Trump, Biden spar in first presidential debate

President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden sparred in the opening bout of their first presidential debate Tuesday over Trump’s decision to nominate conservative federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with just weeks to go before Election Day.

“We won the election and we have the right to do it,” Trump said.

Biden replied, “The American people have a right to have a say in who the Supreme Court nominee is, and that say occurs when they vote for United States senators, and when they vote for the president,” arguing “they are not going to get that chance now.”

The rivals did not shake hands on stage in Cleveland, per coronavirus protocols, and attendance was limited to about 70 people to promote social distancing.

Trump, consistently trailing Biden in national polls, came into the debate needing to shake up the race. Biden, with his penchant for gaffes and his uneven debate performances this cycle, faces his biggest test as he squares off against his most unorthodox opponent yet.

Six topics of debate were predetermined by moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News: the coronavirus crisis, the Supreme Court, the economy, race and violence in American cities, election integrity and the candidates’ political records.

Biden has sought to make the election a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. and infected some 7 million.

The president is working to push through Barrett to replace Ginsburg on the Supreme Court in part to redirect the spotlight off his leadership amid the public health crisis and onto a more favorable topic.

Looming over it all is the unrest over racial injustice roiling cities from Louisville, Ky., to Portland, Ore. Trump is trumpeting himself as a “law and order” leader while seizing on pockets of violence among largely peaceful protests to stoke fear. Biden, who has also denounced the violence and said he opposes activists’ cries to “defund the police,” generally supports the demonstrations over racial inequality.

The debate has been overshadowed by a bombshell report from The New York Times that showed Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, and paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.

Biden and Harris released their 2019 state and federal tax returns Tuesday. Biden and his wife had an adjusted gross income of $985,233 and paid nearly $300,000 in federal income taxes. Harris and her husband had an adjusted gross income of more than $3 million and paid nearly $1.2 million in federal income taxes, according to the returns.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3jj6gR4