US presidential debate LIVE updates: Donald Trump, Joe Biden ...

Hello and welcome to our coverage of the first debate between US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump.

We will livestream the debate below, and it is expected to begin at 11am AEST.

Digital foreign editor Chris Zappone and breaking news reporter Jessica McSweeney will be keeping you up to date with each candidate’s answers and rebuttals. We will also have commentary from North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin and others.

Enjoy the debate.

When asked if he would take any action to slow the climate crisis, Trump claimed to have “the best environment numbers ever” according to his “top environmental people”.

“I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air and we had it,” Trump said.

Biden in his reply pointed out Trump pulled out of the Paris accord.

“The only existential threat to humanity is climate change and he didn’t do a damn thing about it,” Biden said.

Biden was asked before the break if he believes Trump supporters would be voting against “democracy”.

Biden pointed to Trump’s reaction to the deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia far-right rally as Biden’s motivation for running, when he said there were good people “on both sides”.

At the time of the riot Biden said there was a battle for the “soul of America” – this has been a long-running rhetorical theme of Biden’s.

Trump denied, somewhat fancifully, that Biden was really motivated by the “the Charlottesville story”.

Trump responded: “It is debunked. Every reasonable anchor debunked it. Just the other day it came awe where it was fully debunked. It is a nonsense story.”

Just before the debate went to a break, the two presidents were trading attacks on morality.

Biden said Trump has “the morals of an alley cat”, pointing to Trump’s sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels.

“How many billions of dollars do you owe and civil penalties for molesting a woman in public … having sex with a porn star while your wife was pregnant?”

Trump responded by denying he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels, and claimed his poll numbers went up after his recent hush money trial.

Washington: It’s not surprising that Biden is pitching his re-election as a fight to preserve American democracy.

Equally notable is that this debate is taking place in Atlanta – the capital city where Trump was indicted and had his mugshot taken about a year ago for trying to subvert the election results in that state.

That case has now been delayed, thanks in part to the district attorney overseeing it, Fani Willis, having an improper relationship with the prosecutor who led the investigation against the former president.

Washington: One question going into the debate was how Biden would approach Trump’s status as a criminal. The former president made history last month when a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records on the eve of the 2016 election to cover up an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.

Democrats have increasingly gone on the attack in recent days, including by taking out billboards in Georgia saying: “Donald. Welcome to Atlanta for the first time since becoming a convicted felon. Congrats. Or whatever…”

However, Biden faced a balancing act after his Hunter was also recently convicted for illegally purchasing of a handgun in 2018.

In the end, it took about 44 minutes for the president to raise the issue. “The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now.”

Trump was asked about the events of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in the final moments of his presidency.

When asked what he said to voters who believed he violated his oath of office on that day, Trump said he acted “peacefully and patriotically”.

He claimed he offered then-House-Speaker Nancy Pelosi protection from the National Guard, which he claimed she turned down.

Trump isn’t directly answering the question. He said Democrats should be sent to jail for “destroying information”.

“The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man i’m looking at right now,” Biden said.