特朗普在首场辩论中夸大其词，拜登总统举步维艰
【中美创新时报2024 年 6 月 28 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）拜登总统登上亚特兰大辩论舞台，肩负一项任务：坚定对抗他讨厌的对手唐纳德·特朗普，并证明所有认为他年纪太大不适合担任总统的人是错误的。《波士顿环球报》记者萨姆·布罗迪（Sam Brodey）对此作了下述报道。
九十分钟后，拜登离开了舞台，引发了人们对他是否适合参选的质疑，比 2024 年竞选中的任何其他时刻都要多。
这不仅仅是因为拜登声音嘶哑。或者他经常思路混乱。或者他犯了事实错误和荒唐的失实陈述。最引人注目的是，拜登经常放过特朗普自己的论点，这些论点经常包括事实不准确的陈述，他对特朗普的问题框架几乎没有反驳，也很少抓住机会让对手处于守势。
问题很早就出现了。在关于堕胎的环节中——民主党认为这是他们今年最强大的资产——拜登从未有效反驳特朗普关于堕胎限制的反复断言。令人震惊的是，拜登在回答有关堕胎的问题时主动提到了移民问题——这对民主党来说是一个棘手的问题，他提到了一名年轻女子，据称她在二月份被一名无证移民在佐治亚州杀害。
正如预期的那样，特朗普提出了夸夸其谈、毫无根据的指控，并对拜登进行了全面、恶毒的指控。但几乎没有反击。
在辩论的最初时刻，在对新冠疫情漫无边际的回答结束时，拜登令人费解地宣称：“我们终于打败了医疗保险。”
特朗普的回应几乎没有意义。但相比之下，这听起来就像是一记重重的扣篮。“他确实击败了医疗保险，”特朗普说。“他把它打得落花流水。”
拜登的注意力和热情闪现，特别是在讨论 1 月 6 日和特朗普是否适合担任公职时。作为回应，特朗普发表了迄今为止最具威胁性的言论，谈到他当选后可能会做什么，有一次他说，“乔应该被定罪，因为他做了这么多事。”
“你的道德就像流浪猫一样，”拜登说，指的是他与色情明星斯托米·丹尼尔斯的性关系指控。
在其他地方，CNN 的达娜·巴什三次问特朗普是否会接受 2024 年大选的结果，他才给出任何类似答案。“如果这是一场公平、合法和好的选举，绝对会接受，”特朗普最后说。他淡化了自己在 1 月 6 日国会大厦骚乱中扮演的角色——甚至将骚乱归咎于前议长南希·佩洛西——同时宣称，当天被指控犯罪的许多人都是“无辜的”。
拜登回应说，他怀疑特朗普——他称他为“爱发牢骚的人”——是否真的会这样做。“上次你输的时候，你内心有些崩溃，”总统说。
共和党人准备在漫长的夏天里反复发动无数次攻击，直到 9 月下一次预定的辩论。
辩论还没有结束，一群中左翼人士就要求拜登辞去民主党候选人的职务。辩论结束后，前奥巴马顾问戴维·阿克塞尔罗德在 CNN 上表示，民主党圈子里可能会讨论拜登是否应该继续担任提名人，但他补充说，这些讨论可能毫无意义。
即使是前拜登工作人员也毫不留情地评价总统。 “乔·拜登的辩论表现真的令人失望，”他的前通讯主管凯特·贝丁菲尔德 (Kate Bedingfield) 在 CNN 上表示。“我认为没有其他方法可以解释。他最大的问题是向美国人民证明他有精力和耐力——但他没有做到。”
拜登的盟友似乎至少尝试过一些方法来歪曲他的病情。NBC 新闻的凯利·奥唐纳在辩论期间引用了两位未透露姓名的消息人士的话，发推文称，“拜登总统感冒了。”
竞选活动的官方代理人随后面临着一项艰巨的任务。拜登全国竞选联合主席米奇·兰德里厄在 NBC 新闻上为拜登的表现和认知辩护，但不得不承认一个显而易见的事实。兰德里厄说，总统“有点迟钝”。
后来，副总统卡马拉·哈里斯在 CNN 上也发表了类似言论，称拜登“开局缓慢”，但坚称选举将取决于“实质”而不是“风格”。在主持人安德森·库珀对拜登表现的追问下，她一再转向对特朗普的批评和宣传他们在任期间的记录。
拜登的挣扎是如此明显，以至于它们常常掩盖了竞选活动的一个决定性特征：每个候选人对对方的鄙视程度有多深。
拜登多次称特朗普为骗子，嘲笑他的高尔夫球技，并暗示他撒谎了体重。
特朗普还多次嘲笑拜登的认知能力和他的高尔夫球技。
“我真的不知道他在最后说了什么，”特朗普一度说道，“而且我认为他也不知道自己说了什么。”
辩论的条件最初被认为对拜登有利。
没有现场观众，这在过去是衡量候选人表现的实时指标，但被视为本次辩论的潜在干扰因素。至关重要的是，两位候选人的麦克风在对方讲话时都处于静音状态，希望能够阻止特朗普倾向于在舞台上带来的破坏性挑衅和串扰。
在 2020 年大选期间，拜登和特朗普在台上见过两次面，第一次是在 9 月，第二次是在 10 月下旬。 （原定于 10 月初举行的第二场辩论因特朗普确诊感染新冠肺炎而取消。）
第一场辩论由福克斯新闻的克里斯·华莱士主持，在多个层面上都陷入了混乱。特朗普无视华莱士的恳求，多次打断和打断拜登的发言，侮辱他的儿子亨特，并提出自己的问题。
“你能闭嘴吗，老兄？”拜登一度恼怒地问道。
那场辩论也创造了那次选举中最令人难忘的时刻之一：当被要求谴责白人至上主义者时，特朗普告诉骄傲男孩极端组织“退后并待命”。这句话很快成为骄傲男孩的口号，几个月后，他们在 1 月 6 日国会大厦骚乱中发挥了核心作用。与此相关的是，在第一次辩论中，特朗普多次声称 2020 年大选将出现大规模舞弊。
