US President Joe Biden has drawn a positive conclusion after the first televised debate with his rival Donald Trump before the presidential election in November. “I think we did well,” he told reporters on Friday when he visited a waffle restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, after the debate on Thursday evening (local time). In the televised debate on CNN, Biden and former President Trump had attacked each other fiercely.
In a CNN poll, however, 67 percent of viewers saw Trump as the winner of the duel. There were also frustrated reactions to the president’s performance from Biden’s Democrats. Biden’s former communications director Kate Bedingfield spoke of a “really disappointing” performance by the 81-year-old.
Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged in interviews that Biden had a “slow start” to the duel, but then had a “strong finish.”
The TV debate took place more than four months before the presidential election and thus at an unusually early stage. Former President Trump is not expected to be nominated as presidential candidate again by his Republicans at a party convention until mid-July, while Biden is expected to be nominated by the Democrats for a second term in August. The polls suggest that – as in 2020 – there could be a very close race between the two.
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