5 takeaways from first presidential debate: COVID-19 response, Trump taxes, systemic racism

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Wednesday, September 30, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace (C) at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020, in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the first of three planned debates between the two candidates in the lead up to the election on November 3, 2020. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

After months of exchanges from a distance, Republican President Donald Trump debated his Democratic challenger Joe Biden at the first presidential debate Tuesday night moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace.

Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, hosted the first of three presidential debates under public health guidelines, with the audience having temperature checks and some wearing face masks. The two candidates did not shake hands and were spaced far apart to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

Tuesday’s debate often got heated with frequent interruptions, especially Trump interrupting Biden and Wallace, and then Wallace interrupting the president six times on one question, as well as personal attacks and name-calling between both candidates.

Biden twice told the president to shut up, saying, “Will you shut up, man?” He later referred to Trump as “this clown,” a "racist" and said, “Everybody knows he’s a liar.”

Here are five issues that Trump and Biden argued over in the first debate. They include Trump’s Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the COVID-19 response and systemic racism.