For months, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, candidates for the upcoming US presidential election in November, have been insulting each other from a distance. This Thursday, June 27, they faced off for the first time. For once, the first debate between the two candidates is organized before the summer, at the request of the Democrat. It is also the first time that two candidates face each other without having been officially nominated by their party.
If this debate is announced as the most important of the campaign, it should not, barring any surprises, cause much movement in a country where political polarization is extreme. But the stakes are no less enormous: if one of the two candidates manages to attract a few independent voters, that could be enough to give them the advantage in Novemberas the vote looks set to be tight.
Inflation to open hostilities
In a debate settled like clockwork, the two politicians first clashed over “the cost of living”. Food, housing, cars, gasoline, … Prices have soared since 2001, driven by the recovery after the Covid epidemic, but also by the war in Ukraine, as well as by the generous recovery plans of the federal state American during the pandemic. Inflation reached 9.1% in the United States in June 2022its highest level since the early 1980s. It has slowed since then, and stood at 3.3% in May, according to the CPI index, to which pensions are indexed.
“Inflation is killing our country,” Donald Trump immediately said. Joe Biden “didn’t do a good job. He did a bad job. And inflation is killing our country. It’s killing us,” the billionaire said, claiming that under his watch, America was “the greatest economy in the world.”
The 81-year-old Democrat replied that on the contrary the economy “was in free fall” when he took over the country, and praised its record, in terms of employment and social reforms. Faced with Donald Trump refraining from being openly aggressive, Joe Biden, whose great challenge is to reassure Americans of his mental acuity and vitality, initially seemed hesitant, stumbling several times over the words.
Abortion, at the heart of the discussions
The outgoing president then criticized his opponent for his “terrible” actions against the right to abortion.. “It’s a terrible thing what you did,” the Democratic leader told his Republican opponent.
The American Supreme Court, profoundly reworked by the former president, has overturned in June 2022 the famous Roe v. Wade case law which guaranteed the federal right of American women to have an abortiongiving each state the freedom to legislate on the issue. About twenty American states have since adopted bans or restrictions on abortion.
Joe Biden has argued that Donald Trump would be willing to enact legislation, if passed by a future Republican Congress, to ban abortion nationwide or restrict it to “six, seven, eight or ten weeks” of pregnancy“something very conservative.”
Donald Trump, for his part, defended that this question should now fall to the States: “It’s the vote of the people,” he said. “I believe in exceptions in cases of rape, incest” and danger to “the life of the mother”, he added. “I think it’s very important. For some people no, follow your heart.”
Asked about the abortion pill issue, The former president also said he would not “block” her..
“Cognitive test” and “repeat offenders”
Both candidates each attacked their opponent on what appears to be their greatest weakness. Joe Biden, who has at times appeared tired and even lost, was challenged by Donald Trump to take a “cognitive test”. “I took two tests, cognitive tests. I passed them with flying colors […] Il [Biden] “I didn’t pass any of them. I’d like to see him pass one, just one, a very easy one,” the former Republican president said.
For his part, the outgoing president called the billionaire a “convict”, in reference to his recent criminal conviction in New York. “The only person who is a repeat offender is the man I am watching on stage now,” the Democratic leader told his predecessor, adding that he had the “moral sense of a depraved”.
While in 2020, Donald Trump refused to recognize Joe Biden’s victory, encouraging the assault on the Capitol, in January 2021, he indicated that he refused to commit to recognizing the result of next November’s election without conditions. This question is not up for debate, for the Democrat: “If the elections are fair and equitable, absolutely,” he replied.
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