Despite incessant interruptions from Donald Trump that infuriated even the moderator, both Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden stuck fast to their areas of strength in the first presidential debate, focusing on domestic issues.
Both candidates seemed to work hard to reinforce their stereotypes: Trump routinely tried to shout over both Biden and the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, and uttered some astonishing lies, while Biden at times appeared doddery, stumbled over his words and relied on his stock phrase “Here’s the deal”. And both tried to turn debate questions to their areas of perceived strength.
While the opening question was ostensibly on the Supreme Court and Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Biden immediately turned the issue on to the Democrats’ strength, healthcare, in effect warning the election would be a referendum on Obamacare and the threat of the Supreme Court to its continuation.
Challenged to explain what his overall plan for healthcare was, Trump visibly struggled, preferring to attack Obamacare.
Biden, despite being routinely interrupted by Trump, would have been happy that the opening part of the debate was devoted to an area where Democrats hold a strong edge on their opponents in the minds of US voters.
From there it was a short jump to the pandemic, where Trump’s line of defence was that things would have been far worse under Biden if he’d been responsible for responding to “the China plague”.
Biden had two pre-prepared lines to deploy against Trump, using Trump’s description of 200,000 deaths as “It is what it is” to reply with “It is what it is because you are who you are”, and exploiting Bob Woodward’s revelation that Trump didn’t want to panic Americans about the virus to say to viewers: “You don’t panic — he panics.”
When the debate switched to the economy, Biden employed the usual Democrat tactic of focusing on the economy for working people and small-town America, often directly speaking to the camera, while Trump warned that the Democrats would shut the economy down.
The issue of Trump’s tax returns inevitably came up, with the president insisting he had paid “millions” in taxes in 2016 and 2017 and not US$750.
“Show us your tax return,” sniped Biden. “I will when it’s finished,” Trump replied.
Trump also sought repeatedly to attack Biden’s son Hunter over allegations — rejected even by some Republicans — of foreign corruption.
The discussion of racism and Black Lives Matter also went in predictable directions, with Biden accusing Trump of racism and seeking to divide Americans, while Trump charged Biden with being captive to the “radical left” and emphasising his law and order credentials and the role of Democrat mayors and governors in tolerating civil disorder, before returning to attack Hunter Biden.
Biden was repeatedly thrown off stride by Trump’s incessant interjections and abuse, which so enraged Wallace that one stage he stopped the debate and asked if Trump was prepared to adhere to the rules his own side had agreed to.
“He doesn’t keep his agreements,” Biden interjected.
But Biden did little to undermine the impression he is vague, inarticulate and slightly confused, which he tried to dispel by trying to reel off statistics to back himself up.
The debate on climate change shed little light, with Trump insisting America was doing well with achieving “clean air and water” and insisting that forest fires were mainly caused by poor forest management, in contrast to “forest cities” in Europe, a bizarre claim Trump has made before, before trying to link Biden to the Green New Deal.
The debate ended, appropriately, with a long Trump screed about mail ballot fraud, and repeated declarations the election wouldn’t be decided “for months”.
He refused Wallace’s invitation to tell supporters to remain calm, predicting there could be 80 million fraudulent ballots, and was still yelling about it when Wallace brought the debate to an end.
As is so often the case with election debates, the result merely confirmed pre-existing images of the candidates.
In this case, that includes a president who is laying the groundwork for refusing to leave office if he loses.
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I am not sure which debate you were watching. An article in Crikey today has the headline “Feisty Joe Biden did’nt flag in exhausting 90-minute chaotic debate debacle” and you with your acerbic comment say that Joe Biden was doddering. You lose credibility if you are not honest in your criticism. It is well know that Biden stutters and he has overcome that. As is your usual habit you will criticise the ALP for minor transgressions while you withhold criticism about Morrison re: all the rorts of this government.
This is the first time I have seen Joe Biden for more than a quick 30 second grab. I was expecting this “doddering” old character to either trip over all of his “incoherent” statements, before falling asleep at the podium.
Wow, what a different person in reality. He handled himself well, especially against some of Trumps outright lies, exaggerations, and gutter moments. He spoke more fluently than I expected, and made some good points.
In comparison, Trump was all over the place, and itching for a fight. As Biden wasn’t buying into his bullying, Trump started bullying the Moderator as well.
I disagree. I feel like it is you who cannot be objective because you are too partisan.
Joe Biden was doddering. I was screaming at the TV… “call Trump a loser! Say he’s a bankrupt and can’t manage his way out of a paper bag!”
