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CLEVELAND, Sep 29 (Reuters) – Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden fought fiercely for Trump’s leadership on the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and the integrity of the November election in a chaotic first debate on Tuesday marked for personal insults, insults and Trump’s repeated interruptions.
* Trump and Biden participate in the first of three debates
* ‘Do you want to shut up, man?’ Biden asks (adds election quotes)
By Jarrett Renshaw and Steve Holland
Moderator Chris Wallace never established control of the debate. The two White House contenders spoke to each other and hurled insults in a frenetic political fight that made it difficult for either of them to be right.
“You want to shut up, man? This is so un-presidential, ”said an exasperated Biden after Trump’s repeated interruptions during the first segment of the Supreme Court debate.
Later, Biden called Trump a “clown”, a “racist” and a “Putin pup” in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin and told Trump: “You are the worst president the United States has ever had.”
Trump, for his part, said: “There is nothing intelligent about you, Joe.”
At the end of the debate, Wallace himself urged the president to stop his interruptions.
Wallace said: “I think the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with less interruption. I’m asking you, sir, to do it. “
Trump responded, “Well, so did he.”
Wallace: “Well, frankly, you’ve been interrupting more.”
Trump: “But long ago.”
Biden, 77, has maintained a consistent lead over Trump, 74, in national opinion polls, although polls in the battlefield states that will decide the election show tighter competition. It was difficult to determine whether the debate would move the needle.
Biden questioned Trump’s leadership on the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans, and said Trump had panicked and failed to protect Americans because he was more concerned about the economy.
“He panicked or looked at the stock market,” Biden said of Trump, who has lobbied for states to reopen their economies and downplay the threat of the pandemic.
“A lot of people died and a lot more are going to die unless you get a lot smarter, a lot faster,” Biden said.
Trump objected to Biden using the word “smart.”
“You graduated as the shortest or almost the shortest in your class. Never use the word smart with me. Never use that word, ”Trump said.
He defended his approach to the pandemic, saying “we have done a great job.”
But I’m telling you, Joe, you could never have done the work we’ve done. You don’t have it in your blood, ”he said.
With more than a million Americans already casting their early votes and time is running out to change their minds or influence the small fraction of undecided voters, the stakes were high when the two White House candidates took stage five. weeks before Election Day on November 3.
The two contenders did not shake hands when entering the debate, adhering to protocols on social distancing due to coronavirus.
Trump, who has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, repeated his unfounded allegations that voting by mail would lead to fraud. Experts say that fraud is extremely rare.
Trump said he hoped the Supreme Court would have to decide the election and “look at the ballots.” He urged his followers to go see the vote.
“If I see tens of thousands of ballots being tampered with, I cannot accept that,” he said, adding that “they cheat.”
Biden urged Americans to make a plan to vote and assured voters that Trump would leave if Biden won. He said that he would not declare victory until the result was validated.
“If we get the votes, everything will be over. He will go, ”he said, adding that Trump’s complaints about mail-in ballots were that Trump was“ afraid ”of counting the votes.
“I am concerned that any court will have to resolve this,” he said.
TRUMP DEFENDS PUSH IN COURT
Trump defended his effort to swiftly occupy a seat on the US Supreme Court, saying “elections have consequences” and that he had the right despite Democratic objections.
“I will tell you very simply that we won the elections, the elections have consequences. We have the Senate and the White House and we have a phenomenal nominee respected by all, ”Trump said in defense of his nominee, Conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Biden said the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat should be filled after the election, when it was clear who would be president.
“We should wait, we should wait and see what the outcome of this election is,” Biden said, adding that a more conservative Supreme Court would jeopardize the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare.
Trump is moving quickly to fill the Ginsburg seat in hopes of cementing a 6-3 conservative majority on the court, a key priority for social conservatives.
Democrats have argued that Republicans are being hypocritical for acting quickly to fill the seat given that they had blocked then-President Barack Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016, arguing that they should wait until after the November election.
Hours before the debate, Biden released his 2019 tax returns and his campaign called on Trump, who has been criticized for not publishing his returns, to do the same.
Biden took the plunge two days after the New York Times reported that Trump paid only $ 750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, and none in 10 of the previous 15 years, after years of reporting large business losses. commercial.
Trump had long sought to keep his personal financial records secret.
Biden’s taxes showed that he and his wife Jill paid more than $ 346,000 in federal taxes and other payments for 2019 on income of nearly $ 985,000 before seeking a refund of nearly $ 47,000 and said they had overpaid the government.
“I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars in income taxes,” Trump said when asked about the New York Times report.
(Reporting by John Whitesides; Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Trevor Hunnicutt; Written by Will Dunham and Michael Martina; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)
