Democrats are weighing in on Biden’s debate performance, and some questioned whether he should be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president at all.

“That was painful,” Democratic analyst Van Jones said of Biden during a CNN roundtable after the debate. “He had a chance [to] restore confidence in the country and of the base, and he failed to do that."

"I think there’s a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now," Jones added. "We’re still far from our convention and there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward if he will allow us to do that.”

Kate Bedingfield, former White House communications director for the Biden administration, said during the same roundtable that Biden failed to display an energetic personality on screen, which, “for a lot of Democrats, that’s very disappointing.”

David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said on CNN that while Biden “scored a bunch of points” during the debate on issues like abortion and the economy, "there was a sense of shock, I think, [with] how he came out at the beginning, how his voice sounded and that he seemed a little disoriented” at times.

Over at MSNBC, former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe described Biden’s performance as “kind of a DEFCON1 moment.”

“I’ve been deeply involved in presidential campaign debates — some went well, some didn't go well,” Plouffe told Rachel Maddow. “The only thing that matters, and you won't really know for three or four days, is how the voters that will decide this election will react.”

"It really pains me to say this,” he continued. “They are three years apart. They seemed about 30 years apart tonight. And I think that's going to be the thing that voters really wrestle with coming out of this."

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Moments after the debate concluded, Trump's surrogates — a flurry of them, in fact — were on the floor of the CNN "Spin Room." And they were in a great mood.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, Reps. Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz of Florida and Elise Stefanik of New York, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, advisers Cory Lewandowski, David Bossie and Stephen Miller — even Sen. Lindsey Graham — fanned out across the McCamish Pavilion.

"As president of the United States, you have to adapt, you have a lot of things coming at you at all times," Lara Trump said, questioning whether Biden is fit for office. "If he had a cold, maybe that's what they're gonna tell people. But I don't think that the cold is the problem."

"Joe Biden was lost in several topics," Donalds said. "They kept asking, I think the moderators asked him several times, 'You have 89 seconds left, you have 34 seconds left, President Biden. Do you want to add to your answer?' You can't have that in our country."

"I think anybody who loves the United States of America today recognizes it is a national security threat for this man to be responsible for defending the United States of America," Ramaswamy said. "This isn't just funny anymore. This is dangerous."

When Biden's surrogates, including Sen. Raphael Warnock and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, arrived about 20 minutes later, they were swarmed by reporters and camera crews. The scrum was too deep for this reporter to get to hear their spin.

Following the debate, Biden briefly spoke to his supporters at a watch party in Atlanta and thanked them multiple times for their support.

He started by attacking the false claims Trump made during the debate, saying, "I can't think of one thing he said that was true.

"We're going to beat this guy and I need you in order to beat him. You're the people I'm running for," Biden added.

Each candidate was allotted two minutes for a closing statement. Biden went first, criticizing Trump. "This guy has increased your taxes," Biden said before moving on to say that Trump wants to get rid of key parts of Medicare.

As he had earlier in the debate, Biden struggled with his delivery.

"He wants to get rid of, the ability, to, for, the ability, to, for the ability for us to be able to negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma companies," said Biden, who has had a stutter since childhood.

Biden's campaign said during the debate that he had a cold, but had not tested positive for COVID.

"This man is just a complainer," Trump said, in his closing statement in the first presidential debate. "He doesn't do anything."

Ripping into Biden over various foreign policy issues, Trump pointed to Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and China, as well migration across the U.S. southern border. "Our military doesn't respect him," Trump said.

He went on to tout his own four years in office.

"What we did was incredible. We rebuilt the military," he claimed. "We're in a failing nation. But it's not going to be failing anymore. We're going to make it great again."

Trump: "I wish he was a great president because I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be at one of my many places enjoying myself. I wouldn't be under indictment because I wouldn't have been his political opponent. He indicted me because I was his opponent."

This claim is false: Trump has repeatedly said, without evidence, that his recent indictments were part of a strategy by President Biden and his administration to keep Trump out of the White House. Biden has no control over the Manhattan criminal court. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor who brought the case against Trump, does not work for the Justice Department or any other White House office.

During a discussion about their advanced ages, Biden and Trump found themselves debating their golf games.

Trump started it by boasting that he recently won two club championships before suggesting Biden couldn't drive a golf ball more than 50 yards.

Biden countered by saying that when he was vice president, he got his golf handicap down to a 6. As Trump disputed the claim, co-moderator Dana Bash interjected: "Let's not act like children."

Trump: "I was willing to take a cognitive test ... and I aced them."

This claim needs context: Trump has repeatedly boasted about his performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for ears, but that test is intended to detect signs of dementia or cognitive decline, not a measure of intelligence or the kind of test one can "ace."

Biden: "[Trump] wants to get rid of the [Affordable Care Act] again. And they're gonna try again if they win."

This claim needs context: After years of railing against the Affordable Care Act, asking the Supreme Court to overturn it while in office, and promising to come up with a better alternative to it, Trump said in April that he was "not running to terminate" the law commonly known as Obamacare.

"We're going to make the ACA much better than it is right now and much less expensive for you," Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social in April.

Biden: "Look it up, go online, 159, or 58, don't hold me to the exact number presidential historians, they had meetings and they voted who was the worst president in American history, best to worst. They said he was the worst in all of American history. That's a fact."

This claim needs context: Biden is likely referring to the results of the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, which did rank former President Donald Trump at the bottom.

Trump: "China's going to own us if you keep allowing them to do what they're doing to us as a country. They are killing us as a country, Joe. And you can't let that happen — you're destroying our country."

This claim needs context: On May 14, Biden placed tariffs on a number of Chinese goods, including EVs, solar panels, steel, aluminum and medical equipment. For his first three years in office, Biden also elected to leave many of the tariffs in place that Trump had slapped on China.

Biden, whose voice has sounded hoarse throughout the debate, has a cold — but tested negative for COVID, multiple news outlets have reported.

According to NBC News, two sources familiar with the situation said, "President Biden has a cold."

Three other sources confirmed the president was also administered a COVID test, for which he tested negative.

Biden spent days preparing for the debate at Camp David.

Biden: "He wants to get rid of Social Security. He thinks that there's plenty to cut in Social Security."

This claim is false: Trump has said that there may be some room to reduce spending on Social Security and proposed a budget that included some cuts to the program, but has not stated any intention to eliminate Social Security.

While the candidates debate inside CNN's debate hall across the street, hundreds of media members including this one are watching a live feed of the event that is being simulcast on dozens of temporary flatscreens scattered around the McCamish Pavilion — and on the JumboTron above the floor of the "Spin room," which is currently almost empty.

Trump: "You had no terror at all during my administration. This place — the whole world is blowing up under him."

This is false: This is not the first time Trump has claimed the U.S. had no terrorist attacks during his presidency.

• In 2017, Trump's Justice Department alleged that a mass murder in New York City, which killed eight people, was a terrorist attack in support of ISIS.

• In 2018, the Justice Department claimed there was evidence of a "domestic terrorist attack" when a Trump supporter mailed homemade explosive devices to Democratic officials and CNN offices.

• In 2019, Trump's Justice Department claimed an attack that killed three U.S. service members and injured others at a military base in Florida was motivated by an "associate" of al-Qaida.

• Also in 2019, a gunman, who was targeting Latinos, killed 23 people in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

Trump: "He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with essentially no inflation. ... He destroyed it."

Biden: "Inflation ... he caused it with his tremendous malfeasance in the way he handled the pandemic."

These claims needs context: Inflation is primarily the result of macroeconomic trends that presidents have little power to influence. Economists blame two recent factors, the coronavirus pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine, for recent spikes in prices.