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WASHINGTON – At the end of the opening segment of the first presidential debate between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump – a 15-minute period filled with insults, cross-talk and very little substance – moderator Chris Wallace tried to move on.
But the candidates weren’t done clashing.
“Would you shut up?” Biden said to Trump, calling the president’s behavior “so unpresidential.” “Keep yapping, man.”
Trump fired back: “The people understand, Joe. Forty-seven years, and you’ve done nothing.”
In that vein, the incumbent Republican president and the Democratic challenger jabbed at each other relentlessly on Tuesday over the course of a much-anticipated, primetime debate that spent more time reeling out of control than not.
The contest provided few opportunities, at least early on, to measure the candidates on policy, even as Wallace tried to steer them to discussions on health care, the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy. “I’m the moderator of this debate,” he implored at one point.
But if viewers were looking for a fight, they got it in full. Here are four moments that stood out:
‘How ya doing, man?’
The candidates agreed, due to health precautions related to the coronavirus, that they would not engage in the traditional pre-debate handshake. But Biden and Trump exchanged pleasantries from a distance, with the former vice president saying, “How ya doing, man?”
That opening bit of civility didn’t last – a predictable development based on the pre-debate buzz.
Trump’s campaign and some of his surrogates floated the baseless claim that Biden would wear a secret earpiece during the debate to receive help, echoing the president’s similarly unfounded charge that the Democrat would be using some kind of performance-enhancing drug.
Those kind of rumors echoed similar groundless claims made against President George W. Bush in 2004, when liberal bloggers seized upon a supposed bulge in the Texan’s suit coat.
A Biden campaign staffer called the assertion “completely absurd.” The candidate then joked away the issue, posting on Twitter a picture of some old iPhone earbuds and a pint of ice cream as evidence that he had his “earpiece and performance enhancers ready.”
‘I’m the Democratic Party’
Trump sought to attack Biden on health care, accusing the former vice president of wanting something along the lines of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal.
“You’re going to socialist medicine,” he said.
Biden rejected Trump’s accusation, explaining that he instead wants to expand and build upon the health care law that President Barack Obama signed into law. He pointed to a public option for those who want it, while saying that those who want their employer’s insurance would be able to keep it.
Trump jabbed again: “Your party wanted to go socialist.”
“Right now, I’m the Democratic Party,” Biden responded.
‘Millions of dollars’
One topic that surprised no one when it came up was the recent New York Times report, based upon several years of Trump’s tax returns that the news outlet obtained, showing that he has paid little to no federal income taxes in most of the last 15 years.
Wallace, the moderator, asked Trump if it was true that he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017.
“I paid millions of dollars in taxes,” Trump said, without explaining the discrepancy.
“Show us your tax returns,” Biden responded, referring to the fact that Trump has not followed the modern-day presidential tradition of releasing his tax information.
“You’ll see it as soon as it’s finished,” Trump interjected, raising his frequent assertion that an audit prevents him from releasing that information.
The suburbs
Fort Worth received a passing mention in the debate, when Wallace cited it as a GOP-run city that’s seen a spike in violent crime of late. (Texas municipal governments are actually nonpartisan, though Tarrant County has traditionally been conservative and Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price is a Republican.)
Wallace asked Trump if crime increases in the U.S. are really a party issue, as the president often suggests when he puts the blame on Democrat-run cities.
“I think it’s a party issue,” Trump said, pointing to Chicago and New York.
The president then turned his attention back to Biden, saying that if the former vice president “ever got to run this country and they ran it the way he would want to run it, our suburbs would be gone – you would see problems.”
Biden jabbed back: “He wouldn’t know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn.”
“Oh, I know suburbs so much better,” Trump retorted.
“I was raised in the suburbs,” Biden said. “This isn’t 1950 – all these dog-whistles and racism don’t work anymore.”