In the first TV debate, President Joe Biden appears erratic at times, while Donald Trump, as usual, argues emotionally and energetically and deals quite freely with facts. Both attack their opponents with personal accusations.
President Joe Biden and his Republican challenger Donald Trump on Thursday evening in Atlanta.
Brian Snyder / Reuters
One had to expect the worst at the event, which in many places is already considered the decisive high point of the American election campaign. But to get straight to the point: at least 81-year-old Joe Biden did not have a complete blackout during the first TV debate in Atlanta and 78-year-old Donald Trump held back somewhat.
However, the debate on Thursday evening local time was not a triumph for either of them. Biden seemed shaky and unsteady, especially at the beginning. The fact that both faces were visible on the television did not help Biden either. While Trump was speaking, Biden occasionally stared into space. In the opposite case, one could witness Trump’s strange grimaces.
«The real idiot»
Later, Biden caught up, seemed more focused and was able to land some rhetorical hits. But as a spectator, it was like watching a tightrope act: you were constantly afraid of falling. Trump, in contrast, seemed much more energetic.
However, unlike Biden’s, his answers often had very little to do with the questions. For example, he was once asked to comment on the climate crisis. Instead, he talked about how much the police loved him. In almost every one of his answers, he mentioned illegal immigrants. Even when asked about the opioid crisis, he only brought up immigrants.
In one of the few moments when Biden got really emotional and some emotion came into his rigid face, he mentioned how Trump had called dead American soldiers “morons and losers” and then added that the real moron here was Trump.
His opponent denied ever having said such a thing and instead turned the subject to Biden’s son Hunter and his ominous laptop. Biden had evidently hit a sore spot with Trump, because Trump later returned to it and said that the generals hated Biden but loved him.
“USA at the level of a third world country”
When asked about the storming of the Capitol on January 6, Trump evaded the question and claimed that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was responsible, which she herself admitted. When the moderators asked him whether he would accept the election result this time, he replied: “If the election is fair and legal.”
Trump repeatedly said that the United States was no longer respected and had sunk to the level of a third world country, to which Biden always replied that America was the greatest and most powerful nation and that there had never been a president in the country who had called it a failed state like Trump.
The two are measured with unequal yardsticks
Both Biden and Trump repeatedly tried to portray their opponent as the worst president in history. The debate reached a strange low point towards the end when the two argued about their respective golf handicaps. And of course Biden also had to mention Trump’s “sex with a porn star,” to which Trump replied that he had never had sex with a porn star.
The bottom line is that while Trump often told untruths or half-truths and Biden generally argued more sensibly than Trump, Biden was probably perceived by a large part of the audience as dull, uncharismatic and boring. In Biden’s case, a lack of concentration is immediately associated with his advanced age; in Trump’s case, this is not the case. On the contrary, Trump’s tendency to rarely really answer the questions asked may be perceived by many as a refreshing, ruthless decisiveness.
Two people watch the presidential debate in a bar in Seattle
Lindsey Wasson / AP