他们的第二场辩论由 NBC 的克里斯汀·韦尔克主持，气氛要低调得多，部分原因是候选人在某些时候不能插话。
今年的第一场辩论和第二场辩论之间间隔 75 天，选民们将获得一段异常漫长的——或许是异常受欢迎的——暂别政治舞台的机会。拜登和特朗普定于 9 月 10 日在一个尚未公开的地点再次会面。ABC 新闻的大卫·穆尔和林赛·戴维斯将主持辩论。未能获得第一场辩论资格的独立候选人罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) 有可能在达到某些资格门槛的情况下参加第二场辩论。
题图：周四晚上，乔·拜登总统和前总统唐纳德·特朗普在亚特兰大登台，举行 2024 年选举周期的首场辩论。（Olivia Yarvis/Globe Staff）
附原英文报道：
President Biden struggles as Trump stretches truth in first debate
By Sam Brodey Globe Staff,Updated June 27, 2024
President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump took the stage in Atlanta Thursday night for their first debate of the 2024 election cycle. (Olivia Yarvis/Globe Staff)
President Biden came onto the debate stage in Atlanta with one job: stand firm against his hated rival, Donald Trump, and prove wrong all those who have argued he’s too old to be president.
Ninety excruciating minutes later, Biden left the stage having sparked more doubts about his candidacy than at any other point in the 2024 campaign.
It wasn’t just that Biden sounded hoarse. Or that he frequently lost his train of thought. Or that he made factual errors and outlandish misstatements. What was most striking was how often Biden let slide Trump’s own arguments, which frequently included factually inaccurate statements, how little he pushed back against Trump’s framing of issues, and how few opportunities he took to put his opponent on the defensive.
The problems started early. During a segment on abortion — an issue Democrats see as their strongest asset this year — Biden never effectively countered Trump’s repeated assertions about abortion limits. Astoundingly, Biden voluntarily brought up immigration — a tough issue for Democrats — in responding to a question about abortion, invoking a young woman who was allegedly killed by an undocumented migrant in Georgia in February.
As expected, Trump pushed bombastic, unfounded claims and made sweeping, vicious accusations of Biden. But there was little pushback.
In the debate’s first moments, at the end of a meandering answer on the COVID pandemic, Biden puzzlingly declared, “We finally beat Medicare.”
