Social media was in a frenzy on Thursday night during the first debate of the US campaign. The two candidates had some comic moments, many tense exchanges and some dramatic seconds. As if aware of the expectation generated by the state of health of President Joe Biden, who is 81 years old, the Democrat entered the debate hesitantly and, although he improved as the minutes passed, he went blank in some answers and stammered at the end of some sentences. The Republican dedicated himself to spreading some of his most repeated lies and attacked the migration crisis at the border whenever he could. The two almost octogenarians called each other convicts, argued about golf, contradicted each other and agreed on one thing: they both accused each other of being “the worst president in the history of the United States.”
Biden’s lapses
The president grew as the minutes passed and showed enormous prior preparation, but at several moments he lost track of what he was saying. Biden chained together very long responses with enumerations, which on the one hand gave a prefabricated air to his speech, but on the other hand showed confidence in his ideas. However, at times he hesitated or stopped vocalizing, rendering some of his phrases unintelligible. The most dramatic moment was at the beginning of the debate, when he was talking about migration. The president went blank, looking at his lectern and without finishing explaining his idea. Trump, who although he is only three years younger, constantly attacks the Democrat’s health, took advantage of the lapse: “I don’t know what he said, I don’t think he knows either.”
Trump’s lies
Trump offered a more restrained tone than on other occasions, surely favored by the microphone closure system that prevented the opponent from being interrupted, but he once again gave free rein to his exaggerations and lies. When he was not interested in the topic—such as when he was asked about the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021—the Republican resorted again and again to his favorite topics: border, China and inflation.
These were some of his lies on the microphone:
- The only jobs Biden has created are for immigrants.
- President Biden is in the pay of China.
- The cost of food has doubled, tripled and quadrupled.
- The president orchestrated the trial against Trump.
- Immigrants live in luxury hotels in New York.
- Biden encouraged Russia to invade Ukraine.
- On abortion: “They want to take the life of a nine-month-old baby, even after birth.”
Two octogenarians as children
This race for the White House will go down in history as the battle between the two oldest candidates of all time. The years weigh more heavily on the president, who is 81, and are noticeable in his clumsy and slow movements, and in his way of speaking, which is less energetic and clear than his opponent. Trump, at 78, always tries to take advantage of his three-year difference and his better physical form – despite a few extra kilos that he admits. With these elements, in a comical moment of the debate the conversation turned to golf.
Trump, who boasts of being in as good shape “as he was 25 or 30 years ago,” showed his pride in his prowess with the clubs: “I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be pretty smart and be able to hit the ball from far away. I do it and he doesn’t, he can’t hit a ball 50 yards.” Biden replied in the same tone: “Just take a look at what he says he is and take a look at what he is.” And the two settled the battle like children:
—Let’s not act like children, Trump said.
—You are a child, Biden snapped.
“I have never had sex with a porn actress”
The president attacked the Republican by accusing him of having sex with a porn actress while his wife was pregnant and of having been convicted of 34 crimes. “He is a convicted criminal,” he said during his speaking turn. When Trump’s microphone turned on, a response was heard, surely unprecedented for a presidential debate: “I have not had sex with a porn actress,” he said in relation to the Stormy Daniels case.
Biden, “the weak Palestinian”
In the foreign policy section, the moderators asked the candidates about the war in Gaza. Biden referred to the current proposal for a US-sponsored agreement between Israel and Hamas, which has not yet materialized. The Democrat accused Hamas of being the one preventing the agreement. Trump, in turn, said that it is Israel that wants to continue the war and said he was in favor of taking it “to the end.” “Let them finish the job. [Biden] “He has become a Palestinian, but the Palestinians don’t like him because he is a weak Palestinian,” he told the president.
All criminals: “You are an idiot, a loser”
The president responded harshly to Trump’s accusations that war veterans “are dying in the streets.” “My son is not an idiot or a loser. “You are an idiot and a loser,” he replied, remembering his son who died after serving in Iraq and to rescue some comments attributed to the Republican in 2020 about American soldiers killed in combat, whom he would have called “imbeciles” and “losers.” —something he denies.
Trump, who was found guilty at trial of falsifying accounting records to cover up the payment of a bribe to the porn actress for electoral purposes before the 2016 presidential campaign, then took the opportunity to bring up Biden’s other son, Hunter, who was recently convicted of lying about his drug use when buying a gun. Amidst all the condemnation, he tried to implicate the president in some imaginary crime:
—Joe could be a convicted felon with all the things he’s done.
—The only person who is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now on stage, Biden said.
“People are dying everywhere”
Trump spent the entire debate attacking immigration. The former president presents a United States that has become an absolute chaos where the most terrible things happen every day. In his exaggerations, he goes so far as to say things like “people are dying everywhere” because of immigrants who cross the border, whom he accuses of raping women and of having come to the country from prisons and mental institutions. “We have to get a lot of these people out and we have to get them out quickly, because they are going to destroy our country. We are an uncivilized country,” he said, referring to his promise to carry out the largest deportation in the history of the United States.
