I wasn’t planning on this, writing something about the first US Presidential election debate between the current US President, Joe Biden, and the previous US President, Donald Trump, but I thought why not. I mean it’s topical and something that I can do, off the cuff. Plus, as I believe I have mentioned before, I covered the 2008 US Presidential election debates in my MA thesis, so it’s always a treat for me to watch the debates.
To give you a bit of context, the debate was hosted by CNN. You can, however, find it on various media outlets. Feel free to pick the one you want, or find first. The content should be the same, unless they’ve tampered with the footage.
I’ll be assessing the debate through what’s known as the Cooperate Principle, aka CP, and the related four categories, aka maxims, quantity, quality, relation and manner, as defined by H. P. Grice in ‘Logic and Conversation’. That’s what I also did my MA thesis, albeit this time I’ll a bit loosey-goosey.
I’ll first summarize the Cooperative Principle and the categories. So, the idea is that you are expected to play ball. It’s that simple. Quantity is about being apt, not saying too much, but also not too little. Quality is not about truth, as such, but rather about saying what you believe to be true, while avoiding saying something that you are unsure of or lack evidence to back it up. Relation is all about staying on topic. Manner is about being precise, making sure that others understand you, instead of misunderstanding you, and thus the emphasis is on avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.
To be clear, the categories are difficult to assess. There is no clear cut definition as what counts as cooperative or uncooperative when you assess what someone says, writes or, more broadly speaking, expresses. So, instead of seeking some universals, you look at particular cases, by which I mean that the assessment of a text is always context bound. Another way of expressing that is that it’s all space and time specific.
If you ask me, it’s fairly easy to assess quantity, manner and relation, as they are all tied to the question. Quality is tricky as it can be hard to assess whether someone is saying something that they believe to be true or false. Okay, you can do that, on the basis of what’s known in general, but that means that you need a lot of background knowledge. Luckily the media do this routinely in the form of fact checking. I’ll be relying on the fact checking done by The Associated Press, aka AP, as well as PolitiFact, as I simply don’t know enough about what’s going on across the pond.
I actually wasn’t aware there would be a debate, like this early, but, as it made headlines, I ended up watching. The gist of the news was that Biden was so bad that I had to check it out myself. I watched a bit and I was like, oh, wow, this is indeed bad, really bad. That was enough for me, there and then, but I came back to it the following day. Oh, and you know what, feeling fresh, it wasn’t that bad. Okay, it still wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.
To make this easier for me, I’ll be limit myself to assessing only Biden. Why? Well, because the media kept telling me that it was bad, so bad, that I had to see it for myself. That’s why.
To my surprise, watching it again, Biden actually started out strong. He answered the question. The only thing that wasn’t right, according to the AP writers, was the price of insulin per shot. He basically ended up comparing the price of a shot of insulin with what be the price of insulin in a year. He also stated that his administration created 15 000 jobs, which is a remarkably low number. As noted by the AP writers in the related video clip on the same page, he indeed struggled with the numbers there as that should have been over 15 million jobs.
Trump countered Biden by stating that when he was in charge, it was, basically, the best time ever. According to the AP writers, that’s simply not true as, firstly, the US economy took a gigantic hit during the COVID-19 pandemic and, secondly, things were better when Bill Clinton was the US President. Biden pointed this out, immediately, noting that it’s only Trump that thinks that this was the case during the Trump presidency.
Biden then boasted how his record is squaky clean when it comes to US military deaths during his administration, which isn’t the case, as noted by the AP writers. Trump countered this, not by pointing out the number of military personnel deaths, but by calling the US withdrawal from Afghanistan “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life”, not once, there and then, but also a second time later on in slightly different words. I don’t know you, but that’s pretty hyperbolic and I’m going to explain why that’s not even close to being cooperative in terms of quality.
Wouldn’t the start of the US Civil War on April 12, 1861 be the most embarrassing day in the history of the country? I mean, while Afghanistan was a failure, like a gigantic failure, there’s that, I don’t think a lot of people would say otherwise, it’s nothing compared to starting a war to block the abolishment of slavery. Then there’s also the treatment of various indigeneous peoples, culminating in the passage of the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. That has got to be worse, way, way worse than withdrawing from Afghanistan. Also, I’m pretty sure that the Vietnam war was, for the US, way worse, in way so many ways, than the war in Afghanistan. Okay, maybe Trump believes that to be the case, but what does that tell you about his knowledge and understanding of the history of his country?
As a side note, Trump did, finally, call out Biden on that record. Later on, after repeating the same claims, he cited the same number of deaths of military personnel as indicated by the AP writers. So, in that case, Biden certainly wanted to look better than the situation was at the time.
Biden then had that moment where he mixed up trillions, billons and millions, followed by going for so long that he seems to have forgot what the question was and/or to what extent he had already answered the question provided to them by the moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. He got so lost, like on some tangent, that even Trump turned to look at him, like what is going on here, this is not supposed to happen. I’d also say that he got back to business after that. So, in summary, it was bad, but it only look really bad if you watched it out of context.
They then moved on to the issue of abortion. Again, Biden did well. Okay, he had this minor tangent that had more to do with immigration than abortion, but he was otherwise very cooperative with his audience. No wavering, whatsoever.
