For much of Thursday night’s debate, former President Donald J. Trump verbally blasted his political opponent, President Biden, with a torrent of attacks that were often false, out of context or misleadingly vague, portraying him as an incompetent leader.
Trump directly attacked Biden’s personal character, calling him a “weak” man who has little respect from world leaders who are “laughing at” him.
He has sought to accuse Biden of corruption, calling him a “Manchurian candidate” who is being paid by China and alluding to frequent, unsubstantiated allegations of undue influence.
He directly blamed Biden for a wave of migrants coming in at levels never seen before and killing our citizens, an exaggerated claim that is not supported by available statistics.
And even though Biden had consistently sought to rally support for Ukraine and his administration had taken active steps to warn President Vladimir V. Putin against Russian aggression, Trump grossly misrepresented the facts and falsely claimed that Biden had “encouraged” Russia to attack Ukraine.
Trump’s comments at the debate were virtually the same as how he regularly blasts Biden at his rallies, where he portrays the president as a bumbling, corrupt leader who is leading the country to ruin.
But the fierce attacks during the debate were particularly striking given that Biden was standing just a few feet away from Trump and, per debate rules, had his microphone muted, meaning he was unable to interrupt or effectively refute Trump.
And the debate’s moderators, CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, focused on keeping the peace, not even bothering to fact-check Trump’s claims and instead sticking to them without any room for rebuttal.
Biden offered several criticisms, including one of the debate’s most memorable moments, when he said Trump has “the moral code of a wild cat” and accused him of having sex with a porn star while his wife was pregnant.
But broadly speaking, Biden found himself on the defensive from the start, facing a barrage of insults, mischaracterizations and attacks from Trump.
Trump noted that Biden had been haltingly speaking early in the debate, and when Biden seemed lost for words, he remarked, “I have no idea what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said himself.”
But Trump’s fiercest attacks have centered on immigration, the issue that helped drive his successful 2016 campaign and which he has sought to make central to his campaign to return to the White House.
The former president floated the idea of ”Biden immigration crime,” alleging that Biden’s lax border policies have allowed terrorists and criminals to cross the border illegally.
Trump cited high-profile murders involving migrants and accused Biden of “ridiculous, insane, very stupid policies” that fueled the crime wave. Trump vaguely accused Biden of “killing so many people at the border” by failing to curb the migrant surge, a claim he did not back up with statistics.
Experts say these highly publicized cases don’t indicate a broader trend: Studies have concluded that immigration doesn’t drive up crime rates.
Trump also directly criticized Biden’s profile on the international stage, claiming that Putin is “making a mockery” of the president’s leadership and his failure to secure the release of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, who is being held in Russia on espionage charges that U.S. authorities strongly deny.
“Our whole country is exploding because they don’t respect you,” Trump told Biden.
He also extended his criticism to the military, claiming that “our veterans and soldiers cannot stand the president” (Trump has reportedly been contemptuous of senior US military officials during his presidency).
Trump has repeated his repeated allegations that Biden is corrupt and revived accusations that Biden took improper payments from a Chinese energy company with ties to his son Hunter and brother James. There is no evidence that any of those payments, which began after Biden left the vice presidency, ever made it to the president.
But Trump also directly attacked Hunter Biden, who was convicted this month on three felony charges related to buying a gun while struggling with drug addiction. He called Hunter a “very high-level convicted felon.”
Trump was convicted last month in Manhattan of 34 felony counts in connection with paying hush money to porn actresses.
