Twelve days before the US presidential election, Donald Trump has finally listened to his advisers. The latter had been begging him for weeks to avoid being vindictive, surly, as he had been during the first debate, interrupting Joe Biden 71 times. The president this time managed to control himself. He was calm and kept a measured tone. This allowed viewers to attend, for once, a normal exchange between the two candidates. Trump’s tactic this Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee, was to let Joe Biden speak, hoping he was going to say something stupid or make a statement that alienates him from voters. In short, let him self-destruct live. “I was told: ‘If you let him speak, he will lose the thread because he is cracked,” Donald Trump said earlier on Fox News.
But Joe Biden did not lose the thread of his speech. On the contrary, he appeared rather clear, energetic, combative. Which should once and for all put an end to the attacks on his supposed senility. He pushed Donald Trump to his limits in the first part of the debate on his catastrophic management of the pandemic. We are heading towards “a dark winter”, he said as the president repeated that the virus “is disappearing”.
Wallet attacks
When Donald Trump accused him of helping his son Hunter get rich in China and Ukraine and of having himself received bribes – accusations never proven – Joe Biden replied that he had “never touched a penny from a foreign source in [sa] life ”and immediately turned the attack around by mentioning the president’s secret bank account in China, which was recently revealed. “Publish your tax bill or stop talking about corruption,” he told her. He also put him on the defensive by evoking these 545 children of immigrants separated from their parents in 2017 and 2018 and who have still not found their families.
Donald Trump attacked him over the 1994 law which tightened prison sentences and caused mass incarceration of African Americans. He also tried to caricature him as a communist with plans to nationalize health care and impose tax increases. Arguably more impactful, Trump has consistently hammered out that Biden is an old political crocodile, in office in Washington for 47 years, including 8 as vice president. “Joe, he’s a politician,” he said. “Only words, no action”, he repeated each time his rival spoke of his program, implying that he was always an outsider, which does not lack irony for someone who has occupied the Oval Office for four years. But it is probably the most effective angle of attack for an undecided voter.
Two opposites visions
In the end, this final debate shows two visions of America at the antipodes. Biden wants a big government aid plan to boost the economy, which Trump has denounced. He defends clean energies and the fight against pollution, while the president praises deregulation and the oil industry….
The last question was what they would say to Americans on their inauguration day. And their response couldn’t be more different. “We are on the road to success,” said Donald Trump before attacking his rival, who would like to regulate everything. “If he is elected, we will see a recession like we have never seen,” he said. It will be a “very, very sad day for this country”. Joe Biden replied, “I am an American president. I represent you all. Whether or not you voted for me. And I will do everything to ensure that you are represented. I will give you hope. “What is at stake in this vote, he concluded, is” decency, honor, respect, treating people with dignity, making everyone have a chance and I will make sure you have it all ”.
Doesn’t Donald Trump’s last-minute makeover come too late when nearly 50 million Americans have already voted and very few remain undecided? During the last debate in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, he also adopted a more measured tone and avoided speaking indiscriminately. This had apparently convinced some of the conservative voters, who were still reluctant. In the process, he had become the 45e President of the United States.
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