They didn’t wait for an instant.
From the get-go, President Trump and Joe Biden were arguing hammer-and-tongs over every topic that came up.
Trump kept talking over Biden, disputing everything he said, until Biden finally said:
“Will you shut up, man?’
So it began Tuesday evening in Cleveland, the first of three scheduled debates between America’s truth-challenged president and his gaffe-prone challenger, barely a month before Election Day 2020. It turned into the most chaotic presidential debate in memory.
The moderator, Fox News’s Chris Wallace, had his hands full throughout.
There were no handshakes as the candidates walked on stage at Case Western Reserve University — ostensibly a bow to Covid-19, but somehow fitting for the first presidential debate in our bitterly divided, fiercely politicized times. The audience of about 80 people was masked and mostly silent.
But after it was over, the pundits had plenty to say: many suggested that Trump’s plan — if he really had one — backfired, one saying it brought his presidency to an end. CNN’s Dana Bash even went so far as calling it “a shit show.”
In a tweet afterward, Biden himself asked, “Can you name one thing he said to actually make your life better?”
Trump, ever on the attack, hoped to goad Biden into losing his temper. He failed. Biden mostly kept his cool and did his best to respond with facts and figures — and plenty of accusations about Trump’s perceived failures with the pandemic, the economy and jobs.
Despite Trump’s efforts to dominate the discussion, he “was frequently put on the defensive and tried to sidestep when he was asked if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and paramilitary groups,” the Associated Press reported.
“I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not the right wing,” Trump responded. “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”
He then said the ultra-right-wing group Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by,” which he did not explain. But it provoked a Tweet-storm; one poster took it as an order to prepare for violence, calling it “one of the most disgusting, dangerous things that could have possibly been said.”
Trump called the lack of a Covid vaccine so far a political failure — blaming Biden and the Democrats.
“This is the same man who said the pandemic would be gone by Easter,” Biden retorted.
Attacking Trump’s handling of the pandemic, Biden said the president “waited and waited” to act when the virus reached America’s shores and “still doesn’t have a plan.”
Biden told Trump directly to “get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap” and go in his golf cart to the Oval Office to come up with a bipartisan plan to save people.
As a discussion about the Supreme Court turned to Covid-19, Trump claimed without evidence that 2 million people would have died if Biden were president, 10 times the current actual number.
Wallace asked Trump whether he had a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, and the president said, “First of all, I guess I’m debating you, not him, but that’s OK. I’m not surprised.”
Biden laughed, then said:
“Here’s the deal, the fact is that everything he’s saying so far is simply a lie,” Biden said. “I’m not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he’s a liar.”
Trump was asked about a New York Times report revealing he paid only $750 in personal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.
Trump has said since 2016 that he would eventually release his tax records. But when asked by moderator Chris Wallace when, he said only: “You’ll get to see it.”
Biden said Trump “pays less tax than a schoolteacher.”
At one point, when Trump continued to talk over Biden; Wallace asked him to let Biden finish.
“Folks do you have any idea what this clown is doing?” Biden said, later adding that Trump is “the worst president that America has ever had.“
Biden criticized the way Trump talks about the military; he has called those killed in combat or captured “losers” or “suckers.”
Biden said his son Beau served in Iraq, adding that “he was not a loser, he was a patriot.”
So Trump turned to attacking Biden’s other son, Hunter.
He claimed Hunter Biden reaped millions in ill-gotten profit from China and other overseas interests, accusations that have been repeatedly debunked.
Biden shot back, “None of that is true.” He then added of Trump, “His family, we could talk all night.”
Finally, Trump sidestepped a question from Wallace about the election itself: will you pledge to abide by the final ballot count and urge your supporters to stay calm?
Biden said: “Yes.”
