Election 2020 | Illustration by Kayli Thompson | The Wright State Guardian
The First 2020 Presidential Debate occurred on Tuesday, Sept. 29, between current President Donald Trump, and Former Vice President and Democratic Nominee Joe Biden.
The debate featured six topics for discussion, under moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News: The Trump and Biden records, the Supreme Court, the coronavirus, the economy, race and violence in our cities, and the integrity of the election.
The debate also featured new precautions due to the coronavirus. The candidates agreed to not shake hands and there was a live audience, but it was silent and spaced apart.
The debate
Chris Wallace’s first question was about the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme court, after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump had the first say.
“Elections have consequences. We have the Senate, we have the White House,” Trump said. “I think that she will be outstanding. She’s going to be as good as anybody that has served on that court, we really feel that… We won the election, and therefore we have the right to choose her.
Biden’s response was that the American people have a right to a say in who the supreme court nominee is.
“They’re not going to get that chance now, because an election has already started. Tens of thousands of people have already voted,” Biden said. “We should wait… because that’s the only way the American people can express their view.”
On the coronavirus, Biden argued that Trump did a terrible job, where Trump argued that if we had listened to Biden, we would be much worse off.
“The President has no plan,” Biden said. “He hasn’t laid out anything. He knew all the way back in February how serious this crisis was…He said he didn’t tell us because he didn’t want to panic the American people. You don’t panic, he panicked.”
“If we would have listened to you, the country would have been left wide open, millions of people would have died, not 200,000,” Trump retorted. “I closed [travel to China] and you said, ‘he’s xenophobic, he’s a racist.’ because you didn’t think I should have closed our country. You wouldn’t have closed it for another two months.”
On the economy, Trump said that we are in a V-shaped recovery, where Biden claimed that it is a k-shape, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
“We built the greatest economy in history, we closed it down because of the China plague,” Trump said. “Now we’re reopening, and we’re doing record business. We had 10.4 million people in a four-month period that we put back into the workforce. That’s a record the likes of which no one has ever seen before. And he [Biden] will shut it down again, he will destroy this country.”
“The difference is, millionaires and billionaires like him are doing very well,” Biden said. “But you folks at home, you folks living in all the small towns and working-class towns in America, how well are you doing? You can’t fix the economy until you fix the COVID crisis, and he has no intention of doing anything about making it better for you all at home, in terms of your health and safety.”
When asked why voters should elect them over their opponent, Trump went first, saying that voters should choose him because of what his campaign has done.
“There has never been an administration or president that has done more than i have in three and a half years, and that’s despite the impeachment hoax,” he said. “The greatest economy in history, lowest unemployment numbers in history… A rebuilding of the military… a fixing of the VA… 300 federal judges and court of appeals judges, and, hopefully, three great court of appeals judges.”
“Under this president, we have become weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided, and more violent,” Biden said. “The billionaires have gotten much more wealthy… and you in the home, you got less. When we were in office, there was 15% less violence in America than there is today. He’s the president of the United states, it’s on his watch. And with regard to more divided, the nation can’t stay divided, it can’t be this way.”
Interruptions
At the beginning, the candidates were very patient and did not interrupt their opponent. However, when the open discussion began, the debate began to spiral, with Trump starting to argue with the moderator.
At one point, Trump said to Wallace, “I guess I’m debating you, not him, but that’s okay, I’m not surprised.”
At several points, the candidates could hardly get a word in over the other, causing media outlets to view the debate as a disaster, and with no clear winner.
“I’ve never seen a third of people who watched a debate think no one won and I think that was the general sentiment of people who were undecided… I think if you were already shored up on Trump, you thought you’d see the best in him. If you’re shored up on Biden, you saw the best of him, but for the most part, I think people really felt like nobody won last night,” said pollster Lee Carter.
Upcoming debates
As far as upcoming debates go, the Vice Presidential Debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris will happen on Oct. 7 at the University of Utah, moderated by USA Today’s Susan Page. The Second Presidential Debate will be on Thursday, Oct. 15 moderated by C-SPAN’s Steve Scully.
