Original|Odaily Planet Daily
Author: jk
On Thursday evening, June 27, local time in the United States, the well-known American media CNN hosted the first face-to-face debate of the 2024 presidential election. In this presidential debate, US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump engaged in a fierce confrontation in the CNN studio in Atlanta. This debate, which lasted 90 minutes, marked the first head-on collision between the two heavyweight politicians in the new round of elections.
The debate process was generally regarded as a "big disappointment" by the American media. Compared with expressing political views, the debate between the two was more often caught up in groundless accusations and arguments based on false information. In terms of momentum, Biden was obviously a step slower and often failed to respond to Trump's accusations, giving people the impression that Trump was sure to win. After the end, Trump's winning rate on the crypto prediction market Polymarket has reached 65%, setting a new record; Biden's related meme coin BODEN fell sharply, with a 24-hour drop of 38.6%.
Before the debate: Tripping each other out, gossip flying everywhere
Before the debate, the venue setting of this debate has changed a lot compared to the previous one. According to CNN official news, during this 90-minute debate, the campaign team is not allowed to interact with their candidates. Considering that Biden is 81 years old this year and Trump is 78 years old, the environment without any support is obviously a huge challenge for both of them.
The two candidates agree to stand at the same podium, and their podium position will be determined by a coin toss. Microphones will remain muted throughout the debate unless it is a candidate's turn to speak. While props or pre-written notes will not be allowed on stage, candidates will be provided with a pen, a piece of paper and a bottle of water. There will be no live audience for the debate. Many of these settings are different from previous debates.
It is reported that the reason why both teams agreed to such conditions is because they have made concessions to each other: Biden's team believes that being interrupted by Trump during the 2020 debate is not a good feeling, so they require that the microphone can only be used at their respective times and muted at other times; while Trump's team believes that Biden's age causes his memory and on-the-spot reaction to be poor, and therefore pre-written speeches are not allowed.
At the same time, a few hours before the debate, some media broke the news that President Biden refused to take drug tests (mostly for the detection of stimulants and drug use) before the debate. Therefore, many users of the X platform made a big fuss about this matter, claiming that Biden might use drugs such as stimulants.
In the debate: accusations, Trump lies, Biden is confused
CBS News described the debate as "defined by lengthy answers from the incumbent president and lies and misstatements from the former president."
The candidates reportedly answered questions about the economy, abortion, the Middle East, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump's recent criminal convictions, and more. Biden made several mistakes in answering questions early in the debate, and his voice sounded like he had lost his voice, possibly because he had been suffering from a cold. Although his performance has improved since then, he often loses his train of thought, has difficulty clearly expressing his positions on various issues, has unclear words, and has no strong response to Trump's aggressiveness. This shocked many of his Democratic colleagues. One House Democratic member claimed, "I have never seen such a panic situation."
A picture that has been widely circulated on the X platform. Source: X
In contrast, Trump appeared energetic and accused Biden of problems in his term on many topics, but he repeatedly lied on multiple topics, including abortion, his recent criminal conviction and Biden's immigration record. Afterwards, many media outlets released fact checks on this debate and found that Trump made at least 12 "false statements, false statements or exaggerations." Biden also made two or three similar questions on the other side.
It is worth mentioning that cryptocurrency-related issues were not mentioned in this debate.
As for macroeconomics, although the two mentioned it in the debate, their words were very simple, without any new or in-depth information, and they only accused and slandered each other. Odaily has captured some of Trump's original text in the debate for readers to appreciate:
(The host asked the two candidates about their views on inflation)
Donald Trump:
We have the greatest economy ever. Our country has never been more prosperous. It's surprising everyone. Other countries are copying us.
We had COVID. We spent the money that was necessary to avoid a 1929-like depression. When that was done — we did very well. We got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military, no war, and a lot of other things. Everything went very well.
But we never got the credit we deserved for getting us out of COVID. The mandates he put in place were a disaster for our country.
On top of that, we handed back a country where the stock market is actually higher than it was before COVID. Nobody thought that was possible. The only jobs he created are illegal immigrants and jobs that naturally recovered from COVID.
He's not doing a good job. He's doing a terrible job. Inflation is destroying our country. It's absolutely destroying us.
One user on the X platform asked a soul-searching question: "After watching the presidential debate, is there still hope for the United States?"
After the debate: Biden concept memes plummeted, but did Trump’s memes also plummet?
Trump and Biden's real-time support rates, source: The New York Times
It can be seen that after the debate, the general view is that Trump won the debate, whether in terms of momentum, language fluency and other factors. A survey released by CNN afterwards also showed that more than 67% of viewers believed that Trump won the debate. Some members of the Democratic Party said bluntly, "We have a big problem."
At the same time, Polymarket data shows that as the first televised debate between Biden and Trump progresses, the probability of Trump winning the election in the prediction market has risen to 65%, a record high, with a clear lead (Biden has dropped to 28%). Therefore, this may represent a positive for Trump's victory and various related assets (especially his NFT).
In addition, various meme tokens related to Trump and Biden ($BODEN, $BIDEN, and several $TRUMP) all plummeted after the debate, with declines of more than 20% or 30%. This may be because voters are generally dissatisfied with the performance of both men. It is also possible that some big players sold their coins during the debate.