Donald Trump confidently making a series of false statements, Joe Biden offensive in substance but very confused in form: the two candidates for the American presidency fought over inflation, immigration and Ukraine during their first debate on Thursday, June 27. L’Express takes stock of the five highlights of the debate.
Trump: “Inflation is killing our country!”
Rising prices are the first subject on which the two men were questioned during this debate, organized in Atlanta (Georgia). Because the subject is one of the main ones that American voters will think about when voting.
“Inflation is killing our country,” said the 78-year-old former Republican president from the outset, extremely comfortable, repeating an argument that he knows resonates with Americans, and assuring that his rival was doing “bad work”, despite robust growth and healthy employment. Joe Biden accused his predecessor of having “really decimated the economy. That’s why there was no inflation.” “We are working to lower the prices of products on the kitchen table, and we will succeed,” assured the Democrat.
Biden criticizes Trump for “terrible” actions against abortion rights
US President Joe Biden has criticized Donald Trump for his “terrible” action against abortion rights. “It’s a terrible thing what you did,” the Democratic leader said to his Republican opponent during their face-to-face meeting in Atlanta.
The US Supreme Court, profoundly overhauled by the former president, overturned in June 2022 the famous Roe v. Wade case law which guaranteed the federal right of American women to abort, giving each state back its freedom to legislate on the issue. Around twenty US states have since adopted bans or restrictions on abortion. Joe Biden has maintained that Donald Trump would be ready to enact a law, if it were voted on by a future Republican Congress, to ban abortion at the national level or restrict it to “six, seven, eight or ten weeks” of pregnancy, “something very conservative”. Donald Trump has defended himself from this question now returning to the states: “it’s the vote of the people”, he said. “I believe in exceptions in cases of rape, incest”, and danger to “the life of the mother”, he added. “I think it’s very important. For some, no, follow your heart.” Asked about the abortion pill issue, the former president also said he would not “block” it.
Biden calls Trump ‘convict’
President Joe Biden then called his Republican opponent Donald Trump a “convict,” referring to his recent criminal conviction in New York. “The only person who is a convict is the man I’m watching on stage right now,” the Democratic leader told his predecessor 44 minutes into their debate in Atlanta. “You have the moral compass of a depraved person,” Biden said.
“I did nothing wrong,” the former president, who has been charged in several other cases, replied, claiming that the justice system was “rigged.” The Republican, who never conceded his defeat in 2020, did not commit to unconditionally recognizing the verdict of the ballot boxes in November, assuring that he would accept it if the election was “fair and just.”
Trump challenges Biden to take a ‘cognitive test’
Donald Trump has challenged Joe Biden to a “cognitive test”, boasting that he himself had taken two and “shone”, before boasting about his golfing skills as his rival smirked.
“I passed them with flying colors […] “He (Biden) hasn’t passed any. I’d like to see him pass one, just one, a very easy one,” the former Republican president said.
Trump attacks Biden on international affairs
The war in Ukraine would never have happened if the United States had a “leader,” Donald Trump told President Joe Biden. The Republican candidate was highly critical of the billions of dollars spent by the United States to support kyiv in its war against Moscow.
Donald Trump also accused his Democratic rival Joe Biden of behaving “like a Palestinian” in the context of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. “He has become like a Palestinian, but they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. A weak (Palestinian),” Donald Trump said.