Thanks very much for reading Need to Know this Friday, June 28. Here are today’s biggest developments:

• Senior Democrats are seriously considering replacing President Joe Biden on their presidential ticket after Biden’s poor performance during Friday’s televised debate, according to CNN and MSNBC journalists.
• California governor Gavin Newsom and US vice president Kamala Harris were among those to claim Biden had won the debate based on the substance of what was said.
• But commentators described Biden’s performance as “painful” and “an unmitigated disaster”, with political analyst and CNN host Van Jones characterising the debate as “the old man versus the con man”.
• Separately, CNN’s moderators were criticised for not providing real-time fact-checking during the debate.
• The live head-to-head was farcical at times. Trump repeatedly refused to answer questions, Biden struggled to complete his sentences, and the two men even clashed over who was better at golf.
• Trump pledged to end the Ukraine war and free a Wall Street Journal reporter if he was elected president on November 5, and he also resurfaced previously debunked claims that Biden had referred to African Americans as “super predators” in his advocacy for a 1994 crime bill.
• Meanwhile, Biden said Trump was a “convicted felon” who had “the morals of an alley cat”. His attack forced Trump to say: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
• Trump had earlier tried to paint Biden as weak on foreign policy. He claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if he had been in his office. He also repeatedly mocked Biden for giving billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.
• The debate also touched on abortion rights, the economy and immigration.
• Before it started, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced that he had approved ANZ’s takeover of Suncorp’s banking division, subject to enforceable conditions.
• During the same press conference, Chalmers said federal government assistance had helped cut median household energy bills by 14 per cent in the third quarter of last year.