By SEUNG MIN KIM and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thursday Presidential debate It was a repeat election featuring two candidates with a combined age of 159. But for certainly one of them, President Joe Biden, the election went particularly badly.
Biden, 81, who already faces voter concerns about his age, was hesitant and appeared to lose his thread, quickly raising concerns amongst Democrats concerning the man they hope will stop former President Donald Trump from returning to office. Trump, for his part, repeatedly made false claims and provocative statements. But Trump seemed smoother and more forceful than Biden, who’s just three years older than the Republican ex-president.
The debate covered a big selection of topics and included a former president – Trump – who didn’t back down from his guarantees to prosecute members of Congress and even the person he was debating. But the overarching theme was the difference between the candidates' performance.
Here are some insights from the duel.
Style vs. substance
Presidential debates are sometimes judged more on style and impression than on content. Trump was confident and composed, even when he overwhelmed facts on abortion and immigration with false claims, blatant exaggerations and empty superlatives. Biden was often halting, his voice scratchy even when he had the facts on his side. He had difficulty ending his arguments and organizing his attacks.
Trump's supporters don't appear to be fearful about his handling of the reality, and his demeanor and manner of expressing himself have helped him. Biden's supporters keep raising concerns concerning the president's age and talents, and he has done little to reassure them.
One of the primary glimpses viewers got of Biden was when he lost his thread while making his points about tax rates and the variety of billionaires in America – he stopped speaking, checked out his lectern and muttered briefly, “We finally beat Medicare.” As he tried to complete his point, he was interrupted attributable to time constraints.
At other times, Biden made some enigmatic non sequiturs that appeared to undermine his supposed strengths, including the economy and abortion rights. While Biden was criticizing Trump's economic record, the president suddenly pivoted to Afghanistan, saying Trump “did nothing about it” – despite the fact that the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan is widely considered certainly one of the low points of Biden's presidency.
Later, as Biden highlighted federal restrictions on abortion, he confusingly pivoted to immigration, speaking of a “young woman who was just murdered by an immigrant.” It was unclear what he was attempting to say.
January 6 and Trump’s revenge
Trump was nearly to open the talk when he suddenly stumbled upon the query of how he would persuade voters that he would respect his oath of office after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
He continued to disclaim the attack and refused to denounce those that attacked the police and stormed the constructing, breaking doors and windows, saying that in some way the accused would sooner or later be proven innocent.
More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes in reference to the riots. More than 850 of them have pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to riot and assault on cops. About 200 others have been convicted in court.
Trump tried to avoid the topic, defending the individuals who stormed the Capitol and blaming Biden for prosecuting them. “What you did to some such innocent people, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told Biden.
Trump warned that members of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 incidents could face impeachment, as could Biden himself.
Biden replied: “The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man I have before me.”
Trump stayed true to his vow of vengeance, and combined along with his refusal to sentence the January 6 attackers, it was a strong moment.
When asked if he would accept the election results, Trump replied: “If it is a fair, legitimate and good election, then absolutely.” Which, nonetheless, isn’t an unconditional yes.
Low Street
In what is maybe the primary time in a presidential campaign, Trump called President Biden a “criminal” and said he could face criminal prosecution after leaving office. Biden then revived Trump's recent criminal trial in New York, through 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 a difficulty that would help Democrats win in November. Trump campaigned on the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2016, and as president appointed three Supreme Court justices who solid the deciding votes to overturn the 49-year-old abortion law. In response to a matter from moderators, Trump vowed to not go any further if he returns to the White House, where his administration would have the facility to ban the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.
The incontrovertible fact that he desires to overturn Roe is certainly one of Trump's best political weaknesses. But on Thursday the previous president insisted that everybody was blissful along with his decision.
“As far as abortion goes, it's back to the states,” Trump said, claiming the Founding Fathers would have been blissful with the top of Roe. “Everyone wanted it brought back.”
That's not true. Polls have shown strong opposition to overturning Roe, and voters punished Republicans for it within the last election. “The idea that the founders wanted politicians to be the ones making decisions about women's health is ridiculous,” Biden countered.
In a unanimous decision this month, the Supreme Court secured access to mifepristone, a pill utilized in nearly two-thirds of all abortions within the United States last 12 months.
As of Thursday, Trump had not detailed his position on access to the drug, but throughout the debate he indicated that he supported the judges' decision, saying, “I'm not going to block it.”
But when it was his turn to talk, Biden stumbled through his statement on Roe, which he said lasted “three trimesters” – a missed opportunity for the Democrat to present a rhetorically compelling issue crucial to his party.
“The first time it's between a woman and a doctor,” Biden continued. “The second time it's between a doctor and an extreme situation. The third time it's between the doctor, I mean, between the woman and the state.”
Border skirmishes
In recent months, Biden has sought to repair his poor public image over his handling of immigration policy. First, he supported a bipartisan Senate bill that may have imposed a number of the hardest border restrictions in recent history. After that bill failed, he took executive motion to crack down on asylum seekers on the southern border.
But while Biden tried to tout his progress, particularly the 40 percent drop in illegal border crossings since implementing his border policy this month, Trump used his typically gloomy and catastrophic rhetoric to color an image of a chaotic border under Biden's watch.
For example, Trump claimed that migrants arriving on the US border come from “mental institutions” and “insane asylums” – an announcement he incessantly makes at rallies without providing evidence. He also claimed that the US-Mexico border is the “most dangerous place in the world” and gave examples of immigrants living within the US illegally committing violent crimes.
Although some immigrants commit gruesome crimes, a 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that the speed of arrests for serious crimes amongst people living within the U.S. illegally is “significantly lower than among legal immigrants or native-born citizens.” Yet Trump often advantages from his certainty.
It's the economy, and Trump said Biden was silly
At the beginning of the talk, Biden defended his economic record, saying he inherited an economy that had been in “free fall” attributable to the pandemic and that his administration had gotten it back on its feet.
But after Biden touted his administration's accomplishments – similar to lowering insulin costs and creating thousands and thousands of latest jobs – Trump boasted about overseeing the “greatest economy in the history of our country” and defended his record on the pandemic.
Biden replied, “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.”
Idiots and losers
Biden – whose late son Beau served in Iraq – had certainly one of his strongest moments when he attacked Trump's alleged comments in 2018 that he refused to go to a U.S. military cemetery in France since the veterans buried there have been “suckers” and “losers.”
It was an argument that Biden, then the Democratic challenger, made against Trump of their first debate in 2020 and that the incumbent president has recurrently used against Trump, portraying him as a commander in chief who nonetheless disparaged veterans. “My son was not a loser, he was not a sucker,” Biden said. “You're the sucker. You're the loser.”
Trump responded that the newspaper that first published those comments, The Atlantic, was “a third-rate magazine” and had fabricated the quotes. But Trump's retort is undermined by the incontrovertible fact that his former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed those private remarks in an announcement last fall.
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