On Tuesday September 29 at the Samson Pavilion of Health,  the first of three presidential debates occurred between democratic candidate Joe Biden and republican candidate Donald Trump. According to many major news outlets this was one of the worst presidential debates seen in years. 

There were many topics covered in this debate one being how the United States handled the Covid 19 pandemic. Biden and Trump had differing opinions on whose fault it was that the virus had over 200,000 deaths in America.

“It’s China’s fault, it should have never happened,”   Trump said “How many people died in Russia. How many people died in India. They don’t exactly give you a straight count, just so you understand.”

Biden did not feel the same way about the high number of deaths in America and feels as though President Trump was at fault. 

“The president has no plan,” ”  Vice President Biden said. ”Look, 200,000 dead. You said over 7 million infected in the United States. We in fact have 5% or 4% of the world’s population, 20% of the deaths. 40,000 people a day are contracting COVID.”

After the recent passing of supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, many people were wondering if they were going to wait until after the election to replace her. “We won the election, elections have consequences.” says President Trump “So we won the election and we have the right to do it.”

Biden also has differing opinions when it comes to how the Supreme Court replacement should be handled. 

“The American people have a right to have a say to who the Supreme Court nominee is, and that say occurs when they vote for United States senators and when they vote for the President of the United States,” Biden said. “They’re not going to get that chance now because we’re in the middle of an election already — the election has already started. Tens of thousands of people have already voted.” Ever since the tragic death of Goerge Floyd and many other black americans, the issue of police brutality against POC has made its way into American politics. Both President Trump and President Biden have different opinions on police reform and systemic racism in America. 

“Yes, there is a systemic injustice in this country in education, in law enforcement and the way in which it’s enforced,” Biden said. “But look, the vast majority of police officers are good, decent honor men and women that risk their lives every day to take care of us. But there are some bad apples and when they occur, when they find them, they have to be sorted out. They have to be held accountable. They have to be held accountable.” When asked if he would want to mandate police racial sensitivity training, something that would help the statistics regarding police brutality as they prepare officers for the neighborhoods they serve by strengthening communication skills and neighborhood connections, Trump defended his stance. 

 “We would pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach very bad ideas and frankly very sick ideas, Trump said. “And really, they were teaching people to hate our country. And I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to allow that to happen. We have to go back to the core values of this country. They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, it’s a racist place, and they were teaching people to hate our country. And I’m not gonna allow that to happen.” 

Biden replied, with no surprise, disagreeing with the president.

“The fact is that there is racial insensitivity,” Biden said. “People have to be made aware of what other people feel like, what insults them, what is demeaning to them. It’s important that people know they don’t want to, many people don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings.” 

After the long debate both nominees were shown to have very different policies and opinions. Though not clear with the way the debate went, with nominees going back and forth with disrupting each other and arguing,  the only way to see who the American people agree with is to see who wins the 2020 election.