Trump and Biden trade insults as first US Presidential debate kicks off - 'Keep yapping, man'

The first US President debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden immediately turned feisty as the pair spent the majority of the first part interrupting, trading jabs and accusing each other of lying. 

Fox News' Chris Wallace was moderating the debate, first asking about the Supreme Court, health care and the Covid-19 response. 

Covid-19

Democratic candidate Joe Biden spoke about the US' Covid-19 death count, as it surpasses 200,000. 

"Two hundred thousand dead. Forty thousand people a day contracting Covid. The President has no plan. He hasn’t laid out anything.

"He knew in February how bad this crisis was," Biden said, in reference to journalist Bob Woodward's new book that reported Trump wanted to "play down" the seriousness of Covid-19 because he did not want to cause a panic.

"He waited and waited and waited and he still doesn’t have a plan," Biden said. "We should be providing all the protective gear possible."

He said Trump should "get off the golf course" and fund what needs to be funded to save lives.

Trump immediately hit back - "If we would have listened to you millions of people would have died."

"It’s China’s fault, it should have never happened."

Trump said he faced criticism for his decision to close borders. 

"You wouldn’t have closed it for another two months," he told Biden. 

"We got the gowns, we got the masks, we got the ventilators, we're weeks away from a vaccine. You could have never done the job we did."

Supreme Court

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week sparked debate about her replacement, the timing so close to the November 3 US election. 

Trump said they had a “phenomenal” candidate, Amy Coney Barrett. 

"She’s going to be fantastic. We have plenty of time. I have a lot of time after the election."

"We won the election and therefore have the right to choose her."

He said Democrats would have done it faster.

Biden replied saying "the American people have a right to have a say in who is Supreme Court".

"The election has already started, tens of thousands have already voted. We should wait. That’s the only way the American people get to express their view is who they elect as president and who they elect as vice president."

He said it was "just not appropriate to do this before the election".

Health care 

Moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump about his pledge to overturn Obamacare, saying so far he had not produced a comprehensive plan to do this. 

"I’m cutting drug prices," Trump said. "Drug prices will be coming down 80 or 90 per cent."

"I wan’t to give them much better health care at a much lower price."

Biden said Trump had cost 10 million people their health care and wanted to take away Obamacare. 

"He has no plan for health care. He sends out wishful thinking. He has none, like almost everything else he talks about.

"This man doesn’t know what he's talking about," Biden said. 

Trump compared Biden to Bernie Sanders, with Biden saying, "I beat Bernie Sanders". 

"Not by much", Trump said. 

Biden then accused Trump of being a lying - "Anyone knows he’s a liar"

"Joe you’re the liar," Trump said. 

Biden told Trump to "shut up", adding, "keep yapping, man". 

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