What the First Trump-Biden Debate Taught Us Last Time
Viewed in hindsight, the first general election debate of any given presidential cycle can be hilariously off-topic, even directly misleading about how the candidates would govern on issues of national import.
In 1988, 14 months before the decadeslong menace of international communism suddenly collapsed, moderator Jim Lehrer kicked off the George H.W. Bush–Michael Dukakis contest with what he described as the “number one domestic issue to a majority of voters”—illegal narcotics. “What is there about these times,” the PBS legend needed to know, “that drives or draws so many Americans to use drugs?” (The elder Bush then treated 65 million viewers to a disquisition on the comparative demerits of Crocodile Dundee.)
Jimmy Carter in the first debate of 1976 emphasized as his “top priority” putting people back to work while ending the “inflationary spiral.” This did not pan out. George W. Bush in 2000 differentiated his foreign policy from Al Gore’s by saying, “If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world and [doing] nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I’m going to prevent that.” Reader, he did not.
But something quite different, yet already forgotten (if indeed it was ever really understood), happened the first time Donald Trump squared off with Joe Biden in 2020. Sure, the post-debate headlines would summarize the event as a “shitshow,” and accurately enough—Trump never stopped interrupting, often with non sequitur accusations about “the mayor of Moscow’s wife” giving Hunter Biden $3.5 million; Biden, in between “Come on!”s, called Trump a dog-whistling “racist” and “the worst president America has ever had”; poor Chris Wallace was playing the “Mr. President, I’m the moderator of this debate” card within the first 10 minutes.
Yet poking through the smothering vulgarity was an actual exchange of substance on a policy area of grave importance: COVID-19. And although revisiting September 2020 is like being dropped back into the middle of a bad acid trip, a hindsight reading of the pandemic discussion reveals what may come as a startling reality: Trump on this most important of topics was the most right person on stage, with both Biden and Wallace foreshadowing the smug illiberalism that would dominate COVID policy and discourse for the next two years.
“The second subject [tonight] is COVID-19, which is an awfully serious subject,” Wallace admonished. “So let’s try to be serious about it.” Alas, the moderator did not heed his own advice.
In a segment teed up as being forward-looking on COVID policy, Wallace, with the tone of an exasperated elementary school teacher, badgered the president about having the temerity to believe—accurately, it would turn out—that a vaccine would arrive earlier than some government scientists predicted:
WALLACE: President Trump, you have repeatedly either contradicted or been at odds with some of your government’s own top scientists. The week before last, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. [Robert] Redfield, said it would be summer before the vaccine would become generally available to the public. You said that he was confused and mistaken; those were your two words. But Dr. [Moncef] Slaoui, the head of your Operation Warp Speed, has said exactly the same thing. Are they both wrong?
TRUMP:Â Well, I’ve spoken to the companies, and we can have it a lot sooner. It’s a very political thing, because people like this would rather make it political than save lives.
BIDEN:Â God.
TRUMP: It is a very political thing. I’ve spoken to Pfizer, I’ve spoken to all of the people that you have to speak to: Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and others. They can go faster than that by a lot. It’s become very political because the left…or I don’t know if I call them left, I don’t know what I call them.
WALLACE: So you’re suggesting that the head of your Operation Warp Speed, Dr. Slaoui—
TRUMP:Â I disagree with him. No, I disagree with both of them. And he didn’t say that. He said it could be there, but it could also be much sooner. I had him in my office two days ago.
WALLACE:Â He talked about the summer, sir, before it’s generally available. Just like Dr. Redfield.
TRUMP: Because he said it’s a possibility that we’ll have the answer before November 1. It could also be after that.
WALLACE: I’m talking about when it’s generally available, not—
TRUMP: Well, we’re going to deliver it right away. We have the military all set up; logistically, they’re all set up. We have our military that delivers, soldiers, and they can do 200,000 a day. They’re going to be delivering—
BIDEN: This is the same man who told you—
TRUMP:Â It’s all set up.
BIDEN: …by Easter, this would be gone away; by the warm weather, it’d be gone. Miraculous, like a miracle. And by the way, maybe you could inject some bleach in your arm, and that would take care of it. This is the same man.
TRUMP:Â That was said sarcastically, and you know that. That was said sarcastically.
BIDEN:Â So here’s the deal: This man is talking about a vaccine. Every serious company is talking about maybe having a vaccine done by the end of the year, but the distribution of that vaccine will not occur until sometime beginning of the middle of next year to get it out, if we get the vaccine. And pray God we will. Pray God we will.
WALLACE: Mr.
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