Published 07:27 IST, October 1st 2020
Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's debate performance a 'national embarrassment'
Biden said that Trump was a national embarrassment during the first presidential debate and moderators should do more to prevent such interruptions in future
As the intense debate was conducted between US President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden on Tuesday, Biden has said that Trump was a national embarrassment during the first presidential debate and the moderators should do more to prevent such interruptions in the future.
The two presidential contenders were involved in the first of the three nationally televised debate battle that took place in Ohio.
'Attacked moderator'
"He not only attacked me and my family constantly but he attacked the moderator," Biden told reporters on Wednesday.
"The President of the United States, conducting the way he did, I think it was just a national embarrassment," he added.
Reports state that the first debate, held on Tuesday, saw Trump disobeying the pleas of Moderator Chris Wallace of the Fox News Network and involved in heckling and interruption during Biden's turn of answering questions.
"I just hope there's a way in which the debate commission can control the ability for us to answer the question without an interruption," Biden said.
After his experience in the first debate, Biden suggested that moderators control the microphone during the second debate, so each individual gets his time to answer without interruption from the opponent.
"My hope is that they're [moderators] able to literally say 'The question is asked to Trump. Here's the microphone. He has two minutes to answer the question. No one else has a microphone.' I don't know what the actual rules are going to be literally, but that's what seems to me to make some sense," he added.
Taking note of the situation, the Commission on Presidential Debates said on Wednesday that it will make format changes to address these issues.
The two other presidential debates are scheduled for October 15 and October 22 in Florida and Tennessee respectively. In the most recent 11 national polls published on Realclearpolitics.com (RCP), Biden is ahead by 6.4 per cent on average. Biden is slightly ahead in eight of the ten largest so-called battleground or swing states, according to RCP. However, because of the Electoral College format, statewide polls are said to be more significant.
Updated 07:27 IST, October 1st 2020