The presidential debate finally arrived.
And it was ridiculous.
Videos by VICE
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden met on Tuesday night in Cleveland as nominees of their respective parties to honor the great American tradition of debating who should run the country as the next president of the United States.
But anyone expecting civil, high-minded debate hasn’t been paying attention.
Trump and Biden yammered over each other in banter that verged on the incomprehensible. The two national champions of Republicans and Democrats sniped and mocked each other with abandon — and even acknowledged they weren’t making much sense.
“Will you shut up, man!” Biden exclaimed at one point. “Keep yappin’, man.”
As one particularly nonsensical exchange drew to a close, Biden lamented: “That was really a productive segment, wasn’t it?”
Trump and Biden are scheduled to debate three times before the nation votes to decide which one of them should run the country — and be in charge of protecting us all from a deadly pandemic, and get to have the nuclear codes. Tuesday night’s debate has been hotly anticipated, and expected to draw a massive audience.
But those tuning in Tuesday found a barely understandable squabble, full of schoolyard taunts and absurd barbs.
“Don’t ever use the word smart with me, Joe,” Trump said. “There’s nothing smart about you.”
Trump, who resisted wearing a mask for months until finally, grudgingly giving in, mocked Biden for wearing “the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Trump told moderator Chris Wallace that he doesn’t wear a mask at his rallies because “people hear what I want to say.”
Scientific experts have said mask-wearing could dramatically cut the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Trump’s own wife, Melania, was perhaps the only one who arrived in the limited audience on Tuesday night wearing a mask.
