We rewatched the 2020 Trump-Biden debates. Here’s what we learned
Donald Trump likes to cast himself as the outsider on the debate stage. He interrupts, trying to knock his sparring partner off his stride. Joe Biden occasionally becomes snippy and has a habit of speaking straight to the camera. They both play moderator from time to time, asking each other questions.
In a dynamic that is unprecedented in recent general elections, the two men who will meet on stage in Atlanta on Thursday (11am Friday AEST) have already debated each other twice. Those clashes provide insight into how each of them might attack the other, and how they will try to steer the contest in their favour.
Along with a number of 2016 GOP primary debates, Trump’s experience includes five one-on-one clashes between 2016 and 2020, where he gained a reputation for flouting the rules. Biden’s half-century in politics, which includes two vice presidential debates and his strong performances in the two 2020 match-ups, give his allies confidence that he can handle Trump’s unpredictability.
Politically, their roles are reversed from four years ago. Then it was Trump who walked onto the debate stage as a sitting president, defending his record amid low poll numbers. Now it is President Biden who must make up ground on his challenger. The 2020 debates were also unique in that they took place in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Trump tested positive for Covid two days after the first face-off with Biden.)
Both men can get under each other’s skin. “Let’s have this debate, we’ll see who is smarter,” Biden said four years ago on stage with Trump.
Here are some other tactics and topics from 2020 that could inform Thursday’s debate:
Predictions
Both men made predictions during the last debate – and neither came true. Trump focused on the stock market as a barometer of the country’s economic success during the last debate. “They say the stock market will boom if I’m elected,” Trump said in the October 2020 debate. “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.” Trump was wrong. During Biden’s presidency the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 40,000 for the first time. One word that never arose during the last debates: Inflation. That is the problem that has bedevilled Biden’s administration and is likely to be litigated on the debate stage this time.
Biden offered a prediction too – about how the 2020 election would be resolved. Biden suggested, wrongly it turned out, that Trump would accept the results.
“I will accept it, and he will too,” Biden said during the September 2020 debate.
Trump, at the time, was more circumspect. “If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that,” Trump said, despite no evidence that such a scheme was afoot.
Trump never accepted the results of the 2020 election. He has been indicted by a federal grand jury for trying to overturn the election and separately in Georgia for similar charges.
Candidate-as-moderator Both Biden and Trump like to ask each other questions.
Biden did this to great effect in the first 2020 debate, teaming up with the actual moderator, Chris Wallace, and pushing Trump to denounce far-right groups.
“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said in response to Biden’s prodding during the September 2020 debate. The organisation, which had been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, included leaders who were subsequently charged with attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump used a similar approach of asking a direct question to try to highlight Biden’s record on energy. “You want to kill the economy, get rid of your oil industry. What about fracking?” Trump asked Biden during the first debate.
The question from Trump was an attempt to trip up Biden on his nuanced position on energy, which included a pledge to ban fracking on public lands while supporting it in other instances.
Abortion and the Supreme Court
Abortion barely came up during the last set of presidential debates. Biden broached the topic during a section of the first debate focused on the Supreme Court, when he warned that the justices were on the brink of overturning Roe v. Wade. “That is on the ballot as well,” Biden said. “That is also at stake right now.”
Trump, at the time, tried to play down Biden’s concerns. “It’s not on the ballot,” Trump said. He also attempted to cast doubt on how Amy Coney Barrett, whom he had just nominated to the court, might come down on the issue. “You don’t know her view on Roe v. Wade,” Trump said.
In June 2022, Barrett joined five other justices – including the other two Trump appointees – to overturn the landmark 1973 decision and erase the constitutional right to an abortion. Trump has bragged about that nomination record, a fact that Biden will likely remind viewers of Thursday.
Family businesses
Trump made several efforts four years ago to tie Joe Biden to his family’s business dealings, repeatedly saying without evidence that he profited from his relatives’ work abroad.
Trump had difficulty landing his attacks on Biden and business dealings during the 2020 debates, in part because of a tendency to invoke details of unproven conspiracy theories that most Americans weren’t – and still aren’t – familiar with.
“Joe got three-and-a-half million dollars from Russia,” Trump said at one point, levelling a charge that wasn’t supported by evidence then and remains unsupported after two Republican-led committees examined bank records.
Hunter Biden recently was found guilty on three felony gun charges unrelated to the business dealings, giving Trump an opening to attack the Biden family again – though Trump has his own recent criminal conviction to contend with.
When Trump pressed on the topic of Hunter last time, Biden expressed pride in his son’s recovery from addiction. But he also deployed this line: “This is not about my family or his family. It’s about your family, the American people.”
More Coverage
60 days to smash Hezbollah threat
Proposal allows Israel to continue striking Lebanon, but that could face resistance from Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.
The WSJ’s verdict on Kamala Harris
At home, she’s no centrist. Abroad, she seems unprepared for the dangers ahead. If she does win, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will quickly test her mettle.