'Trump came in with nothing positive' - Professor sets out who won presidential debate
30 September 2020, 08:00
'Trump came in with nothing positive' - Presidential debate analysis
The two candidates vying to win the White House for the next four years have clashed in a bitter and personal TV debate.
Following a presidential debate where sitting US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden attacked and interrupted each other during LBC's Nick Ferrari spoke to Professor Scott Lucas an expert in US Politics and American Studies at the University of Birmingham.
Professor Lucas told LBC if the Presidential debate was treated as a "boxing match" then while there might not have been much learnt about issues, "Biden wins by disqualification."
Continuing with the boxing analogy the professor said the Democratic nominee did not win by a knockout "because Trump wasn't going to let him have a word for a knockout."
He said Joe Biden would not "win on points either," even though he attempted to raise some issues like healthcare and racial and social justice.
The professor told LBC Mr Biden also raised the issue of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden spent much of the first US Presidential debate shouting about issues including coronavirus, white supremacy and election integrity.
The Democratic nominee called his rival a 'clown' and told him to 'shut up'.
The current man in the White House brought up drug use by Mr Biden's son.
Trump and Biden clash over white supremacists and coronavirus
Setting out why he believed Mr Biden "wins by disqualification," the professor told LBC: "He made some points such as the need for decent and equality."
Adding that "Trump came in with nothing positive," adding he thought the sitting US President was "just there to derail the debate."
Pointing out that Joe Biden is "ahead in the polls" Professor Lucas explained, "he can afford a debate where the needle doesn't shift very much because we all have our heads in our hands."
However, he said President Trump "needs to bring more undecided voters into his camp" but he warned while the President was appealing to his base, "by turning this into a brawl last night that doesn't bring in voters who are looking more at coronavirus and the state of the economy."
When LBC's Nick Ferrari pointed out that "normally in these debates, the candidates look straight down the barrel of the lens and they try and connect with the voter."
Nick said the "only person who tried that and not a great deal of the time was Joe Biden."
The Professor said Nick was right, President Trump "made no attempt to appeal to bring Americans together," adding the President was "going to try and disrupt Joe Biden."
Warning this could be a miscalculation, "you can do that when you're in opposition, to tear the other candidate down, but when you're supposed to be Presidential, it's a bigger risk."
