[ad_1]
The debate in Cleveland, 35 days before the tense US presidential election, was as angry as expected. Trump in particular tried to beat his rival and also moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News TV.
Opponents did not shake hands on the podium, and while this was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of a traditional greeting symbolized the anger and division that gripped the country ahead of the November 3 elections. .
Trump attacked Biden, 77, as hard as he threatened. He said that the “radical left” had put the little finger on the centrist Democrat.
The president did not forget about personal things either. In an effort to upset the former vice president, he accused one of his sons of corruption and told him: “You haven’t done anything wise, Joe. You haven’t done anything in 47 years. “
However, Biden, who is far ahead of Trump in terms of popularity, not only retaliated appropriately, but also staged an attack that the president infrequently experiences.
Reuters / Photo by Scanpix / Joe Biden during the debate
“Liar”, “racist”, “clown” are just some of the rhetorical rockets launched by J. Biden. The Democratic candidate also called Trump a “puppy” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The fact is, everything he’s said so far is just a lie,” Biden said. “Everybody knows he is a liar.”
“It’s hard to insert a word when talking to this clown, sorry, this person,” Biden commented after Wallace cautioned against interrupting.
“I stood up to Putin and made it clear to him that none of these things would work for us. And he’s Putin’s dog, “Biden said of the president.
Sometimes neither J. Biden nor Ch. Wallace could insert a word, and D. Trump loudly praised their achievements in the field of economics and attacked J. Biden’s son Hunter.
“It will be one of the worst debates in history,” Aaron Kallas of the University of Michigan, a specialist in presidential debates, told AFP.
Conspiracy theories
During the most chaotic debate in recent years, in a manner appropriate to this year’s particularly disgusting election campaign, the two men often spoke without allowing the opponent to finish, and Trump interrupted Biden, almost yelling, so often that He finally turned to the president resentfully and said, “Do you want to shut up, man?”
This moment became a symbol of Biden’s strength in the arena, where the Trump campaign predicted his collapse for months.
The Republican president even spread shocking conspiracy theories until the last minute, so that Biden would endure the night of the debate with only drugs or headphones through which the answers would be secretly told.
The irate event did not allay the country’s fears that presidential elections during the pandemic could end in chaos.
When Wallace asked if his rivals promised to call for calm and would not rush to declare victory if the election results were not immediately clear, Biden replied, “Yes.”
However, Trump did not commit to that. He said that if he saw “tens of thousands of ballots being tampered with,” he could not “agree with that.”
Reuters / Photo by Scanpix / Donald Short during the debate
“We may not know for months,” the president said of the election results, adding: “It will not end well.”
“I urge my supporters to go to the polls and watch very closely,” he said.
At the time, Biden promised to agree with the election results: “Whether I win or not, I will support the result.”
Biden urged voters to vote and not be afraid of Trump’s insinuations that he may disagree with defeat.
The president rightly expresses his doubts about the credibility of the postal vote and the election in general. Trump says an extended postal ballot will falsify the results, but election experts say there is no evidence this poses a serious risk.
The practice of voting by mail is already widespread in the United States and often runs smoothly.
Photo by Scanpix / Debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden
“Vote the way that works best for you,” Biden said. “Because it cannot allow you to decide the outcome of this election.”
“I will agree with the results and so will he. You know why? Because as soon as all the votes are counted, the winner will be announced, it’s over, “said J. Biden.
I lost an opportunity to condemn
When asked if he condemned far-right armed groups, Trump gave a mysterious response: “Proud guys: stand back and stay tuned.”
“But this is what I have to say: someone has to do something with Antifa,” he added, referring to the far-left movement.
The far-right paramilitary group Proud Boys appears to have immediately caught the phrase from the president. One of their most popular social media accounts has a “Get Back and Stay” logo.
Trump was heavily criticized Wednesday for failing to seize the opportunity to condemn white supremacists.
“During the peak of extreme right-wing violence, with the rise of racism. D. Trump once again nodded to supporters of white supremacy, ”wrote Rita Katz, director of the organization SITE, which monitors extremist groups, on Twitter.
Reuters / Photo by Scanpix / Debate moderator Chris Wallace
The head of the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights group, asked Trump to explain or apologize.
“I’m trying to decide if it was an answer or an acknowledgment. President Short owes the United States an apology or an explanation. Now,” Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on Twitter.
A prominent civil rights organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, classifies the Proud Boys as a hate group.
In front is Antifa (an anti-fascist), an international coalition of activists and protesters who oppose far-right ideology.
Biden also attacked Trump for mentioning the Proud Boys.
“It’s Donald Trump’s America,” Biden wrote, tweeting to a reporter in The New York Times that the Proud Boys were delighted to be mentioned in tonight’s debate.
Empathy
During the debate, Biden also tried to link Trump to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already cost the United States more than 200,000 lives. lives, mainly in the world.
The Democratic nominee clearly had a plan to avoid Trump’s storm of rhetoric: He often addressed himself directly to the cameras and reached out to the tens of millions of people across the country who watched the broadcast.
“How many of you woke up this morning and saw an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died of COVID?” Biden asked, using his famous ability to show empathy to the sick. For a long time, it was difficult for D. Trump to equate him with an opponent.
Mocking Trump’s infamous 74-year-old statement on coronavirus drugs, Biden said, “Maybe you could inject bleach into your hand and have it looked after.”
Tax evasion
Even an hour and a half before the debate, Biden took advantage of scandalous reports in The New York Times that Trump had managed to avoid paying almost any federal income tax for many years.
Trump, who, breaking a long tradition of presidential transparency, refused to disclose his tax returns, used loopholes to pay just $ 750 (€ 645) in federal income taxes in the first year of his presidency, and 10 of those 15 years prior he did not pay any federal income tax because he lost much more money from livestock, the newspaper wrote.
Reuters / Photo by Scanpix / Donald Trump
A few hours before the debate in Cleveland, Biden published his tax returns for the past four years, and during the debate demanded the same of the president, who presents himself as a billionaire businessman.
The former vice president and his wife, educator Jill Biden, paid $ 299,346 in federal income taxes in 2019, documents released by Biden’s campaign show.
During the debate, Trump claimed to have paid “millions” of dollars in taxes.
However, the tax issue continues to provide Biden with opportunities to try to shrink the segment of workers who support Trump, whom the president calls “forgotten men and women.”
[ad_2]