Social media reacted mostly with disdain during Tuesday night’s messy, chaotic debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic White House nominee Joe Biden.
Hours before Biden and Trump took the debate stage in Cleveland, Ohio, social media exploded with reports Biden was going to use earphones during the debate. Trump himself asked for an additional ground rule ahead of the debate, according to Fox News, requesting a third-party inspect the ears of each debater for electronic devices or transmitters.
The story was first posted to social media before noon Tuesday.
Biden himself had a little bit of fun with all the commotion, about 90 minutes before he was scheduled to take the stage.
The lack of diversity between the two candidates also got the attention of Twitter-verse.
The debate offered a massive platform for Trump and Biden to outline their different visions for a country facing multiple crises, including racial justice protests and a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and cost millions of jobs.
Biden stepped onto the Cleveland stage holding leads in the polls — significant in the national surveys, closer in the battleground states — but facing questions about his turn in the spotlight.
Fitting for an edge in their bitter campaign, the two men frequently interrupted each other with angry interjections, with Biden eventually snapping at Trump “Will you shut up, man?”
That was after the president badgered him over his refusal to comment on whether he would try to expand the Supreme Court in retaliation if Trump’s high court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“The fact is that everything he’s said so far is simply a lie,” Biden said. “I’m not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he’s a liar.”
Trump defined his ideas for replacing the Affordable Care Act on health care in the debate’s early moments and defended his nomination of Barrett, declaring that “I was not elected for three years, I’m elected for four years.”
“We won the election. Elections have consequences. We have the Senate. We have the White House and we have a phenomenal nominee, respected by all.”
Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News was roasted unmercifully for losing control of the debate and allowing Trump and Biden to talk over each other.
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