President Biden and former president Donald Trump have agreed to two debates, in June and September, ahead of this fall’s presidential election. The scheduled broadcasts, of course, will not mark the first time the two have faced off on live TV.
During the most heated exchanges, Trump sought to cast Biden as a scandal-plagued politician who failed to deliver substantive change over decades in office, while Biden tried to paint Trump as an agitator whose administration abused immigrants and mishandled the pandemic. They rarely discussed their substantive policy differences, instead frequently talking past each other.
Here are some of the standout moments from the 2020 Biden-Trump debates.
‘Will you shut up, man?’
At times during the first debate, Biden, who had been advised to maintain his cool, appeared exasperated at Trump’s frequent heckling.
As Trump pressed him on whether he would pack the Supreme Court, Biden declined to answer. Trump had recently nominated Amy Coney Barrett, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The nomination came just over a month before Election Day, drawing criticism from Democrats.
“Why wouldn’t you answer that question?” Trump said while Biden tried to say he didn’t want to respond because he didn’t want to elevate the issue of court-packing.
“The question is — ” Biden started to say. When Trump cut in again, he snapped back: “Will you shut up, man?”
It was one of many jabs Biden took against Trump that night, including calling him “this clown — excuse me, this person” and “the worst president America’s ever had.”
‘Proud Boys: Stand back and stand by’
During the first debate, both Biden and moderator Chris Wallace, then of Fox News, asked Trump whether he’d disavow or condemn white supremacists, among whom he had prominent supporters.
Trump asked who specifically he should condemn. Biden suggested the Proud Boys, producing one of the most striking moments of the debates.
“Proud Boys: Stand back and stand by,” Trump said, declining to categorically condemn the far-right group with a history of violence. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what: Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem,” he said of the amorphous far-left group.
The Proud Boys took that as a call to be ready, and adopted the non-condemnation as an informal slogan.
Sowing election doubt
Throughout the 2020 campaign, Trump had cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting, baselessly claiming that it would lead to wide-scale cheating.
“This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” Trump said, repeating his baseless claim that the election was rigged.
He said he would accept the outcome only if he believed the election had been fair and urged his supporters to watch the polls “very carefully.”
Weeks after Biden won the election, on Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the results.
Years later, 6 in 10 Republicans still considered the 2020 election illegitimate, according to a 2023 poll. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud.
Trump’s handling of covid
The coronavirus pandemic was raging during the two presidential debates in 2020, with Biden arriving in a mask. Trump’s handling of the crisis was a major point of contention.
Trump argued for keeping businesses and schools open to keep society running. He made fun of Biden for wearing “the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” He noted that he only masked when he thought it was warranted.
Biden argued that lax approach led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. He said Trump was “irresponsible” in the way he handled social distancing and noted that Trump once floated injecting disinfectant into people to combat the virus.
In one contentious exchange, Trump said people were “learning to live” with the disease.
“People are learning to live with it?” Biden asked. “People are learning to die with it.”
Family separation
At the time of the second debate in October 2020, advocates could not locate the parents of about 545 migrant children who had been separated from their families at the southern border with Mexico.
Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC asked Trump how the families would be reunited, prompting one of the most heated exchanges of the second debate.
He responded by asserting that the separated children had been “so well taken care of” and his administration was “trying very hard” to reunite the families. He then claimed the children were brought to the U.S. by “cartels,” “coyotes” and “gangs,” rather than their families.
Trump repeatedly asked Biden, “Who built the cages?” implying it was the Obama administration that built chain-link fencing as partitions in which to hold detained migrants and that Biden deserved some blame.
Biden, furious, said the family separations had made the U.S. the laughingstock of the world.
“It violates every notion of who we are as a nation,” Biden said.
Foreign finances
The two men also traded spars over each other’s finances and allegations of links to foreign governments and businesses.
Trump made a series of claims about Biden’s finances, including that he made money from China, Ukraine and Russia, which Biden denied.
“I don’t make money from China — you do,” Trump said. “I don’t make money from Ukraine — you do.”
Biden countered that he had not taken money from a “foreign source,” before turning it back on Trump.
“Russia’s paying you a lot,” Biden claimed, pointing his finger at Trump. “China’s paying you a lot. And your hotels and all your businesses all around the country, all around the world.”
Trump smirked and shook his head, denying Biden’s counterpunch.
