Joe Biden was heard. Donald Trump was heard. The key to the first electoral debate held this Thursday in the CNN studio in Atlanta, United States, was how both candidates moved and spoke on stage: their performance was more important than their arguments. Trump, a television animal, knew how to take advantage of the fact and showed himself to be a reasonable and firm candidate. With clear words and a constant tone (far from the intensity he displays at rallies), the former president imposed his incendiary speech, as well as false statements. On the other hand, the raspy voice, the cough and the constant stuttering buried Biden under an aura of fragility that made it very difficult to concentrate on the arguments he was making. In just the first minutes of the debate, the president already had a lapse.
At 81, Biden had to prove once again that he is capable of assuming a second term if he is re-elected. Although he was able to come out on top during the State of the Union address, appearing energetic and much clearer, he was unable to do so in the CNN debate. The first topic, inflation, already predicted that Biden would have a long debate. The president defended himself on the subject, but the hesitations, the constant closing of the eyes to concentrate on what he was saying and the final lapse pigeonholed the Democrat into the image he wanted to avoid: that of a frail old man. Although Biden regained a little more confidence in the second part of the debate, the damage had already been done.
In the first few minutes, Trump, who is 78 years old but is not as questioned because of his age, set the tone of the debate not only with his performance, but also with the classic move to avoid answering questions by talking about other topics. In this case, immigration became the wild card par excellence, which Trump often turned to in order to avoid having to answer to debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
Another achievement of Trump was to bring Biden’s age to the center of the debate and question his capabilities. He may have been more “subtle,” with sarcasm and gestures of disbelief at his rival’s hesitations, or accusing Biden of not being able to beat golf or hit the ball “beyond 50 yards.” ”. This statement occurred right in the second block of the debate, when both candidates were asked if they believe they are qualified to govern despite their age. While Biden brought up his management over the last four years and his career in Washington, Trump assured that he took two cognitive tests and that he feels “very good, the same as he did 25 or 30 years ago.” At the phrase, Biden not only laughed at what seemed like a boast, but then he ended up entering Trump’s mud and messed with his weight and his age. “Let’s stop acting like children,” said the tycoon to settle the issue.
Before reaching this point, Trump had already knocked Biden out of the game. After he got caught up in an unintelligible babble about the border patrol, Trump responded, looking at the camera: “I don’t know what he said at the end of the sentence. I don’t think he knows either.” With this sentence he has already mortally wounded a Biden who stared at him open-mouthed, in addition to generating material for social networks.
The fact that the age issue took center stage also benefited Trump because his conviction in the Stormy Daniels case was relegated to the background. Likewise, more important issues, such as when the moderator asked Trump if he would accept the result of the upcoming election (to which he replied that he would do so “if it is free, fair and a good election”) or the issue of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, were overshadowed by the duel of the physical and athletic attributes of the two candidates.
One of the moments in which Biden lost his temper was when Trump called veterans “suckers, loosers.” This shook the president internally, since his son Beau, who died of brain cancer, served in the Army in Iraq. “My son was not an idiot or a loser. “You are an idiot, you are a loser,” the Democrat jumped out, clearly insulting his rival.
There was also no shortage of judicial reproaches. Trump was the first to air Biden’s dirty laundry, citing his son Hunter’s conviction for the illegal purchase and possession of a gun. “You had sexual relations with a porn star when your wife was pregnant,” this was how Biden brought the Stormy Daniels case to the table and for which Trump was convicted of 34 serious crimes. Once again, Trump denied that he had sex with Daniels.
On the right to abortion, Trump not only moderated his position again and took the opportunity to quote Ronald Reagan (something his team recommended he do): “Like Reagan, I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and endangering the life of the mother, but it has to be elected [por los estados]”. These words aroused anger in Biden, who looked indignantly at his rival from the right side of the stage. When it came to countering him, Biden ended up mixing the issue of abortion with immigration (an area where he stands to lose) while Trump smiled sarcastically. To finish this section, Trump told one of the many lies that he launched throughout the debate, ensuring that the Biden administration would take “the life of a child at eight months [de embarazo]nine months and even after birth.” Completely false, since, to begin with, an abortion after birth is no longer an abortion, but rather infanticide.
Where Trump was most comfortable was in the immigration section, where he came to assure that migrants “are killing people in all states, each state is a border.” This statement, in addition to being false, also served the former president to avoid answering the question of how he intends to fulfill his campaign promise of carrying out mass deportations of migrants. Likewise, during other sections that had nothing to do with immigration, Trump also took the opportunity to say that immigrants stay “in luxury hotels.” The Republican is aware that this is one of the key issues facing November 5 and has tried to get the most out of it that he could.
Trump accused Biden of giving too much money to Ukraine and that powers like North Korea and China do not take him seriously. “He [Putin] I would never have invaded Ukraine, just as Israel would not have been invaded by Hamas, because Iran was offside with me. Now everyone is going against him [Biden]”Trump said. The Democrat counterattacked by saying that it was Trump who encouraged Russia to attack Ukraine.
At the end of the debate, Biden was also unable to contain his stuttering, having moments of hesitation while delivering his speech in what would be the golden minutes to address the audience. “We have made a lot of progress from the debacle that Trump left us,” he said. The way Trump has used his last minutes has been completely opposite, both in form and content. With a confident tone and looking at the camera, Trump blamed Biden for the country’s ills, both at the level of domestic and foreign policies. “We are living in hell,” he said.
The debate lasted 90 minutes in total and covered 15 thematic sections, divided into two blocks. The first covered the economy (a crucial issue for the elections), abortion, immigration, foreign policy, democracy and Trump’s crimes, as well as those of Biden’s son. The second block dealt with the climate crisis, social security, pensions, child care, addictions, the age of both and police violence.
