Why Barron Trump Criticized Donald's Behavior During 2020 Debate Against Joe Biden: "You Were Too..."

The drama that characterized the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2020 has still remained afresh in the minds of people, particularly as history was almost set to repeat itself in November (before Biden dropped out of the race). What is perhaps lesser known to the public is that Barron Trump, the youngest son of the former president, shared a critical opinion on his father's behavior during the first presidential debate of 2020. Barron, who was just 14 years old at the time, reportedly said, "Dad, you were too tough. You didn't have to keep interrupting him (Biden)." 

The 2016 debate between Donald and Hillary Clinton too featured a good deal of drama as spectators were shocked by Chris Wallace's incapacity to prevent Donald from speaking out of turn. Opening up on his repeated interruption of Biden, Donald revealed the overall mindset of people who disapproved of his demeanor at the debate. He said, "People thought I was too belligerent."

Interestingly, it wasn't just Donald's behavior that people found surprising. Biden's behavior during the debate also changed when Donald kept interrupting him. Biden chose to speak in a way that the public had never seen him do in a formal gathering, reacting with phrases like "Will you shut up man?" and "Come on, man," which many argued was unbecoming of a presidential candidate in a formal debate.

Given the theatrics, a mute button was later created by The Group on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan organization tasked with upholding the integrity and value of debates, to avoid a repeat of the chaos that marked the first Trump/Biden debate. As reported by BBC, the button allowed for the opposition candidate's microphone audio to be turned off by the debate producer (not the moderator) to maintain fairness and offer each contender an uninterrupted opportunity to respond to all questions posed to them.

During the final debate between Donald and Biden, the audio for the other candidate's microphone was turned off as promised until the question was answered or the designated amount of time to respond to the question had passed. Unhappy with this, Donald accused Wallace of defending Joe, asserting that the moderator purposefully cut off his attempt to question him about Hunter Biden. Specifically, Trump planned to ask about an alleged 2014 incident when the millionaire widow of a Moscow mayor removed for corruption wired the drug-addicted first son $3.5 million, though some context to the story was 'missing,' as per USA Today.

Nonetheless, Donald claimed that the Fox anchor 'protected' Biden and inadvertently ended up casting himself in a morally dubious light as a moderator. Afterward, Hunter's lawyer, George Mesires, also told CNN, "Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false." 

This article was originally published on 03.23.24.