Top 10 Most Awkward Moments in US Presidential Debates
The most recent debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is just the tip of the iceberg! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most awkward, ridiculous, or just plain confusing moments in a US presidential debate.
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00:00He's very likable. I agree with that.
00:04I don't think I'm that bad.
00:07You're likable enough.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most awkward, ridiculous, or just plain confusing moments in a U.S. presidential debate.
00:17We're including general election debates and primaries.
00:21I just won two club championships, not even senior.
00:25There is no doubt that the June 2024 debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is one for the history books, with many moments you have to see to believe.
00:39My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You're the sucker. You're the loser.
00:43One real doozy in this rollercoaster ride of a debate occurred pretty early on, when Biden was asked about the national debt.
00:50He started well enough, discussing his tax reform policies and their potential impact on health care, but seemed to lose track about halfway through.
00:58He mumbled something about COVID, paused, and put his head down before declaring that we had beat Medicare, whatever that means.
01:05Everything we have to do is, look, if we finally beat Medicare.
01:14Trump was, of course, quick with a rejoinder that was later repeated by critics after the debate who questioned Biden's ability to continue as president.
01:22I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either.
01:31During the 1984 presidential election, 73-year-old former governor of California Ronald Reagan was essentially asked,
01:39Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?
01:44Reagan's response flipped the question around, highlighting his experience and strengths and his opponent's supposed lack thereof.
01:51I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.
02:03Like the seasoned performer he was, Reagan then took a drink of water to let the moment really land with the audience.
02:09In the end, not only did Reagan win the election, he had one of the biggest landslide victories in United States history.
02:16If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.
02:22Binders Full of Women – Obama vs. Romney
02:25When asked to address the issue of gender pay equity, Governor Mitt Romney focused on his efforts to increase the number of women in his cabinet.
02:32He described receiving, quote, whole binders full of women as he searched for candidates.
02:37I went to a number of women's groups and said, can you help us find folks? And they brought us whole binders full of women.
02:43While he had been referring to resumes stored in ring binders, his phrasing made him sound less like a governor filling a cabinet and more like an overexcited teenager going through a Victoria's Secret catalog.
02:54The phrase garnered massive attention and quickly became an internet joke, with Obama referencing it on the campaign trail.
03:00I've got to tell you, we don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women ready to learn and teach in these fields right now.
03:10All this came just minutes before Romney and Obama's gripe over the latter's response to the 2012 Benghazi attack.
03:16And if you want to know more about that, just get to the transcripts.
03:20I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
03:27Get the transcript.
03:29What are these Soviets of which you speak?
03:31Harder vs. Ford
03:32An important ingredient for having a successful debate is getting your facts straight and your ducks in a row, a lesson Gerald Ford learned the hard way.
03:40During the second presidential debate in 1976, Ford was asked about Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.
03:46His response? There was none.
03:48A factual fallacy given the USSR's reach and the large number of communist governments in the region at the time.
03:54There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.
04:01Even when asked again by a rather incredulous moderator, Ford doubled down on his response, describing some of his visits to specific European countries.
04:10I don't believe, Mr. Frankel, that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.
04:18While some say he was simply reiterating US foreign policy that all nations are free nations, the fumbled response made him appear ignorant and is widely believed to have cost him the election.
04:29And the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.
04:37Will you shut up, man? Biden vs. Trump, 2020
04:41Four years before the aforementioned Medicare debate gaffe, Joe Biden was a presidential candidate trying to encourage people to vote.
04:48The fact of the matter is I beat Bernie Sanders. Not by much.
04:52It was a job made infinitely harder by Donald Trump's consistent interruptions.
04:56While Biden initially tried to ignore the buzzing, it became too much and he clapped back, eventually yelling at Trump to shut up.
05:03Just this radical left, will you shut up, man?
05:06Listen, who is on your list?
05:07The duo then started to argue over each other as the debate devolved into chaos, forcing Chris Wallace to go from moderator to kindergarten teacher in an attempt to restore order.
05:17That was really a productive segment, wasn't it? Keep yapping, man.
05:22The people understand you.
05:24This was essentially a recap of the 2016 presidential debates with Anderson Cooper having to repeatedly chastise Donald Trump for interrupting or talking over Hillary Clinton.
05:33It's just not true and so please go to...
05:36Allow her to respond, please.
05:37Personal emails, not official.
