‘Americans do not panic. He panicked’: Twitter cheers best of Biden, jeers worst of Trump, at debate

Screenshot / CNN

Trump reined in the hyperbole—thank in part to the host’s mute button—and Biden kept his cool. Unlike the first national embarrassment of a debate, many conceded that this time around, Donald Trump spoke with more discipline — yet Biden still won.

Twitter has the receipts.

Trump is staging a Master Class in how to lose support

Trump standing at a podium

Flickr / Gage Skidmore

The clear winner of last night’s debate was the moderator, NBC reporter Kristen Welker. She did an excellent job of fielding the candidates, expertly batting one claim back to the other to respond to. While less bulldozing than the first time around, President Trump could not resist occasionally talking over Kristen and interrupting her repeated attempts to bring the debate back to Biden.

Nonetheless, preliminary polls show that Biden was the clear winner of the debate, with 52% of voters stating Biden won over 41% for Trump (with 7% undecided).

He even appears to have lost the support of his own wife if this moment is any indication…

Biden: ‘Shut down the virus not the country’

Close up of Joe Biden's face

Flickr / Gage Skidmore

If Biden has a running ticket, it is the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The rate of daily COVID-19 cases in the United States is at a three month high. “Winter is Coming,” and Biden defended himself against Trump’s blustering accusations about a crippling lockdown, calmly pointing out we need to “shut down the virus, not the country.”

People are learning to live with it? We are learning to DIE with it

Healthcare worker looks out a window

Shutterstock

True to character, the President stoutly refused to apologize for his fuddled response to the pandemic. At one point, he admitted: “I take full responsibility,” then immediately followed this with: “It’s China’s fault.”

Classic.

Biden criticized Trump’s slow response in the early stages of the pandemic, pointing out that the President was informed about the threat of the virus, and he chose to take the information to Wall Street. Biden accused Trump of refusing to act on time-critical information: “He knew how dangerous it was but he did not want to tell us because he did not want us to panic”. Biden’s next line was a home-run:

Americans do not panic. He panicked.

Trump only sees blue and red — Biden sees the United States

Trump in front of a US map

Wikipedia / PNG Guru

On the topic of the coronavirus pandemic, Biden accused Trump of seeing America in red and blue, and favoring Republican governors. Recent history of the bidding wars over coronavirus supplies such as PPE that were only exacerbated by Trump support this claim.

Biden however, wants to be President of the UNITED States.

Red States have blue lights

Screenshot / Al Jazeera

As one user pointed out, the recent spikes in states like Texas, South and North Dakota show the perils of ignoring the advice to wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines. Those red states will be made blue by ambulance lights.

Trump pays more tax to China than America

Trump and Xi face to face

Screenshot / Yahoo

The debate moved onto the topics of taxes, at which point Biden took the opportunity of reminding Trump that he had failed to release a single tax return. To which Trump blurted: “I wanna do it” and claimed he had “prepaid millions and millions of dollars in taxes.”

Biden pointed out he had released all his tax returns for the last 22 years and invited anyone to look at them. He also reminded the audience that while Trump chooses to pay little or no tax in the United States, he does have “a secret bank account in China.”

Tax records show that Trump has in fact paid around $200,000 in taxes to China.

Also to quote Donald’s niece Mary Trump:

If only Trump cared as much about the coronavirus as much as he cares about Joe Biden’s son

Joe Biden standing next to his son Hunter

Screenshot / YouTube

One point that Trump has returned to repeatedly during this election campaign, is bashing Hunter Biden. He has allegedly asked Attorney General William Barr to open an investigation into his rival’s son. Critics have called Trump’s obsessive efforts to link Hunter Biden to a Ukrainian energy company a “smoking gun.”

Of course, Trump must have forgotten about his own son, DJTJ, colluding with Russia against Hilary Clinton…or Eric Trump funneling donations from a cancer charity for his father’s gain…or his daughter’s own dodgy dealing with China? The list goes on.

‘Biden obviously has a lot of money because he owns a basement?’

Trump sitting at his desk in the Oval Office

Flickr / The White House

The two men clashed on the right approach to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump said his opponent “has this thing about living in a basement” and therefore concluded, “he had made a lot of money someplace.” This strange conclusion led one user to paraphrase the accusation: “Biden obviously has a lot of money because he owns a basement?”

Trump deplored that he, “as the President, could not do that.” He continued:

Trump: “I would love to put myself in a basement and go away for a year and a half.”

Just what we want from our Commander-in-Chief.

Middle class families are hurting

Woman holding a sign that says "I lost my job due to coronavirus"

Shutterstock

When Trump claimed he had given “28 million dollars to our farmers” Biden pointed out this was “taxpayer’s money.” The former Vice President continued, stating that “middle class families are hurting right now.”

Biden: ‘Their kids were ripped from their arms’

Screenshot / YouTube

The epicenter of the debate was the issue of the over 545 children whose parents are missing. In 2017, approximately 5,000 families were broken apart by the Trump administration who separated children from their parents at the U.S-Mexico border. Now, it emerges that around 545 of these children cannot find their parents.

At one point during the exchange, after Biden said “You have 525 kids not knowing where in God’s name they’re going to be and lost their parents,” many thought Trump responded with “Good.”

In fact, Trump told the moderator “go ahead,” but what is certainly evident, is the marked difference in compassion between the two candidates.

Trump: ‘I’m the least racist person. I can’t even see the audience because it’s so dark.’

Wikimedia

Need we say more? Also, the moderator Kristen Welker is Black. If Trump can’t see her that would explain why he keeps talking over her repeated requests for him to give the floor to Joe Biden.

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