US presidential elections: The exchange occurred at the end of the debate.
Los Angeles, United States:
A bad-tempered and unedifying presidential debate between the two oldest candidates running for office degenerated into a dispute over golf prowess on Thursday.
The first face-off of an already excruciatingly long campaign saw Joe Biden, 81, and his opponent Donald Trump, 78, trading insults and accusations for 90 minutes on prime-time television.
There was swearing: “You’re the worst!” “No, YOU are the worst!”
There were accusations: “You are a crybaby!”
And then they fought over their golf handicaps.
“He can’t hit a ball 50 yards,” Trump said, on one of the few occasions the two men addressed each other directly.
“He challenged me to a game of golf. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards.”
Trump’s own vitality has never been in question, he boasted, insisting: “I’m as good as I was years ago.”
Not to be outdone by his pitching prowess, Biden insisted he was playing on grass.
“I would be happy to have a directing competition,” he said. “I reduced my disability when I was vice president to six.”
Trump scoffed.
“A handicap of six?” he snorted. “I saw your swing. I know your swing.”
The exchange took place at the end of the debate organized by CNN, which began without the usual handshake on these occasions and got worse from there.
The animosity between the two men was palpable, with Biden attacking a man he said had “the morals of a stray cat.”
“How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public… for having sex with a porn star… while your wife was pregnant,” he said, in reference to Trump’s alleged flirtation with adult films. actress Stormy Daniels.
The former Republican president again denied adultery, but a New York jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up secret money payments to her.
Trump wasted little chance to press home his claim that Biden was “weak” and not “a leader.”
He also took aim at Biden’s alleged mental weaknesses, an issue that polls repeatedly show voters are concerned about.
“I did two tests, cognitive tests. I took note, both of us, as you know, we made it public,” he said.
“He didn’t answer any. I would like to see him answer one, just one, very easy, like answering the first five questions. He couldn’t.”
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