Reagan’s age, Mitt’s binders: Presidential debate highlights

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, are set to meet on Tuesday for their first debate, a highly anticipated event in a highly unusual election year. Trump was impeached for trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son and has repeatedly tried to cast doubt on Biden’s mental acuity, going so far as to say the former vice president “doesn’t know he’s alive.” For his part, Biden has said of Trump, “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” Against that backdrop, the two are set to face off for the first time as presidential nominees in Cleveland in a debate moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel. Years later, Ford acknowledged, “There’s no question I did not adequately explain what I was thinking.” TURNING AGE INTO A PLUS Republican Ronald Reagan, then seeking to become the oldest president to win reelection, used humor to address questions about his advanced age at a 1984 debate against Democrat Walter Mondale. The Cheneys blasted Kerry for bringing up their daughter, and the vice president described himself as an “angry father.” ‘BINDERS FULL OF WOMEN’ During a 2012 presidential debate between Republican Mitt Romney and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, Romney was asked about pay equity in the workplace for women. Trump retorted: “Because you’d be in jail.” In the third debate, Trump waded into uncharted territory for America’s democracy by refusing to say if he’d accept the results of the election if Clinton won.