A tawdry round one: Biden vs. Trump debate was an embarrassment for America
This is no way to elect the leader of the Free World.
It was a train wreck and a dumpster fire rolled into one. It was messy, it was ugly and it never let up.
“Will you shut up, man?” former Vice President Joe Biden told President Donald Trump. “You’re not smart, Joe,” Trump said a few minutes later.
Later: “You’re the worst president America has ever had,” Biden said.
“I’ve done more in three years than you did in 47,” Trump responded.
And so it went. For 90 minutes.
It was a tawdry embarrassment. And not just for Americans, but for a global audience that once looked up to — and once admired — our country.
The moderator, FOX News’ Chris Wallace, lost control quickly and often seemed powerless to stop the candidates from talking over each other. Trump interrupted, Biden smirked.
At one point, Wallace had to admonish the president for interrupting. “Him too,” Trump said. But “frankly you’ve been doing more interrupting,” Wallace shot back.
If you’re a Trump supporter, you loved his obnoxious, bullying, in-your-face style. He bulldozed over Wallace, and frequently shoved Biden around verbally. Never mind that the president spewed countless distortions and bald-faced lies on a variety of topics. We’re in a post-truth, alternative facts world, where people can believe, if they choose to do so, that the sun rises in the West and sets in the East.
If you’re a Biden supporter, you loved how he laughed openly at Trump, how he told him to “stop yapping,” and how "everything he says is a lie… everyone knows he’s a liar.”
Biden missed opportunities
Even so, Biden wasn’t as aggressive as I thought he would be, and didn’t display true anger until nearly an hour in, when Trump, as expected, attacked Hunter Biden’s work for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Biden ripped Trump, telling him everything he was saying had been discredited. “Oh, really?” Trump said.
I’m also surprised that it took Biden a while to bring up Trump’s non-payment of federal taxes. It would have been easy to slip in early, but wasn’t mentioned for about 45 minutes. Trump said a New York Times article reporting he paid only $750 in 2016 — and nothing in 10 of the 15 years before that — was false, insisting he pays millions.
“Show us your tax returns,” Biden challenged.
But non-payment of taxes isn’t exactly new. In their first debate four years ago, Hillary Clinton pounded Trump over the same thing. Trump actually bragged about it. “That makes me smart,” he told Clinton.
Trump's debt raises questions
But one thing is different now: the Times’ report that Trump has more than $400 million in debt that will come due over the next four years.
Who owns that debt? How will Trump stave off his creditors? Personally, I’m not “Russian” to any judgments on this, but Biden should have asked: “Who owns you, Mr. President?”
Trump’s taxes and financial problems mean nothing to his supporters. They’ve stood by him through the pandemic that has killed 205,000 Americans, shattered families and destroyed millions of jobs. They’ve stood by him amid the recent report in the Atlantic that Trump called dead soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” They’ve stood by him from the beginning and the vast majority of them aren’t going anywhere.
The final topics brought up by Wallace were race relations and the integrity of the election. This was the most disturbing part of the night.
Trump, continuing to undermine the integrity of our electoral system, repeated his long-standing claim that the election will be a fraud because of mail-in ballots. He refused, as he did last week, to say whether there would be a peaceful and honorable transfer of power should he lose.
And when asked whether he would condemn white supremacism as he has Antifa, he refused to do so. He refused, even though his hand-picked FBI Director Christopher Wray, told Congress just two weeks ago that white supremacists are a major threat to U.S. national security.
He even gave a shoutout of sorts to one such group, the “Proud Boys,” which believes that white men and Western culture are under siege.
“Stand back and stand by," Trump told them, whatever that means.
To me it sounded like he may need them if there are “problems” with the election.
Nothing is more dangerous than an animal that has been backed into a corner. Trump knows he's losing. He clawed and hissed from beginning to end. Yet, my guess is that his supporters ate it up.
If you want to know what a second Trump term would be like, you saw it last night: Delusional, thoroughly dishonest, bullying and unable to tolerate dissent.
As for Biden, despite flashes of aggressiveness, he missed opportunities and frankly could have been sharper. In the former vice president, we saw a man who is hardly without faults, but unlike Trump, his heart is in the right place and he’s a decent man. I’ll take that any day over what we have now.
The one vice presidential debate is next week in Salt Lake City. Biden and Trump will next meet Oct.15 in Miami.
God help us.
Paul Brandus is the founder and White House bureau chief of West Wing Reports and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. His latest book, published last month, is "Jackie: Her Transformation from First Lady to Jackie O." Follow him on Twitter: @WestWingReport
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: First Biden-Trump debate was an embarrassment for America
