Hear
ATLANTA.- President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, face off in their first presidential debate on Thursday, when there are more than four months until the elections that will once again have them as rivals, as in 2020.
Each of his words and gestures of this duel are scrutinized by Americans in a highly polarized country where the vote of moderates and undecided voters in November could be vital.
The debate, organized by CNN, takes place under strict rules: Each candidate’s microphone is turned off when they finish their stipulated response time (two minutes per response, one for a reply and another for a counter-reply) and there is no audience or teleprompter, the device that allows you to read a text without looking away from the camera.
Here are the highlights of the debate so far:
Biden and Trump started the debate without shaking hands in their first direct interaction since 2020.
“How are they?”, said Biden, the first to enter the studio. Trump, meanwhile, walked to his lectern without speaking. There was no traditional handshake between the candidates.
Biden seemed to lose his train of thought when I was trying to clarify something about taxes and the number of billionaires in the United States. Biden stopped and looked down before muttering about Covid and saying something to the effect that “we finally beat Medicare.” When he tried to return to finish his point, moderator Jake Tapper cut him off because he had run out of time.
Trump quickly interjected: “He’s right: He beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”
Biden also made another mistake gaffe at another point when he was talking about the economy. Detailing the legacy of what he described as an American economy “In free fall”, made a mistake when he stated that had created 15,000 jobs, the correct figure is more than 15 million.
“What you did was something terrible,” It was the first thing Biden said when he had the floor to respond to the two minutes in which Trump spoke about abortion, during which Biden looked on with a stunned expression. The president then blamed his predecessor for the state of health care for pregnant women after The conservative-majority Supreme Court will eliminate the right to abortion contemplated in the Roe v. Wade ruling
In turn, Trump incorrectly referred to the “after birth” abortions and said Biden was in favor of “removing the baby from the woman’s belly in the ninth month.” “This is false”, the Democratic president responded.
At the close of a statement on immigrants, Biden appeared to stutter slightly and speak a little more slowly, even though he was understood to be talking about border patrols and asylum offices. “I don’t know what he said and I don’t think he knows either,” Trump said mockingly upon receiving the word. Biden was a stutterer during his childhood.
Biden and Trump exchanged insults when reports were mentioned that Trump reportedly privately called dead soldiers “suckers” and “losers”.
“My son is not a loser or a loser,” Biden said, referring to his late son Beau, a war veteran. “You are the unfortunate one and the loser,” Biden said to his rival, looking him in the face.
“That was a made-up quote,” Trump responded.
Biden criticized Trump for “his crimes, the billions he owes in legal penalties, for sexually abusing a woman, for having sex with a porn star while his wife is pregnant.” “I have never had sex with a porn star,” Trump responded, an unprecedented phrase in a presidential debate. “You have the morals of a stray cat,” Biden accused.
Responding to attacks over the conviction he received in the criminal case for falsifying accounting records to hide the payment to a porn star who claimed to have had sex with him to silence her, Trump spoke of the conviction of Hunter Biden, the president’s son. Hunter Biden was convicted earlier this month of three felonies related to the purchase of a handgun in 2018 while battling addiction. Trump called the president’s son a “convicted felon.”
AFP and AP agencies
THE NATION
