American media and analysts are almost in agreement: in the first TV presidential duel, Joe Biden did badly. His voice is weak and hoarse (due to a cold, he explained his campaign late in the middle of the debate), he stammers more frequently than usual, sentences are confused or repeated mechanically, he stares into space.
So much so that among the Dems there is already “strong panic” for the performance that risks sinking him in the polls. Some have even commented “we are screwed” and someone else has aired the hypothesis that the president will step aside, reports CNN, organizer of the confrontation. Also in the crosshairs is the president’s campaign, which insisted on the challenge and which prepared him for a week in the Camp David retreat. Donald Trump, in comparison, seemed like a lion full of energy, capable of controlling his usual aggressiveness, even if he dodged many questions and repeated various lies. But what mattered most in the challenge between the two oldest candidates ever was the test of age, that is, of lucidity and physical appearance. Biden and Trump arrived in Atlanta in mid-afternoon. The first with his wife Jill, the second alone, without Melania and any family.
In the CNN studio it was immediately freezing. The two did not shake hands and did not even look at each other during the two commercial breaks: a confirmation of the acrimonious sidereal distance that separates them and of the polarization of a country that no longer recognizes its adversary. If we also consider the low level of the discussion, the whole of America comes out badly. Biden got off to a bad start straight away, only recovering some energy in the second half, when it was too late. The two clashed harshly on everything, accusing each other of lying, from the economy to immigration, from the climate to abortion, without the two anchors being able to press them when necessary, for a format of fixed times which showed all its limits. The tycoon hit out at inflation “which is killing our country” and at the open doors on the border with Mexico where “criminals and terrorists” enter.
Biden boasted of his successes after the “chaos” left by his predecessor, accusing him of favoring the rich with his tax cuts by increasing the deficit. Opposites also in foreign policy. The tycoon repeated that the war in Ukraine would not have broken out if the US had had a true leader but did not illustrate his recipe for peace. And he sidestepped the question of whether he is for the Palestinian state, limiting himself to saying that Israel “must finish its work with Hamas” and that Biden “has become a Palestinian not even loved by the Palestinians because he is weak”. There was no shortage of personal insults. “You are a loser and an idiot,” attacked Biden, who then called his rival a “convicted criminal,” accusing him of cheating on his pregnant wife with a porn star and of having the womanizing morals of an alley cat. To which the tycoon reminded him that his son Hunter is also a convicted felon and threatened that he too could be convicted as soon as he leaves office “for all the horrible things he has done”.
The Donald boasted about his great shape and challenged his rival to take a cognitive test, saying he was sure he would not finish the first questions, while the president deflected with a joke the question about the 86 years he would have at the end of his second term. The two also compared their athletic records and challenged each other to golf, “as long as Trump carries his bag”, Biden pointed out to underline his opponent’s obesity. In the end, the tycoon, accused by Biden of having incited the assault on the Capitol, defined “any form of violence in the next elections as totally unacceptable”. But he pledged to recognize the outcome only under conditions that are “free, fair and legal”.
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