The first presidential debate between candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump is over, and unsurprisingly, the event was as chaotic as the rest of 2020.
Over the 90 minutes, debate moderator, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, selected six topics for the night, which included the Supreme Court (following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and subsequent nomination of Amy Coney Barrett), the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy and the ongoing issue of racial injustice and violence across the United States.
In normal circumstances, the topics would be divided into six 15-minute segments, of which the two candidates have two minutes each to respond. Of course, Trump and Biden continued to talk over one another (mainly Trump), with Biden exclaiming at one point, “Will you just shut up, man?” While Wallace attempted to bring some order, the back-and-forth has since been branded the most “unpresidential debate” in history.
But while very few issues that the U.S. needs to address—from the pandemic’s staggering death toll to the potential abolishment of Roe v. Wade—were touched on, Twitter went along for the ride, providing the hilarious and all-too-real commentary as the face-off unfolded. From comparing it to a “TikTok duet from hell” to mocking that women were ever told they were “too emotional” to be president, here’s how the world reacted to the debate.
