Tuesday, September 29, America had its first round of presidential debates moderated by Fox News reporter, Christopher Wallace. The two presidential nominees in the debate were, of course, Donald Trump, the current American president, and Joe Biden, the former VP during the Obama term. If you were unable to catch the debate and haven’t seen any memes or tweets yet, come on down! Let’s review three heavy statements that happened in what CNN journalist Jake Tapper called, “a hot mess inside of a dumpster fire.”
1. “Will you shut up man?” – Joe Biden
Yes, you read that right. After countless interruptions from Donald Trump, Joe Biden actually told the President to shut up. Frankly, many of us at home were thinking the exact same thing at this point, as Trump had been continuously interrupting Biden, but hearing it from the VP definitely had everyone shocked.
Two things that we know about Trump are that he likes to get the last word and he doesn’t like it when people disagree with him. Another thing that he doesn’t like to do is follow the rules that he put in place. The structure of this debate was supposed to entail two minutes of uninterrupted time to speak for each party. In the portion of the debate about healthcare, it was reported that Trump interrupted Biden ten times within the span of three minutes. For anyone who was able to even catch even a minute of the debate, you probably wouldn’t be able to recall a section of the debate that actually followed this structure.
Biden proceeded to refer to Trump as a “clown” and “the worst president that America has ever seen,” and told him to “keep yapping man.” If you get the chance, I would definitely recommend hopping onto Instagram or Twitter to see some of the memes that have already been created about this interaction (there’s already Will you shut up man? merchandise on the market).
Although the interruptions by Trump were frustrating for viewers trying to hear Biden or Wallace, it didn’t come as much of a surprise. During one of the 2016 presidential debates, Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton a total of 51 times!
Whether you are super up-to-date with politics or not, I think we can all agree that viewers should be able to hear both parties during a debate. Unfortunately, this was not possible last Tuesday.
2. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” – Donald Trump
Moderator Christopher Wallace posed the question to Trump, “Would you condemn white supremacists?” Trump responded that there is “a lot of violence from the left,” and “proud boys, stand back and stand by.” Ummmm??? This definitely made me queasy. Again, not being able to condemn white supremacy isn’t something that would come as a shock to anyone that has heard Trump speak or has come across his tweets. However, this statement sounded like words of encouragement for potential white supremacists to cause trouble when Trump needs them, which is definitely a cause for concern.
3. “He was thrown out, dishonorably discharged…for cocaine use, and he didn’t have a job until he became vice president.”- Donald Trump
This was a personal attack that Donald Trump launched against Joe Biden after he stated his disapproval about how Trump talks about war soldiers who have passed away. Biden talked about his son Beau Biden who passed away from brain cancer five years ago, and Trump brought up his son Hunter Biden, who suffered from drug addiction and left the army. In other words, President Trump brought up his opponent’s child who suffered from addiction in order to point out dishonesty on Biden’s behalf; all it really did was showcase Trump’s lack of humanity and his inability to maintain professionalism. This was a presidential debate; there is no room for personal attacks on family members.
No matter what your thoughts are about either candidate, I think everyone can agree that this debate was extremely chaotic. The infamous Ross and Rachel “We were on a break” argument would look like an episode of The Backyardigans compared to this debate! Despite this debate being between American presidential candidates, it definitely affects us as Canadian citizens. Hopefully, the following debates follow the appropriate structure, Americans vote this November, and Canadians can be more relaxed about the future of our southern neighbours.
References
Joe Biden’s ‘Will You Shut Up, Man’ Debate Line Gives Birth to Meme