EBN- Donald Trump and Joe Biden sparred over abortion and tax policy in the first presidential debate, late on Thursday.
During the debate, biden struggled to land his lines and the former president repeatedly made false claims about January 6, the national debt, and that he presided over the “greatest economy in the history of our country”.
Biden described Trump as “the worst president in American history”, citing a consensus of historians. Trump responded by extolling the historic virtues of his tax cuts. “Nobody has ever cut taxes like us. We cut taxes four times,” Trump said.
Trump regularly answered straightforward questions – about the economy, or abortion, or the opioid crisis – with non sequiturs about immigration or China. He also repeatedly spewed false claims about abortion, the environment, and the border. CNN moderators failed to factcheck Trump.
Biden’s voice at times sounded raspy – the campaign said he has a cold – and he frequently struggled to complete his thoughts. During one notable moment early in the debate, Biden was laying into Trump over his tax policies and stumbled as he was running out of time to speak, before blurting out: “We finally beat Medicare.”
After the debate, commentators focused on Democrats’ panic about Biden’s performance, with several suggesting the party needs to consider nominating a different candidate at the convention in August. “The biggest thing in this election is voters’ concerns – and it’s both swing voters and base voters – with his age, and those were compounded tonight,” Democratic strategist David Plouffe said on MSNBC.
The two candidates sharply differed in their memory and view of the war in Ukraine. Biden labeled Vladimir Putin a war criminal who would extend the war in Ukraine to neighboring Nato states like Poland. Trump, however, called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy the “world’s greatest salesman”.
