Biden Falters In First Debate, Trump Spews Falsehoods, New Oklahoma School Mandate

Last night, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump attacked each other's presidencies in their first debate.

But what defined the night were the falsehoods Trump spewed, while Biden at times just didn't make sense.

From Leila Falded That's Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News.

This place, the whole world is blowing up under him. This guy's three years younger and a lot less confident.

And somehow, the night ended with Biden and Trump trashing each other's golf game who scored more points with the American public?

And Oklahoma's top education official has ordered public schools to begin teaching the Bible in classrooms. What does this mean for students and teachers? Stay with us, we'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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Democrats and Republicans alike are absorbing what they saw in last night's presidential debate.

President Biden and former President Trump took questions from CNN moderators. Biden's voice was raspy and he was sometimes hard to follow. That alarmed prominent Democrats about a president who is 81. Asked a question about the national debt, the president said he would wipe it out, and then he said his administration would also help with child care and health care.

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.

Thank you, President Biden. On his turns at the mic, Trump confidently and repeatedly made assertions that were often factually wrong. He also repeated parts of his campaign speeches with little pushback or rebuttal, and each candidate described the other's presidency as a failure.

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. Thank you, President Trump.

Our colleague Steve Inskeep anchored NPR's coverage of the debate.

And we have on hand some of the NPR Politics team who was watching with me, Daniel Kurtzleben and Domenico Montanaro. Good morning to you both. Hey there. Hey, what did you take away from this meeting?

Well, I mean, first and foremost, I mean, the elephant in the room was that. Democrats really were very nervous about the performance that Joe Biden gave. You know, people close to him on the record were talking about how this was a disappointing effort, you know, his campaign said that he had a cold, that's why his voice was hoarse, He sounded weak, somewhat feeble.

I guess we should note the elephant in the room, in this case, would be a donkey. But Danielle, what were your impressions?

Well, I'll take the Trump side of this here. Let me just say that, looking at my inbox, looking at Twitter, I guess we now call it X. Republicans, especially, are sort of doing a victory dance, saying that Trump looked so strong compared to Biden, who just looked old. But let's also keep in mind here that this is Trump. So, he said a lot of things that are flat out not true.

Let's go through some of the issues that were discussed in the last several days on NPR News. We had debate prep, we went through various big issues, we expected to come up and they did.

Scott's right on that. Viewers watching this just probably didn't get great ideas of what these two want to do on the economy. Now, on Trump's side, here are a couple of bullet points. He favors 10 tariffs, a blanket across the board, which economists say would raise prices on U.S consumers, meaning it would add to inflation, which is one of consumers biggest economic concerns.

Let's hear from another of our correspondents who is listening in. I'm Sergio Martinez-Beltran and I cover immigration for NPR. One thing that I found interesting about this debate was the part when President Trump was asked whether he was going to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and he didn't respond. And I thought that was interesting because that has been a promise that President Trump has made. And this was his moment to arguably explain what would that look like, and he didn't respond to that. Why is that significant?

Well, immigration has been the top issue for Trump and Republicans, certainly blaming Biden for the surge of migrants who've come into the country. But there are millions, upon millions of people in the country who've been here for a long time, paid taxes. And it's not quite as popular to say we're going to deport everyone who is in the country outright carte blanche, as opposed to keeping people out.

Yes, Trump did pivot away from deportation, but on multiple other questions, he did bring things back to immigration. And these are questions about things that a lot of Americans care about childcare, addiction. Also lingering concerns about January 6th. And on all three of those, Trump pivoted back to immigration, tried to talk about immigrant crime that has happened while Biden has been president. This is, of course, one of Trump's big lines in his rally speeches and pretty much any interview he gives. So that's where he's comfortable. It's a thing that he just wanted to keep talking about.

And that means he did not really answer questions about January 6th or about accepting a free and fair election. Let's hear another of our correspondents who sent a voice memo.

I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the Trump campaign. And what I noticed in the debate was, while Biden struggled with a raspy voice throughout the debate, he really perked up. When Trump started to attack him. On foreign policy, Biden started to speak more forcefully when addressing his son, Beau Biden. But he also pushed back when talking about Ukraine and taking on Putin and bringing allies together.

Did we hear the things that Biden really cares about there?

Well, I mean, arguably, there's no greater cleavage than foreign policy between these two men. Because they just feel completely differently. About how to handle it, how to appear on the world stage, how to unite allies together, whether or not you should even be involved in NATO at all. And this is something that Biden has, you know, dealt with for decades. He was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee while he was a senator. He feels very strongly about this, he's traveled all over the world, takes it very personally. Especially when Trump attacks him, saying that he doesn't care about veterans, or veterans don't like him.

And Piers Domenico Montanaro and Daniel Kurtzleben, thanks to you both, you're welcome.

Yeah, thanks.

We're going to go from the debate stage to Oklahoma, where a new mandate requires all schools to teach from the Bible.

State Superintendent Ryan Walter says the requirement will ensure students grasp the quote core values of our country. But the announcement brought an immediate backlash.

Beth Wallace is an educational reporter for State Impact Oklahoma, which is a nonprofit reporting collaboration among NPR stations. And she's with us now to tell us more about this good morning, Beth.

Good morning.

So what exactly does this new requirement say?

So Walters originally announced that every classroom would have a Bible and every teacher would teach from the Bible, but those details began to evolve throughout the day. In a memo to schools and when pressed by reporters, he clarified that it would only be for fifth through twelfth graders, and only for social studies and English. I should also say Walters is a conservative who has made a name for himself nationally by vowing to get wokeness out of the classroom. So this is very on brand for him.

But the obvious question here is, can he do that? I mean, separation of church and state, you know, the prohibition against the sort of promotion of one state religion. Those are core American values, not to mention constitutional requirements. So can he do that?

Well, so, in Oklahoma, our social studies standards say you should teach religion as part of history. And it outlines several ways religious history should be incorporated. For example, the role of Christianity in colonial America, or the significance of religion in world geography and borders. And Walters did clarify that he wants teachings on the Bible's impacts to be quote strictly from a historical perspective. Which that's pretty close to what the academic standards say anyway. But he's also not leaving out of his argument these very common refrains.

What we have done is taken God out of schools, taken the Bible out of schools. And it doesn't make sense to teach American history without understanding what the founders were saying as they were doing these momentous things.

You know, I also think it's important to note that Oklahoma Law is very clear on decisions about textbooks and curriculum and instructional materials. Those decisions fall exclusively under the purview of school districts and not the state department that Walters is in charge of.

Given all that, what's been the reaction?

So I talked to the state Attorney General's office and they said they've looked at the letter to schools. They actually don't read it as requiring the Bible to be taught. I also spoke with a Democratic state representative, Jacob Rose Krantz. He used to be a middle and high school history teacher and he said he's been reached out to by hundreds of teachers who are concerned and confused.

And they're like, OK, this is really, really bad, like, why would somebody even do this?

We already had the freedom to do this.

Why would somebody mandate this happen?

You know, we're also seeing civil liberties groups come out against this, the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. They already have a few lawsuits against Walters. They said in a statement that they would do everything in their power to stop the mandate.

That is Beth Wells with state impact Oklahoma Beth, thank you so much.

Thank you.

And that's up first for Friday, June 28th. I'm Michelle Martin.

And I'm Laila Faldil. Don't Forget Up First airs on the weekend, too. Aisha Roscoe and Scott Simon have the news. It'll be here in this feed or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrea Deleon. Megan Pratt, H.

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