First Presidential Debate

First Presidential Debate

By: Annalicia Urtiaga

As we all know, it is election year. The current US president, Donald Trump, is running for his second term against former vice president, Joe Biden. Last week on Tuesday, September 29th, the first of the three presidential debates took place. It was quite controversial, to say the least.

This year’s debates will be different than before, because of the coronavirus pandemic. The candidates will stand farther apart and will not shake hands. The audience was much smaller as well, having only 80-90 people, and they were all tested for COVID as well as wearing masks. These changes, however, were not the only differences in this year's debate.

Much of the debate consisted of the moderator, Wallace, having to continuously tell the two candidates to stop talking and allow the other to speak. Every topic, from the coronavirus down to family. Insults such as, “clown”, “not smart” and “liar” were thrown around from both parties, as well as interruptions and more arguments rather than having a sophisticated debate.

These arguments happened so much so that the Commission on Presidential Debates are making some changes for the next two debates. A possible new change could be cutting their mics if they continue to interrupt one another. The CPD has not announced all of the changes as of now, but they are still discussing it. More will be to come at the next debate, taking place on October 15th, 2020.