New Delhi:

US President Joe Biden and his Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump, clashed in their first debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle. With no live audience present, the two candidates did not greet each other with a customary handshake and stood just feet apart at their respective podiums, setting the stage for a night of pointed exchanges.

President Biden wasted no time in criticising Trump’s economic legacy during the latter’s tenure in the Oval Office. “Donald Trump left me an economy that was in free fall,” Biden stated. He then slammed Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. “He said things were fine during the pandemic- just inject a little bleach in your arm. I turned our country around,” Biden claimed. 

In another sharp rebuke, Biden highlighted job losses under Trump’s administration, stating, “Donald Trump is the only president besides Herbert Hoover who left office with fewer jobs than when he began. Donald Trump had the largest national debt of any US president over a four-year period.”

The debate took a heated turn when the topic shifted to foreign policy, specifically the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Trump seized the opportunity to criticise Biden’s execution of the withdrawal, calling it “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life.” 

“I was getting out of Afghanistan, but we were getting out with dignity, with strength, with power” he added. 

Biden responded by saying, “When he was president they were still killing people in Afghanistan. He didn’t do anything about that.”