A missed opportunity to reassure Joe Biden, and an outrage avoided for Donald Trump, who still has not committed to unconditionally recognizing the results of the election: here are the main points to remember from the first debate between the two candidates, four months before the presidential election.
Counter-performance for Biden
For Joe Biden, 81, the whole point of this first debate was to reassure America about its ability to secure a new mandate despite his advanced age and concerns about his form.
The hoarse voice, frequently repeating itself or getting lost in confusing sentences: the American president has often lacked confidence, contrasting with the resolute and energetic tone of his Republican opponent.
To the point of disappointing even within his camp. “Joe Biden’s performance during the debate was disappointing, there’s no other way to say it,” admitted Kate Bedingfield, former communications director at the White House during his first years in office.
As if to partly justify this poor performance, the Democrat’s campaign team announced that he was suffering from a cold. Joe Biden was “slow to start but finished strong”, defended his vice-president Kamala Harris.
Trump remains on target
Donald Trump, whose outings are very appreciated by his supporters at meetings, had to, on the contrary, during the debate control his verbal aggressiveness and not lose his composure if he wanted to be able to convince the undecided.
Result: throughout the debate, the Republican candidate largely succeeded in containing the tone of his attacks and remained disciplined.
From this point of view, the rules of the debate, with a microphone muted for the candidate not speaking “may have helped Trump because they prevented him from yelling at Biden’s answers”, said Robert Rowland, professor of communications at the University of Kansas.
Personal attacks
The two candidates hate each other, and they have not hidden it. After an icy arrival on the CNN set, without shaking hands, Joe Biden and Donald Trump did not fail to insult each other.
The attacks particularly came from the Democrat, who accused the former president of having “the moral sense of a depraved person”, called him a “whiny”, “a poor guy” and a “loser”. He also highlighted his recent criminal conviction in New York, calling him a “reconvict.”
Donald Trump, 78, for his part challenged Joe Biden to take a “cognitive test” and insisted that the Democrat was “the worst president in the history of the country”.
No cacophony
Unlike the first debate between the two men in 2020, during which they kept cutting each other off, the cacophony was avoided this time, in particular due to the strict rules established by CNN.
But the candidates therefore had few spontaneous direct exchanges, and the presenters were mainly limited to speaking, without criticizing Donald Trump in particular on his exaggerations or false assertions.
Trump evasive on results
Donald Trump, who is still contesting Joe Biden’s victory at the polls in 2020, has again refused to commit to recognizing the result of the November presidential election without conditions.
“If the election is fair and just, absolutely,” he was the only one to respond when asked about it. “This guy has no sense of democracy,” Biden said.
