Trump

Biden noted there’s no evidence to support these broad claims about people seeking asylum in the US from other parts of the world and said Trump was lying. These are claims Trump frequently repeats.

In a new riff at the debate as he tries to siphon African American support from Democrats, Trump said an influx of migrants at the border were “taking Black jobs.”

Biden argued voters should trust him on immigration since he tried to get a bipartisan agreement passed in Congress to give the president new powers to address an influx of migrants, cut down on the flow of drugs and give new money to border patrol and immigration courts. Biden also pointed out Trump’s policy of intentional family separation during a portion of his presidency.

On veterans

Biden turned from the immigration debate to his treatment of veterans, pointing out he signed legislation to expand care for veterans exposed to burn pits and toxic substances. He mentioned his late son, Beau, who died of cancer years after serving in Iraq.

And Biden repeated a story told by Trump’s former White House chief staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, that Trump declined to visit a World War I cemetery in France because he thought people who fought in wars were “suckers.”

My son was not a loser. He was not a sucker. You’re the sucker. You’re the loser.

-Biden

Biden’s description of this anecdote seemed to anger Trump. The former president kept coming back to it, disputing it throughout the debate.

On Russia’s war against Ukraine

Trump, when pressed, said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand to keep territory in Ukraine to end the war was unacceptable. But he also said the US is spending too much money helping Ukraine. Those separate points led Trump to make a bold claim.

I will have that war settled between Putin and (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky as president-elect before I take office on January 20th. I’ll have that war settled.

-Trump

Biden noted the aid to Ukraine is mostly in the form of weapons, which are manufactured in the US. He also said Putin’s goal is to reconstitute the Soviet Union. Putin will not stop at Ukraine, Biden said.

There’s not a way to verify this, of course. And Trump has a history of making bold claims that do not become true.

On who is the worst president

The question from CNN’s Jake Tapper, who moderated the debate in Atlanta with Dana Bash, was about the cost of child care, but the answers turned to who is a worse president.

If he wins this election, our country doesn’t have a chance. Not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won’t have a country left anymore. That’s how bad it is. He is the worst in history by far.

-Trump

The idea that we’re talking about worst presidents. I wasn’t joking. Look it up. Go online. 159 or 58, don’t hold me the exact number, presidential historians. They’ve had meetings and they voted who’s the worst president in American history. One through best to worst. They said he was the worst in all of American history. That’s a fact. That’s not conjecture. He can argue they’re wrong, but that’s what they voted.

-Biden

On golf

Bash asked about Trump’s age and his capabilities to serve, and his answer went from cognitive tests, which he claimed to have aced, to golf, where he claimed to be winning recent tournaments.

I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards.

-Trump

Biden also bragged about his golf game, saying he had close to a six handicap before correcting himself to saying it was, at one point, an eight.

I told you before I’m happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?

-Biden

On accepting election results

Trump repeatedly deflected when asked if he would accept the election results, finally settling on “if it’s a fair and legal and good election,” before suggesting, again, that fraud kept him from the White House in 2020.

Biden noted that no court or serious investigation ever found any evidence of any fraud. That’s not a good sign for Trump accepting a potential 2024 loss, according to Biden.

I doubt whether you’ll accept it because you’re such a whiner. The idea if you lose again, you’re accepting anything, you can’t stand the loss. Something snapped in you when you lost the last time.

-Biden