by Laura Lai/Comment
There were supposed to be three U.S. Presidential Debates in 2020. After the Debate Commission cancelled the second debate, scheduled for October 15th, the third one became the second and last debate before the elections. It took place on October 22nd, as scheduled. And it brought in front of the American voters the current U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, running for a second mandate, and the Democrats’ nominee, the former U.S. Vice-President, Joe Biden.
The overall tone and atmosphere of this second debate was different and improved in comparison to the first debate. The moderator, Kristen Welker, did handle it remarkably well! The debate covered six topics: fight against the coronavirus, national security, family/health, immigration, race and environment.
On
the fight against the coronovirus, Donald Trump had an effective 2-minute
response: he stressed the external source of this plague, that the mortality
rate is decreasing, the spikes in Florida, Texas, Arizona are gone, the vaccine
is coming and that this plague is a world-wide problem. Effective was also the
three-time repetition of ‘it’s gone’: ‘the spike in Florida – it’s gone!’, ‘the
spike in Arizona – it’s gone!’ Very effective, I would say, in settling an
encouraging tone.
On
the same matter, Joe Biden encourages people to wear masks, stressed the
importance of mass testing, and kept things in general: ‘I’ll shut down the
virus’, ‘I’ll take care of this’. Obviously, nobody has a solution to the
coronovirus and everybody is waiting for the vaccine on which there are many
unknowns: nobody knows, for example, how long we will stay immune. But
specialists know now more things than at the beginning when everybody was
confused. Biden reminded lots of Trump’s mistakes from that beginning and
confusing period.
The
topic on the national security was a kind of accusation ping-pong. Trump
mentioned all Biden’s family taking money from different foreign governments,
while Biden accused Trump that he is advertising his businesses, which thrived
during his mandate. A concrete example of Trump business in a particular place
that got from that percentage to that percentage would have been more
convincing. On the other side, I have heard of a news that one of Trump’s
hotels in Canada got closed because clients – opponents of Trump – avoided the
hotel. That is an example of the way being president affected his business.
Similarly
to the first debate on the issue of health insurance for American families, Joe
Biden stressed that health insurance is a right not a privilege and he had
presented his plan: first, the ‘Obama Care’ will pass with a public option and
it will be called ‘Biden Care’; second, the premiums and drug prices will be
reduced; third, the private insurance will be kept as he is a supporter of it;
and, fourth, those with pre-exiting conditions will be protected. Two of the
four-point plan, are also mentioned by Trump. His Administration will protect
those with a pre-exiting condition and would focus on keeping down the drugs’
price and premiums. (to be continued)
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