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Joe Biden and Donald Trump exchanged heated remarks Tuesday, attacking each other’s competence and credibility, in a gripping first presidential debate 35 days before the most tense US election in recent memory.
There was no handshake when the two men took the stage and while this was due to Covid-19 restrictions, the absence of the traditional greeting symbolized the bitterness engulfing the country in the final countdown to November 3.
Just minutes later, the debate turned into an all-out and personal fight as they scrambled to resolve issues from a Supreme Court vacancy to the coronavirus pandemic to the US health care system.
“Everything he has said so far is simply a lie. I am not here to shout his lies. Everyone knows he is a liar,” said former Vice President Biden.
Biden, who adopted an energetic and aggressive tone despite Trump’s taunting that he had little energy, then said to the President of the United States, “You want to shut up, man?”
“This clown is hard to talk to,” Biden snapped at one point.
Biden, who leads the polls, sought to link Trump directly to the Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed more than 200,000 lives in the United States, more than in any other country.
“How many of you woke up this morning and had an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died from Covid?” Biden said.
Mocking Trump, 74, for one of his most notorious statements from the White House podium, Biden said: “Maybe you could inject bleach into your arm and that would fix it.”
Trump responded that his comment about the bleach had been a joke and quickly tried to hit Biden.
He attacked both his record as Barack Obama’s vice president and even questioned the 77-year-old’s educational record.
“Never use the word smart on me. Never use that word on me. There’s nothing smart about you, Joe,” Trump said.
Trump at one point denounced that the “radical left” has Biden “wrapped around the finger.”
He also attacked Biden’s insistence on wearing a mask to prevent Covid, a decision in line with the advice of medical experts.
“You have to understand, I have a mask right here. I wear a mask when I think I need it,” Trump said.
“I don’t wear a mask like him, every time you see him, he has a mask.”
Before they appeared in the first of three 90-minute television clashes, the spikes were flying.
Biden, who sought to eat away at Trump’s crucial support among blue-collar voters, capitalized on explosive revelations that billionaire Trump managed to avoid paying almost any federal income tax for years.
Trump, who has long broken presidential transparency by refusing to release his tax returns, allegedly used loopholes to pay just $ 750 in federal taxes during the first year of his presidency. He said in the debate that he has paid “millions” in taxes.
Hours before the Cleveland showdown, Biden released his own tax returns, demanding that Trump do the same in the debate.
Faced with the threat of being named president for a term, Trump has pushed forward a conspiracy theory that suggests his challenger needs performance-enhancing drugs and could use a headset to get answers during debate.
And his campaign communications director, Tim Murtaugh, amplified a new insult spread on social media that Biden was suspected of plotting to cheat using a headset.
But just before the debate, Biden responded humorously, tweeting, “It’s debate night so I have my headset and performance enhancers ready.”
Underneath was a photo of standard headphones and a can of ice cream.
Trump went to Cleveland with what he hopes is a silver bullet: his nomination of conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
If Barrett is quickly confirmed, as the Republican-led Senate hopes, Trump will have tipped the highest court firmly to the right for years to come.
“I’ll tell you very simply: we won the elections, the elections have consequences,” Trump said.
“The Democrats wouldn’t even think about not doing it. The only difference is that they would try to do it faster.”
Biden responded that Americans were already voting and should have a voice in the Supreme Court justice, sparking fears among liberals that Barrett will vote to repeal abortion rights.
bur-sms-sct / ec
