WASHINGTON (AP) — For a rerun that featured a rematch between two men with a combined age of 159, the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday night had a strong sense of urgency.
Each man framed the presidential race as a crisis for the country, based almost exclusively on the threats they said the other posed.
Here are some lessons:
Style versus substance
Presidential debates are often judged more on style and impression than substance. Trump was confident and calm, even when crushed facts on abortion and immigration with false claims, blatant exaggerations, and empty superlatives. Biden often hesitated, his voice hoarse, even when he had the facts on his side. He had difficulty finishing his arguments and organizing his attacks.
Trump’s supporters seemed unconcerned about his relationship with the truth, and his performance and delivery helped him. Biden supporters have consistently expressed concern about the president’s age and abilities, and he has done little to reassure them.
One of the first glimpses viewers got of Biden was when he lost his train of thought while defending tax rates and the number of billionaires in America – stopping and looking at his lectern before briefly grumbling and saying “we finally beat Medicare.” ” When he tried to finish his point, he was interrupted because of the time limit.
January 6th and Trump’s revenge
Trump was cruising through the opening of the debate when he was suddenly faced with the question of how he would reassure voters that he would respect his oath of office following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He continued to deny the attack and refused to denounce those who attacked the police and broke into the building, breaking doors and windows. He suggested that the accused will somehow one day be found innocent.
More than 1,400 people were charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot. Of these, more than 850 people pleaded guilty to crimes including seditious conspiracy and assaulting police officers. Around 200 other people were convicted at trial.
Trump tried to avoid addressing the issue. He defended the people who stormed the Capitol, blaming Biden for prosecuting them. “What they did to some people who are so innocent, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told Biden.
Trump warned that members of the parliamentary committee that investigated January 6 could face criminal charges, as could Biden himself.
Biden responded, “The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at.”
Trump has not backed away from his promise to seek revenge. Coupled with his refusal to condemn the January 6th attackers, it was a difficult time.
Asked if he would accept the election results, Trump said: “if it’s a fair, legal and good election, sure”, which, in particular, is not an absolute yes.
Low road
In what may well be a first for a presidential campaign, Trump called President Biden a “criminal” and said he could very well be prosecuted after leaving office. Biden then brought up Trump’s recent criminal trial in New York, in which prosecutors presented evidence that Trump had sex with a porn star. “I did not have sex with a porn star,” Trump said.
Trump’s promise on abortion
Abortion is an issue that Democrats feel could help them win in November. In 2016, Trump campaigned to overturn Roe v. Wade. Wade and, as president, appointed three Supreme Court justices who provided the decisive votes revoking the 49-year-old’s right to the procedure. In response to a question from moderators, Trump promised not to go any further if he returns to the White House, where his administration would have the authority to ban the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.
Overturning Roe is one of Trump’s biggest political vulnerabilities, but on Thursday the former president said everyone was happy with what he did.
“When it comes to abortion, it’s back to the states,” Trump said, asserting that the Founding Fathers would have been happy for Roe to end. “Everyone wanted it brought back.”
This is not true. Polls showed significant opposition to overturning Roe, and voters punished Republicans in recent elections for it. “The idea that the founders wanted politicians to make decisions about women’s health is ridiculous,” Biden countered.
In a unanimous decision this month, the Supreme Court preserved access to mifepristone, a pill that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year.
Until Thursday, Trump had not detailed his position on access to the medicine, but during the debate he indicated that he supported the justices’ decision, saying: “I’m not going to block it.
Border skirmish
In recent months, Biden has sought to reverse his poor public reputation over his handling of immigration, first by endorsing a bipartisan Senate proposal with some of the toughest border restrictions in recent memory and then, after the legislation collapsed, taking executive measures to crack down on migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.
But while Biden sought to tout the progress he has made, particularly the 40% drop in illegal border crossings since his border directive was implemented this month, Trump invoked his trademark doom and gloom rhetoric to paint a portrait of a chaotic border under Biden’s watch.
For example, Trump argued that migrants arriving at the US border come from “mental institutions” and “insane asylums” – a frequent refrain of his at rallies for which he provided no evidence. He also stated that the US-Mexico border is the “most dangerous place in the world” and cited examples of illegal immigrants in the US who have committed violent crimes.
Although some immigrants commit horrific crimes, a 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found “considerably lower criminal arrest rates” among people in the United States illegally than among legal immigrants or native-born immigrants. But Trump often benefits from his certainty.
It’s the economy, and Trump said Biden is stupid
The debate began with Biden defending his record on the economy, saying that he inherited an economy that was “in free fall” when it was hit by the pandemic and that his administration rebuilt it.
But after Biden touted his administration’s accomplishments — such as lowering the cost of insulin and creating millions of new jobs — Trump boasted that he had overseen the “largest economy in the history of our country” and defended his record in the pandemic.
Biden responded: “He’s the only one who thinks that.” But Trump responded by attacking him on inflation, arguing that he inherited low inflation rates when he took office in January 2021 but prices “exploded under his leadership.”
Suckers and losers
Biden — whose late son, Beau, served in Iraq — had one of his most scathing moments when he went on the attack against Trump’s 2018 comments that he refused to visit a U.S. military cemetery in France because the veterans buried there were “suckers”. and “losers”.
It was an argument that Biden, then the Democratic challenger, made against Trump in their first debate in 2020 and that the sitting president has regularly used against Trump, framing him as a commander in chief who nevertheless belittles veterans. . “My son was not a loser, he was not a loser,” Biden said. “You are the idiot. You are the loser.
Trump responded that the publication that initially reported these comments, The Atlantic, “was a third-rate magazine” and had made up the quotes. But undermining Trump’s retort is the fact that his former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed those private remarks in a statement last fall.