Trump’s response was barely sensical. But it came across like a pulverizing slam dunk by comparison. “He did beat Medicare,” Trump said. “He beat it to death.”
Biden had flashes of focus and fire, particularly when it came to discussion of Jan. 6 and Trump’s fitness for office. In response, Trump made some of his most threatening statements to date about what he might do if he were elected, saying at one point, “Joe should be a convicted felon with all the things he’s done.”
“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden said, referring to allegations regarding his sexual involvement with porn star Stormy Daniels.
Elsewhere, Trump had to be asked three times by CNN’s Dana Bash if he would accept the results of the 2024 election before he gave anything resembling an answer. “If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” Trump finally said. He downplayed his own role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol — even blaming former speaker Nancy Pelosi for what happened — while proclaiming that many of those charged with crimes for their actions that day are “innocent.”
Biden responded by doubting whether Trump, a “whiner,” as he called him, really would. “Something snapped in you when you lost last time,” the president said.
Republicans material for countless attacks to be played, and replayed, over the long summer that stretches until the next scheduled debate in September.
The debate wasn’t even over before a chorus of center-left voices were calling for Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee. On CNN after the debate, former Obama adviser David Axelrod said there would likely be discussions in Democratic circles about whether Biden should continue as the nominee, but added they might not amount to anything.
Even former Biden staffers were unsparing in their assessments of the president. “It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden,” said Kate Bedingfield, his former communications director, on CNN. “I don’t think there’s any other way to slice it. His biggest issue was to prove to the American people that he had the energy, the stamina — and he didn’t do that.”
There appeared to be at least some attempt for Biden allies to spin his condition. Citing two unnamed sources, NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell tweeted during the debate, “President Biden has a cold.”
The campaign’s official surrogates faced an unenviable task afterward. Appearing on NBC News, Biden national campaign cochair Mitch Landrieu defended Biden’s performance and cognition but had to acknowledge the obvious. The president, Landrieu said, was “a little sluggish.”
Later, on CNN, Vice President Kamala Harris adopted a similar line, saying Biden had a “slow start” but insisting the election will be decided on “substance” not “style.” Pressed by host Anderson Cooper over Biden’s performance, she repeatedly pivoted to criticisms of Trump and promotion of their record in office.
Biden’s struggles were so visible that they often overshadowed what has been one of the defining features of the campaign: how deeply each candidate disdains the other.
Biden repeatedly called Trump a liar, mocking his golf game and suggesting he has lied about his weight.
Trump repeatedly mocked Biden’s cognitive ability and his golf game, too, for good measure.
“I don’t really know what he said at the end of this,” Trump said at one point, “and I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
The terms of the debate were initially thought to be in Biden’s favor.
There was no live audience, which in the past served as a real-time barometer for candidates’ performances but was seen as a possible distraction for this debate. And crucially, both candidates’ microphones were muted while the other was talking in hopes of derailing the disruptive trolling and cross-talk Trump tends to bring to the stage.
During the 2020 election, Biden and Trump met onstage twice, first in September and then in late October. (A scheduled second debate in early October was canceled over Trump’s COVID diagnosis.)
The first debate, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, was a trainwreck on multiple levels. Disregarding Wallace’s pleas, Trump repeatedly interrupted and talked over Biden, insulting his son Hunter and asking his own questions.
“Will you shut up, man?” an exasperated Biden asked at one point.
That debate also produced one of the most memorable moments of that election: Trump telling the Proud Boys extremist group to “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn white supremacists. The phrase quickly became a rallying cry for the Proud Boys, who played a central role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol months later. Relatedly, at the first debate, Trump repeatedly claimed there would be widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Their second debate, moderated by NBC’s Kristin Welker, was far more subdued, in part because the candidates were not allowed to interject at certain points.
With 75 days between the first and second debates this year, voters will get an unusually lengthy — and perhaps unusually welcome — reprieve from the biggest stage in politics. Biden and Trump are scheduled to meet again on Sept. 10 in a still-undisclosed location. ABC News’ David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate. It’s possible that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who failed to qualify for the first debate, could join the second one if he reaches certain qualification thresholds.
