The first presidential debate took place Tues., Sept. 29 and the events that transpired resembled something closer to a reality television show than what one would expect from a debate for the presidency. The debate consisted of unfounded accusations that the polls will be rigged, candidates interrupting each other, and personal attacks on the candidates families.

During the debate, the integrity of the ballots was called into question. 

“No chance at all that mail-in ballots are a source of manipulation or cheating,” said Biden. Conversely, Trump fought back.

“This is not going to end well… this is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen.”

Our sources (linked at the bottom) say that mail in voter fraud is marginally more prevalent, but it is not statistically meaningful. 

A disruptive and prominent feature of the first debate was the interruption of one candidate’s response to the moderator by the other. President Trump and Mr. Biden interrupted each other for the duration of the night with the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, having to tell the candidates to stop interrupting multiple times. At one point Biden said to Trump, “Will you shut up man?”, in response to the nearly constant interruptions.

Both candidates attacked each other’s families during the debate, with Trump kicking off the altercation.

“China ate your lunch, Joe. No wonder, your son goes in and he takes out billions of dollars. Takes out billions of dollars to manage. He makes millions of dollars”.

“That’s simply not true,” Biden responded. “You want to talk about families and ethics? I don’t want to do that. His family, we can talk about all night.”

The debate was filled with interruptions and personal attacks which overall lead to less meaningful information being disclosed about the two candidates. For the sake of the voting public, all that can be wished for is that successive debates will be devoid of the spouts found on last Tuesday night.

 Third Party Fact Checker

A Who Won Poll

Pictures of the Debate

Clip of debate: “Would you shut up man.”

CNBC’s Highlight of the Debate

NPR’s Highlight of the Debate