 "Stumbling Biden, forceful Trump, false claims… Big takeaways from first US presidential debate")
The first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is over and it was nothing short of contentious. Both the leaders traded fiery barbs at each other in an attempt to shift the odds of the White House race in their favour.
The face-off between the two — who accused each other of being history’s worst presidents — has taken place far earlier in the election cycle but that didn’t make it any less intense. Both the current American president and his predecessor exchanged personal insults and attacks during the nearly two-hour-long debate while even taking on each other on their policies.
We take a closer look at some of the big moments and the biggest takeaways from the debate.
No handshake and bad blood
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not fond of each other. That has been known for quite a long time and their disregard for each other took centre stage at the first presidential debate being held in Atlanta.
The tone of the debate was set right at the beginning of the debate when they declined the traditional handshake. The candidates entered from opposite ends of the CNN Studio in Atlanta where no studio audience was present but neither side extended their hands for a civil meet, indicating that they were in no mood to be courteous.
Aides of Biden told CNN, “He didn’t have to in 2020, why change that now?”, making a note of the previous presidential debate that the two attended amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsApart from the handshake — or the lack thereof — both leaders also launched personal attacks at each other. Biden attacked Trump’s character and at one point even said: “You’re the sucker. You’re the loser.”
The US president also took on Trump on his legal woes, saying he would be the first convicted felon in the White House. “Think of all the civil penalties you have. How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for, for molesting a woman in public,” Biden said, and “for having sex with a porn star on the night, while your wife was pregnant?”
“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden said.
But Trump didn’t hold back either. He came down heavily on Biden, calling him the worst president the country has ever seen. At the end of the debate, Trump also called Biden “a complainer” who has made the US unsafe and who has worsened the country’s reputation on the international stage.
“For three-and-a-half years, we’ve been living in hell,” Trump said of Biden’s time as president.
**Also read: Recalling historic moments from US presidential debates**Age — the elephant in the room
Before the debate, one of the main issues was how the two men, both of whom have faced questions about their fitness for the job, would handle themselves on stage. Biden at 81 and Trump at 78 have both been questioned over their ability to rule at their age; Biden more than Trump.
However, on this issue, Trump emerged as a clear winner. During the debate, he was forceful, while the president struggled to land his lines.
At one point, Trump even used Biden’s lack of cohesion to attack him. He said, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
The former US president also challenged Biden to undergo a cognitive test, saying he did not believe his Democratic rival for the White House in 2024 could pass one. “I took two tests, cognitive tests. I aced them, both of them, as you know, we made it public. He took none. I’d like to see him take one, just one, a real easy one, like go through the first five questions. He couldn’t do it,” Trump said.
And it seems Biden’s stumbling performance has become a worry for the Democrats. About halfway through the debate, a Democratic strategist who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign called it a “disaster.”
Ray La Raja, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Reuters: “Biden’s not talking in a measured way, and looks like he’s searching for words.”
Economy, abortion and taxes
Biden and Trump sparred on various topics through the CNN debate but the three main issues were the economy, abortion laws in the US and taxes.
On the issue of inflation, which is a top concern for many US voters, Biden blamed Trump, saying he inherited a failing economy from his predecessor. “What we had to do was try to put things back together again,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, Trump accused Biden of doing a poor job on the issue. “He has not done a good job. He’s done a poor job,” Trump said. “And inflation is killing our country. It is absolutely killing us. I gave him a country with essentially no inflation. It was perfect. It was so good, all he had to do is leave it alone,” he added. “He destroyed it.”
On the issue of taxes, Trump also falsely claimed that Biden “wants to raise your taxes by four times”.
When the topic turned to abortion, Trump said he wouldn’t block abortion pills, but stated that abortion regulations should be decided by the states.
The US president came down heavily on Trump for his role in abortion access, calling it “a terrible thing” after his Republican rival boasted of nominating Supreme Court justices that helped overturn Roe v Wade.
And the winner is…
So, at the end of the nearly two-hour debate, who emerged as the winner? Experts and many in the public seem to give this debate to Trump. They note that he seemed more energy than Biden, who took a prolonged pause and froze while answering a question about the economy.
Even Biden’s former communications director Kate Bedingfield told CNN after the debate: “There’s no two ways about it, that was not a good debate for Joe Biden.” She said his biggest issue was to prove he had the energy and the stamina, and he didn’t do that.
However, there’s another winner in this debate, and that’s CNN. The debate was a significant financial event for the media outlet, as advertisers were eager to capitalise on high viewership. A report by Fortune said that CNN would rope in millions for the debate.
The US public will now have to wait until September 10 for the next presidential debate between the two. Will that debate offer Biden a chance to improve on his performance? Only time will tell.
With inputs from agencies
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