05:3933,000
05:40Number 5. It's getting hot in here. Kennedy vs. Nixon
05:44The first general presidential debate was held in 1960 between Vice President Richard Nixon and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy.
05:51It was also the first televised debate, giving voters the historic opportunity to see their candidates live and what opposing figures they cut.
06:00Kennedy was relaxed, confident, and dapper. Nixon was sweaty, unshaven, disheveled, and uncomfortable under the lights.
06:07I have had the opportunity to make recommendations which have been adopted within the administration.
06:13Nixon's mother reportedly even thought he was ill after the debate.
06:17Interestingly enough, voters who only heard the debate on the radio without seeing the candidates actually favored Nixon, demonstrating the importance of good stage presence.
06:27The president only makes the decisions. All that his advisors do is to give counsel when he asks for it.
06:33Maybe there's a parallel universe where Nixon wins that election, but in this reality, the television viewers win out and a Nixon presidency does not come until 1969.
06:44It is essential that a man who is president of this country certainly stand for every program that will mean for growth.
06:51Number 4. What time is it again? Clinton vs. Bush vs. Perot
06:56This moment is another example of why your mannerisms during a debate are so critical.
07:01When asked a question about the impact of the national debt during the second of the 1992 debates, Bush first looked at his watch before essentially asking the speaker to repeat the question.
07:10I'm not sure I get it. Help me with the question and I'll try to answer it.
07:13He then bumbled through an answer that somehow shoehorned in cancer and teenage pregnancy without really responding to the heart of the matter.
07:20I don't think it's fair to say you haven't had cancer, therefore you don't know what it's like.
07:25This was in sharp contrast to Bill Clinton, known for his public speaking skills, who gave a clear, concise, and heartfelt answer.
07:33While Bush later explained that he would get rather uncomfortable during debates, the damage was done and his campaign was significantly weakened.
07:41Number 3. Getting personal. Bush vs. Dukakis
07:45Michael Dukakis had a successful political career as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and then its governor when he decided to run for president in 1987.
07:55He successfully won the Democratic primary but struggled against Republican candidate George H.W. Bush, who often criticized Dukakis' liberal view on issues such as the death penalty.
08:05Journalist Bernard Shaw decided to test Dukakis' death penalty opposition during the second 1988 presidential debate by asking whether he'd support it if someone sexually assaulted and murdered his wife.
08:16Would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?
08:22While Dukakis gave a valid response, most viewers believed it too emotionless and played into his already robotic reputation.
08:30I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.
08:37His campaign never recovered and Bush went on to win the election. In all fairness to Dukakis though, what kind of question was that?
08:45And so we just have an honest difference of opinion. I support it and he doesn't.
08:50If you were to ask people what they took from the first presidential debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore, they wouldn't say a clever zinger or a strong answer.
09:01Instead, it would be the sigh heard around the world.
09:13The former vice president was caught exasperatedly sighing and shrugging his shoulders multiple times while Bush was speaking.
09:19In a word, you have a problem with that? Yeah, why haven't they done it in seven years?
09:24The moment was heavily parodied by talk and comedy shows and capitalized on by the Bush campaign with their sighs and lies ad campaign.
09:33Gore managed to keep the sighs in a lockbox after that and perform more strongly in future debates, but it was too little too late.
09:40After all, we all know which of these two men became the president.
09:44And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.
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10:05Number one, the U.S. Department of Oops, the Republican presidential primaries.
10:11One of the most memorable moments of the 2012 Republican presidential primaries came from Texas Governor Rick Perry.
10:17During the ninth Republican primary debates, Perry eagerly declared his intention to get rid of the Departments of Commerce, Education and...
10:24Oh, darn it. What was that third one again?
10:27Commerce, Education and the... What's the third one there? Let's see.
10:33Perry froze and even with some help from the sidelines and a second chance from the moderators, he simply could not remember.
10:40Giving up with a shrug and an oops.
10:42I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops.
10:46The blunder quickly went viral, complete with its own SNL impression, and Perry soon dropped out of the race.
10:52What's the third one there? It's got away from me. Oops.
11:00That elusive third department was the U.S. Department of Energy, which Rick Perry would ironically end up leading just a few short years later.
11:09It is a real honor for me to be here, to be President-elect Trump's nominee for the Secretary of Energy.
11:17What other embarrassing or absurd moments from presidential debates do you think should have been on this list? Let us know in the comments below.
11:24And that means the insurance companies get to do pretty much whatever they want. All...
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