Then it was the immigration issue. Again, job well done, overall. There’s that cage remark, which is somewhat off, considering that’s partially attributable to Barack Obama’s time as the US President. Then there’s his claim that the people working for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection support him. Well, as reported by PolitiFact, that’s not the case. Otherwise, he was cooperative. Biden then counters Trump by pointing out that much what Trump said about the topic is not supported by evidence, as also noted by the AP writers doing the fact checking. That said, he did go off topic, somewhat, to talk the military and the veterans. Then again, that’s only because Trump went off topic first, to boast his commitment to the country, in reference to its veterans. Like I pointed out, this is a difficult thing to assess. In a way, Biden does go off topic, which makes him uncooperative when it comes to relevance, but, in another way, he is cooperative as that’s where Trump took the discussion before the moderators cut him off.
At this point, yeah, what can I say, almost half an hour in and things really started to deteriorate. It’s not that Biden became uncooperative, no, not really, but rather that the whole debate goes off the rails. Trump said some ludicrous stuff and Biden just wasn’t having it.
What’s actually surprising, at this point, is how well the moderators, Bash and Tapper, were able to keep things from falling apart, even though, at least to me, it seemed like Trumped kept doing his best to talk about whatever he wanted to, instead of answering the questions provided to the candidates by the moderators.
The next topic had to do with foreign policy and, more specifically, the situation in Ukraine. Trump immediately derailed the discussion, so that both candidates ended talking about Afghanistan and Iran, instead about Ukraine. Biden shifted the debate back to Ukraine and then, after both turns, the moderators reminded Trump about answering the question.
Trump finally answered the question, fair enough, only to say that Biden is wasting hundreds of billions of US taxpayer money supporting Ukraine. This is not mentioned by the AP writers, but it’s worth noting here that while this is correct, it’s only sort of correct. What I mean by that is that the US is not giving Ukraine money like that. Instead, as Biden went on to point out, that’s the estimated value of the material support that US is providing Ukraine by giving it all kinds of military equipment.
What’s the difference then? Well, if we only look at the value, there isn’t a major difference. Trump has a point there. But, if you happen to know that military equipment does have a shelf life, that it can only be stored for so long, he is simply trying to make Biden look bad. This is especially the case with ammunition. While you do need to stockpile it, yes, you do need to use the ammunition even during peace time. Why? Well, not unlike food, the ammunition does eventually go bad. The idea is to fire those rounds before they go bad and then have them replaced. You are mistaken if you think that it’s enough to produce some ammunition and then storage it.
While I don’t know the specifics, so don’t quote me on this, something tells me that the US military industrial complex is thrilled with all this. The US is sending a ton of equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, yes, but, at the same time, the industry is making a ton of money. The military is also happy because they don’t have to use that equipment. Instead, they get something new instead.
In contrast, Biden is absolutely, crystal clear about what the deal is, which is to say no deal when it comes to dealing with Russia. There’s just no turning back, otherwise the same thing will happen again, and again, and again, while you watch like, damn, didn’t see that coming. Biden also points out what I just pointed out. It’s not monetary aid. It’s aid in military equipment.
Biden got the first say on the next topic, which had to do with Israel and Palestine. Biden did his thing, no complaints from the AP writers, only to witness Trump move the discussion back to Ukraine, because, I don’t know, why not, only to then move on to the actual topic, without any introduction to it and calling Biden weak, “like a Palestinian” and “a very bad Palestinian”. To be fair, Biden went off topic as well at this point, talking about the NATO and the Ukraine situation again. That said, Trump had already taken the debate off topic, so can you blame him?
Trump is, once more, expected to answer another question, but instead of answering it, he opts to talk about the EU, EU-US trade agreements and NATO funding, because, whatever, I guess. Okay, Biden mentioned it, but, dude, that’s not the question. How is any of this relevant to the question you were asked by the moderators? This is not to say that what he is saying isn’t important, nor that he isn’t right about the importance of NATO members states using the budgets as agreed. It’s rather that this wasn’t the question, so why are you saying this?
I think it’s better that I address the rest of the debate in another essay. At this point of the debate, moving on to the attack on the US Capitol, things are getting so, so spicy that I think that it only makes sense. This needs a recalibration. In other words, if you thought the first half of the debate was difficult to follow, yeah, let’s just say that it’s not getting any better.
So, in summary of the first half, Biden started out strong. Only minor problems. Okay, he had that turn where he must have come across as simply incoherent. There’s no sugar coating that. Plus, he wasn’t wholly cooperative, there’s also that. However, he was largely cooperative. In my view, he only went off topic when Trump had already gone off topic. He answered the questions and made his objection to Trumps views very clear. So, in that regard, he did a good job, despite the initial moment of incoherence.
References
- CNN (2024). CNN Presidential Debate: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v-8wJkmwBY
- CNN (2024). CNN Presidential Debate: READ: Biden-Trump debate transcript. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/read-biden-trump-debate-rush-transcript/index.html
- Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York, NY: Academic Press.
- Grice, H. P. ([1975] 1989). Logic and Conversation. In H. P. Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (pp. 22–40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- PolitiFact (2024). 2024 presidential debate fact-check: How accurate were Joe Biden, Donald Trump? https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/28/2024-presidential-debate-fact-check-biden-trump/
- The Associated Press (2024). Here’s a look at some of the false claims made during Biden and Trump’s first debate. https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-election-debate-trump-biden-577507522762aa10f6ee5be3a0ced2bb