American voters watched the two main presidential candidates in the November 5 elections duke it out on Thursday night in the first public debate before the contest.
Former US President Donald Trump, 78, launched hyperbole at President Joe Biden, 81, who appeared to lose his train of thought during the debate at CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
The two oldest presidential candidates in US history have clashed over immigration, abortion and even golf.
Here are six key takeaways from the first US presidential debate:
Biden had a quiet performance
Biden, who already faces criticism due to his age, has been unable to match the energy of Trump, who is just three years younger.
The acting president resorted to hoarse ramblings and seemed to have difficulty articulating his words. At one point he referred to “billionaires” as “trillionaires” before coming back to correct himself.
Biden offered some sharp criticism of Trump’s leadership during COVID-19 and its impact on the economy, and mocked some of Trump’s responses to COVID-19 safeguards at the time. “Just inject some bleach into your arm and you’ll be fine,” he said.
However, his tone fell flat against his more bombastic opponent, especially during the early stages of the debate. Biden later picked up the pace a bit to push back against Trump’s series of factually incorrect claims about immigration and abortion.
However, Democrats have sounded the alarm about Biden’s performance, with some even beginning to talk about replacing him on the presidential ticket.
“There will be discussions about whether he [Biden] it must continue,” David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, told CNN.
Although Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, supported him after the debate, saying that substance is more important than style in this election, even she admitted that “it was a slow start.”
Presidential candidates fought over golf
Biden and Trump argued over which of them is physically and cognitively stronger.
Trump boasted about his strength, saying, “I’m in as good shape as I was 25, 30 years ago,” to moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
In response, a laughing Biden implied that his opponent was lying about his height and weight.
Trump said he won two championships at his golf course, while Biden “can’t hit the ball 50 yards.”
This led Biden to challenge Trump to a game of golf, only if Trump carried his own suitcase.
“Let’s not act like children,” Trump said.
“You are a child,” Biden responded.
Trump called Biden a “bad Palestinian”
“We are the biggest producer of support for Israel in the world,” Biden said, reiterating US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 37,718 Palestinians have been killed since October last year.
Biden added that his administration continues to send experts and intelligence to stop the Palestinian group Hamas from going to war.
Trump responded, saying that it is Israel that wants to continue the war, “and you should let them go and let them finish the job. He [Biden] doesn’t want to do that. He became a Palestinian, but they don’t like him because he’s a terrible Palestinian, he’s a weakling.”
In the nearly nine-month war that has left Gaza riddled with power outages and food insecurity, the United States has provided military and diplomatic assistance to Israel and repeatedly blocked cease-fire resolutions. A US-sponsored resolution endorsing a ceasefire proposal was only approved by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) about eight months after the start of the war.
Biden accused Trump of lying about abortion
Trump invoked anti-abortion sentiment when accusing Biden and his party of allowing late-term abortions.
During the debate, Trump stated that Biden and the Democrats would be “willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month.”
“You’re lying. That’s simply not true,” Biden refuted Trump’s claim. “We’re not for late-term abortion, period. Period.”
Trump also said of the Democrats: “They will take the life of a child… even after birth,” despite the fact that infanticide is illegal in all US states.
In the US, late-term abortions are uncommon and are usually a last resort when there are serious complications with a desired pregnancy.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1% of abortions were performed at or after 21 weeks in 2020.
Immigration haunted the debate
Throughout the debate, Trump turned the subject to immigration, accusing Biden of “opening the most secure border in the world to terrorists, to prisoners.”
He accused Biden of being “the one who killed people with a bad border and flooded hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they came in.”
Biden, on the other hand, reported on the work his administration has done to manage an influx of illegal immigrants, including strengthening border security and working on the bipartisan National Security Agreement.
“By the way, the Border Patrol endorsed me, endorsed my position,” said a wide-eyed Biden. “When he [Trump] was president, he separated babies from their mothers, put them in cages, made sure their families were separated. This is not the right way to go.”
Trump shot back, saying, “The Border Patrol, I won’t say that, but they endorsed me for president.”
Trump refused to say whether he would honor the election result
Trump did not directly answer whether he would honor the election result.
He said he would only accept the results if the elections were “free and fair,” reiterating false claims that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden, was rigged against him.
“The fraud and everything was ridiculous,” he said.
Following the 2020 election results, Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol in the infamous January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
During the debate, Trump downplayed the riots, which were the deadliest attack on US power in more than 200 years. “They talk about a relatively small number of people who went to the Capitol and in many cases were led away by police,” he said.
The next presidential debate is scheduled for September 10 and will be presented by ABC News.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
