In overall assessments of outsiders, former US president Donald Trump was considered as the winner of the first direct and live-aired debate hosted by CNN between the two presidential hopefuls from the Republican Party (Donald Trump) and the Democratic Party (incumbent President Joe Biden). And Joe Biden was commonly seen as the loser. But the irony was that this victory didn't help Trump much.
| Republican Donald Trump and President Joe Biden at a recent debate. Photo: AFP/VNA |
For Joe Biden, this debate was a disaster because his performance was so bad that many from the Democrats' side started to panic sparking open as well as secret discussions on replacing Joe Biden as this party's presidential candidate. Concerning the contents of this debate, Joe Biden had more than Donald Trump. But he was during this debate unable to articulate them clearly to American voters. The core of his disaster was he made American voters get the dominant impression that he was already too old and too weak for the top job in America.
Being only 4 years younger than Joe Biden but Donald Trump appeared to be much more vital than Biden. He well knew how to make his points and could circulate his messages to American voters. But if the debate was a disaster for Biden then it was a catastrophe for Trump because of his falsehoods and half-truth. He once again demonstrated that he didn't care about the truth, and didn't learn any lessons from being defeated by Biden in 2020. He obviously thought and believed that he would win this year's election by only repeating the way of his election campaign from 2020. What he said in this debate has disqualified himself as the better alternative to Biden as America's next president before American voters whose votes he would need to be elected.
So was Biden, too. Both have used this debate to attack each other instead of addressing American voters, by presenting to them their visions for America in the next 4 years as well as in the future. They all were wasting their unique opportunity to win the trust and confidence of all American voters, especially by picturing themselves as physically fit (by Biden) and as suitable (by Trump) to become the leader of today's America.
Therefore, the alternatively true losers of this debate were American voters. They are now pushed into a dilemma to have to choose one of the two whom they don't want to elect as America's next president on coming November 5th.
Biden and Trump still have more than 4 months to facilitate a turnaround - not much but enough time.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by Ambassador Tran Duc Mau are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Hanoi Times.
