Words from the First 2020 Presidential Debate

The first of three planned presidential debates between President Trump and former Vice President Biden took place in Cleveland, Ohio on September 29. The event was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News. Here are 20 words from the debate, ten from each candidate.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. accord
    a written agreement between two states or sovereigns
    If you look at the Paris Accord, it was a disaster from our standpoint.
    – President Trump
  2. acknowledge
    declare to be true or admit the existence or reality of
    He’s on tape as acknowledging he knew it.
    – Vice President Biden
  3. bile
    a digestive juice secreted by the liver
    Close your eyes, remember what those people look like coming out of the fields, carrying torches, their veins bulging, just spewing anti-Semitic bile...
    – Vice President Biden
  4. consequence
    a phenomenon that is caused by some previous phenomenon
    Elections have consequences.
    – President Trump
  5. deficit
    an amount that is less than expected or required
    We have a higher deficit with China now than we did before.
    – Vice President Biden
  6. demeaning
    causing someone to lose status or the respect of others
    People have to be made aware of what other people feel like, what insults them, what is demeaning to them.
    – Vice President Biden
  7. depreciation
    a decrease in price or value
    He passed a tax bill that gave us all these privileges for depreciation and for tax credits.
    – President Trump
  8. extent
    the point or degree to which something extends
    We’ve already fixed it to an extent.
    – President Trump
  9. irresponsible
    showing lack of care for consequences
    He’s been totally irresponsible the way in which he has handled the social distancing and people wearing masks, basically encouraged them not to.
    – Vice President Biden
  10. leverage
    investing with borrowed money to amplify potential gains
    There’s 118 page or so report that says everything I have, every bank I have, I’m totally under leveraged because the assets are extremely good, and I built a great company.
    – President Trump
  11. mandate
    a formal statement of a command to do something
    We took away the individual mandate.
    – President Trump
  12. manifesto
    a public declaration of intentions
    Joe, you agreed with Bernie Sanders, who’s far left, on the manifesto, we call it. – President Trump
  13. occur
    come to pass
    The American people have a right to have a say in who the Supreme Court nominee is and that say occurs when they vote for United States Senators and when they vote for the President of United States.
    – Vice President Biden
  14. outcome
    something that results
    We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is because that’s the only way the American people get to express their view is by who they elect as President and who they elect as Vice President.
    – Vice President Biden
  15. phenomenal
    exceedingly or unbelievably great
    “President Trump did a phenomenal job.”
    – President Trump
  16. profligate
    unrestrained by convention or morality
    Billionaires have made another $300 billion because of his profligate tax proposal, and he only focused on the market.
    – Vice President Biden
  17. rile
    disturb, especially by minor irritations
    Here’s the point, the point is that that’s why he keeps trying to rile everything up.
    – Vice President Biden
  18. solicit
    request urgently or persistently
    A solicited ballot, okay, solicited, is okay.
    – President Trump
  19. vulnerable
    capable of being wounded or hurt
    Now we’ve found that elderly people with heart problems and diabetes and different problems are very, very vulnerable.
    – President Trump
  20. wherewithal
    the necessary means (especially financial means)
    Look, the way to open businesses is give them the wherewithal to be able open.
    – Vice President Biden
Created on Wed Oct 07 16:22:55 EDT 2020 (updated Thu Oct 08 07:20:27 EDT 2020)

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