In Confusing Debate, Trump and Biden Trade Personal Accusations and Expose Disagreements | 2020 U.S. elections

Talking a lot, Trump barely gave his opponent space, even interrupting the moderator and making time allocation difficult. The president was the first to be questioned, having to answer why he appointed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court just over a month ago for the presidential election.

“I was not elected for three years, I was elected for four,” Trump justified, although in 2016 his own party prohibited Obama’s appointment of a judge in March, claiming that an appointment could not be made in presidential elections.

Biden said the nomination should not be made at this time because the election is already underway, given that voting by mail has already started in some states.

The conversation then turned to healthcare and Trump’s promise to end Obamacare, with Biden saying Barrett “believes the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.” According to the Democrat, putting the judge on the Supreme Court is Trump’s way to fulfill his campaign promise.

It was then that Trump accused the Democratic candidate of being an ally of the radical left, a strategy anticipated by his team. “Your party wants to adopt socialist medicine,” he accused, being beaten by the opponent.

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The barter increased when the coronavirus was discussed, with Trump insisting that the press wants to damage him with a negative image, although even Democratic governors praise his initiatives in the fight against the pandemic. Biden even laughed at the statement.

With more than 7 million cases and 200,000 deaths, the United States is the country with the highest number of Covid-19 infections and deaths in the world.

Still, the president tried to compare the crisis to the 2009 swine flu epidemic, which he said Obama dealt with disastrously. In response, his opponent recalled that swine flu killed 14,000 Americans, compared to 200,000 deaths from Covid-19.

At one point, Biden got mad and even asked Trump to shut up so he could say, ‘You wanna shut up, man?’ This, however, was not his first moment of irritation.

When they were still discussing health plans, Biden even called the president a clown: “Everything he’s saying so far is just a lie. Everybody knows he’s a liar … do you have any idea what this clown is doing? ? ” “

Trump also did not lag behind and launched provocations, responding to criticism of his role in relation to the coronavirus pandemic by saying “you shouldn’t be talking smart to me, there’s nothing smart about you, Joe.”

Trump accused Biden of wanting to keep the United States closed and said he would destroy the country, while the Democrat said he was in favor of maintaining the necessary security measures to prevent the increase in the number of cases and deaths caused by Covid-19. .

The president even mocked the wearing of masks, saying that many experts don’t recommend the practice: “I don’t wear a mask like (Biden), every time you see him, he has a mask. He can be talking 200 meters away and he appears with the largest mask I have ever seen. “

Speaking of economics, the president was asked about his taxes after an article in the New York Times showed he paid just $ 750 in 2016, and Biden, who published his taxes last Tuesday, asked again that Trump does the same. .

“I paid millions of dollars in income tax,” said Trump, who denied the newspaper, but has repeated the same saying since 2015, which will show the documents when “they are ready.”

Biden said he would eliminate Trump’s tax cuts as a strategy to revive the country’s economic activities and called his opponent “the worst president the United States has ever had.”

Speaking of protests across the country and violence, Trump once again associated Biden with the radical left, saying the Democrat would not claim to be in favor of law and order, because that would cause him to lose the votes of this wing of voters.

He also accused him of wanting to withdraw funds from the police, which he was denied. The president also reaffirmed that cities ruled by Democrats are more violent.

“Violence in response is never appropriate. It is never appropriate. Peaceful protest is. Violence is never appropriate,” said Biden, who categorically denied that he intended to withdraw funds from law enforcement.

The conversation led to a discussion about racism, with the moderator recalling that during the protests against white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017, Trump said there were “good people on both sides.” Wallace then called on the president to condemn far-right groups and white supremacists, as he has done to the far-left and the Antifa movement on several occasions.

Trump then said: “Proud Boys (group of supremacists), back off and stand still.” However, he continued: “But, I will tell you something, someone has to do something with Antifa and the left because that is not a problem for the right, it is a problem for the left.”

In a final attempt to link Biden to the radical left, Trump called the Democrat’s environmental plan the “Green New Deal,” supported by politicians like Bernie Sanders, but Biden responded that “I do not support the Green New Deal.” I support the Biden plan that I presented. ”

He also quoted Brazil: “Brazil’s tropical forests are being destroyed,” he said, and suggested “economic consequences” for the country if it does not meet the forest preservation goals.

At the end of the debate, the two again disagreed, this time on the security of the vote and the outcome of the elections. Once again Trump suggested that there could be fraud, especially in postal ballots, a theory he has been putting forward for months, without proof.

Biden accused him of “scaring” voters to try to convince them to give up voting and asked everyone to vote. He assured that it is impossible for the results to be manipulated and said that he will accept the official result, pending the full count. Meanwhile, Trump said he believes the Supreme Court may intervene.

The first of three debates between the two candidates took place at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News.

The state of Ohio is important to both candidates, as it is one of the states of oscillation, those in which voters do not traditionally commit to a party. In 2016, Trump won there, but this year, according to average polls compiled by the RealClearPolitics website, Biden leads, with 49% to 45.7% voting intentions.

The debate lasted 90 minutes, without pauses. There were six blocks of 15 minutes each, divided by subjects, selected by Wallace. The moderator did not verify the facts.

After an agreement between the two parties, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the candidates and the presenter did not shake hands, a tradition of more than 50 years during the presidential debates, broken only by Trump and Hillary Clinton in the last debate of 2016.

They also agreed that Trump and Biden would not need to wear masks on stage, as they were distant from each other and from other people in the studio.

Before the elections, Trump and Biden have two more debates: on October 15, in Miami, Florida, mediated by Steve Scully of the C-SPAN channel, and including questions from voters who will be in the hearing; and on October 22, in Nashville, Tennessee, with the mediation of Kristen Welker of NBC News, in a format similar to this Tuesday.

Candidates for vice president will meet only once. Mike Pence and Kamala Harris will debate on October 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah, with Susan Page of USA Today, in nine segments of ten minutes each.

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