2020 Presidential Debates Recap: Part 1

October 28, 2020 / Source: The Bizz USA
By Elizabeth Insuasti; Edited by Adya Kumar and Haarika Kalahasti

With only a few days left until November 3, the election is at the forefront of many American’s minds. Following the three presidential debates that have taken place so far, millions of Americans are already voting early. With such a heated election season taking place, it was vital for the country to view debates between the two candidates in order to better understand who they were going to support.

The First Presidential Debate:
The First Presidential debate between President Trump and Vice President Biden was held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday September 29, 2020 at 9pm EST. It ran uninterrupted for an hour and a half. Chris Wallace, the anchor of “Fox News Sunday” and a registered democrat, moderated the debate. It was the second time he had moderated a presidential debate; the first being with the debate between President Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Before the first debate, moderator Chris Wallace announced he would focus on six topics: 

• The Trump and Biden Records
• The Supreme Court
• COVID-19
• The Economy
• Race and Violence in our Cities
• The Integrity of the Election

Interruptions and name-calling dominated the first debate. Wallace repeatedly admonished the President for speaking over Biden and disregarded the rules both sides had agreed to.

A CBS News instant poll shows 48% of viewers think Biden won the debate, 41% think Trump won, and another 10% thought the debate was a tie. However, 83% of the viewers said the tone of the debate was negative, and the most common reaction to the debate was annoyance, according to the poll.

Image via CBS News.

Image via CBS News.

Notable Quotes and Moments:

• “In 47 months,” Trump said, “I’ve done more than you’ve done in 47 years, Joe.” This was one of Trump's stark claims in reference to the economy. 
• ”I don’t wear a mask like him,” Trump jokes. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from it, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve seen.” Just weeks later, President Trump caught COVID-19 and was even seen wearing a mask. That’s ironic. 
• "Will you shut up, man?" Biden exclaimed while trying to make a point. He had also called Trump a "clown" more than once. ​
• Trump added he disagreed with his own experts on a vaccine timeline, insisting it would be soon widely available. He tried to claim that Biden would have made the pandemic worse. "Two million would be dead now," he estimates. But Trump is president, and, on average, a majority of Americans say they disapprove of the job he's doing in handling the coronavirus.
• Biden pushed back against Trump's accusation that he supports defunding the police, saying that he supports providing more assistance for police officers and reintroducing "community policing."
  • "I'm totally opposed to defunding the police officers. They need more assistance. I've made it clear in my public statements that the violence should be prosecuted," Biden said. He blamed the president's inflammatory rhetoric for making the situation worse in these cities, saying Trump "just pours gasoline on the fire."
• Wallace questioned  Trump on whether he believes humans contribute to climate change, and it took a couple times for the president to answer directly.
  • "I believe that we have to do everything we can to have immaculate, air, immaculate water," the president reasoned. Pressed again if he believes humans contribute to climate change, the president answered, "I think a lot of things do but I think, to an extent, yes." But he also mentioned better forest management is important to prevent forest fires that have raged on the West Coast. Trump accused Biden of wanting to "take out the cows," a reference to climate activists highlighting the fact that cows contribute to emissions. Trump claimed the Green New Deal, a progressive agenda to fight climate change, would cost $100 trillion. ​
  • Biden, when asked about his plan for climate change, responded, “It's about building for the future to reduce emissions.” He stated green energy jobs can create good-paying jobs, too. "There's so many things that we can do now to create thousands and thousands of jobs," he stated. Biden also replied he will rejoin the Paris climate agreement, from which Trump has withdrawn. Biden pointed to major natural disasters affecting the U.S., insisting they're partly the result of climate change. Asked if he supports the Green New Deal, Biden responded, "No, I don't support the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is not my plan.” (Biden).
• Moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump why he ended racial sensitivity training in the federal government which addressed and educated on issues such as white privilege.
  • "I ended it because it's racist," the president answered. He said these trainings on things like critical race theory espoused "sick ideas. Really they were teaching people to hate our country.”. 
  • When Biden had a chance to respond, he called the president "racist.” "The fact is that there is racial insensitivity, people have to be made aware of what other people feel like," Biden remarked, adding the country can "take this on and we can defeat racism." ​
• The president asked Biden whether he is in favor of law and order. 
  • "The Democrats who run these cities don't want to talk, like you, about law and order” (Trump).
  • "Law and order with justice, where people get treated fairly” (Biden).
•  Biden slammed Trump's response to racial divisions in the country, recalling when the president argued there were "very fine people on both sides" after a white supremacist rally in 2017.
  • "No president has ever said anything like that," Biden added. He also criticized the president for ordering the dispersal of protesters in Lafayette Square outside the White House after the death of George Floyd earlier this spring in order for Trump to appear in a photo opportunity in front of a historic church. "This is a president who has used everything as a dog whistle to try to generate racist hatred, racist division," Biden stated, adding that "this man has done virtually nothing" for Black Americans.
• Trump then criticized Biden for supporting the 1994 crime bill which enforced harsher penalties for drug offenses, and touted his signature on the First Step Act which limited penalties.
  • "I'm letting people out of jail now. You've treated the Black community about as bad as anybody in this country” (Trump).

• Wallace asked Trump about a report in the New York Times which found that the president only paid $750 in income tax in 2017, the year he entered the White House.
  • "I paid millions of dollars in taxes. Millions of dollars in income tax," Trump responded. He repeated that his tax returns were currently under audit, and said, "As soon as it's finished, you'll see it." Trump has been saying that his tax returns are under audit by the IRS since the 2016 election, although being under audit doesn't prohibit the release of tax returns.


• Biden criticized Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken the lives of more than 200,000 Americans.
  • "The president has no plan. He hasn't laid out anything. He knew all the way back in February how serious this crisis was," Biden responded, seemingly referring to an interview where Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in February that the virus was "deadly stuff" while downplaying the risks in public. Biden retorted that if he were president, he would ensure that hospitals had the equipment necessary to treat patients and protect health care workers, and that schools were properly funded.
  • Trump touted his decision to restrict travel from China at the end of January, claiming that it saved millions of lives. "It's China's fault, it should have never happened," Trump said, adding that he had received praise from governors as doing a "phenomenal job." He also claimed that  "we're weeks away from a vaccine," and mentioned that "far fewer people are dying." He praised his administration's response to the coronavirus, claiming that the press was trying to undermine him.
    • "It's just fake news. They give you good press, and give me bad press," Trump added referring to Biden. "I'll tell you, Joe, you could've never done the job that we did."


• The first question was about the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat, and Biden's belief that the vacancy should not be filled ahead of the election. Trump argued that he had the right to fill the seat before November, because the Republican Party had control of the Senate and the White House.
  • "We won the election. Elections have consequences. We have the Senate, we have the White House, and we have a phenomenal nominee," Trump said. He also implied that he was not opposed to the Senate confirming the nominee after the election, saying, "I have a lot of time after the election, as you know." Trump also addressed how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court four years ago, when President Obama was in office.
    • "They had Merrick Garland, but the problem is, they didn't have the election, so they were stopped. So we won the election and we had the right to do it” (Trump).
  • However, Biden argued that the election had already begun, with millions of people already casting absentee ballots or voting early." The American people have a right to have a say in who the Supreme Court nominee is," Biden said. "They're not going to get that chance now because we're in the middle of the election already." "We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is," Biden added, saying that he was "not opposed to the justice" as a person. He raised concerns that she might rule to overturn the Affordable Care Act. "It's just not appropriate to do this before the election” (Biden).