Joe Biden just kept repeating “here’s the deal”
Very disappointing. My 14 year old daughter could have done better.
I notice many Crikey subscribers are overtly left wing and unable to tolerate any criticism of the left at all.
I find this very disappointing. The only way to improve is to be able to critically evaluate and get better. Blind support is dangerous.
The weirdest thing about the debate was Trump characterising Obamacare as socialist medicine. The USA has probably the worst health system for the average citizen of all western democracies, and yet they still want to enrich the private health system. A dumpster of a country.
“Dumpster” of a country is a bit harsh. Yes. Their health system is a complete disaster and needs a complete make over. But then, so does everything. They are so focused on the individual over there. They’re all walking the streets, packing heat! This country has given me my favourite music and some of the best tv shows ever. They have also produced incredible technology. It is a shame that we, and they, gave it all away to others to manufacture, and now, those poor countries, who were happy do all that manufacturing for next to nothing, were given that technology for free and have run with it and overtaken us all.
It feels like watching an empire implode. A bit sad.
One thing, both this article and the one written by Janine Perrett. Did not pick up on Trump saying when asked about white supremacy, mentioned the Proud Boys, saying “Stand back and stand by”
If one doesn’t know them, they are a right wing, neo-fascist organisation who are listed by the SPLC as a hate group.
(yes I’m aware that I’ve posted this in both threads)
Thank you for posting this. Trump’s behaviour is so appalling at times that these types of utterances can fly under the radar as we don’t expect an American President to incite violence….but he does…he encourages violence from citizens against other citizens. Amidst the myriad of his shortcomings, he does not seem to understand that he governs for all…..I guess he just didn’t read the induction notes on his first day—-
Read? Trump? He can? even if he could he wouldn’t. Pilate isn’t in it!
I don’t know why Bernard missed this. I’ve seen the comments on 4chan about the “Day of the rope”
This is paraphrasing from the ADL website, but this concept is white suprematist from the book “The Turner Diarys”
This is the book that inspired the bombing in Oklahoma of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh.
So basically the day of the rope, is where they can kill off all of the race traitors, and jews (always a target.)
I certainly heard it .. did not understand the significance but thought the idea of “Standing by” was extremely threatening..
Standing by … for what??
Chris Wallace let it slide by..
“Standing by” might be carry out his other instruction to them to “check ballots“, though how one does that with a secret ballot is not clear.
Add to that Trump predicting “This is not going to end well”, one of his few credible statements. There’s an article on the Slate web site, ‘Is America in the Early Stages of Armed Insurgency?‘ – ‘One of the world’s leading counterinsurgency experts [David Kilcullen] is alarmed by what he sees.’
Essentially, saying what he did, Trump looked like he was the Proud Boys boss.
Don’t really agree. Biden was probably completely blindsided by Trump’s constant interjections against the agreed debate terms. When he did talk he was measured and lucid and seem to make sense in as much as any of them can.
Blindsided? I don’t think so.
How can a person say they were blindsided by Trump?
We have been watching him do this for years.
It actually reminds me of the time I tried to be reasonable with my son’s bully at school, and asked him to be nice. It didn’t work.
Bullies need to be treated like they treat others. Or you just walk away. But how can you walk away from this? So that means, get down on his level and debate in the same way.
Mock him and repeat: “you’re hilarious. You’re a thief. A scammer. A three time bankrupt, a total loser.”
That is what I would have done.
Given your insistence, I invite you to take a look at the discussion that Ruv Drapa and I had last week.
Biden “was measured and lucid“!
What were you watching?
He beat to death the phrase “Here’s the deal..“, sounding like a parent trying to talk street to the wayward teenager.
‘(Biden) relied on his stock phrase “Here’s the deal”’
I noticed this mechanism he used to anchor his thoughts.
Being someone who also used to stutter, I recognised a technique that springboards the beginning of a sentence that minimises the stutter. Very clever, hardly ‘doddery’.
As a retired Speech Pathologist, that’s a good point.
In any case I’d take a Dodderer over a bombastic Liar : )
Perhaps it serves a dual purpose .. To control a stutter and to embed an idea … It comes across as a strong and sincere offer..
Yep, I’m finding the ‘doddery’, ‘gaffe-prone’ stuff tiresome. Someone who stumbles is a long way from someone who’s unhinged.
I’ve yet to see anyone ‘debate’ Trump well, how could they?
Trump is a wrecking ball.
His ‘style’ is usually ‘effective’ in debate, since it allows of no reply. Here, it revealed the rubble he leaves in his wake, and Joe Biden, still standing.