The stage was full of interruptions as President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden participated in the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

Moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, notable topics included the pandemic, the economy, racial issues and climate change. 

One of the first topics was about how the candidates would solve the current health crisis in America. 

Under his current trajectory, Trump said a vaccine is coming sooner than projected.  

“I’ve spoken to the companies and they said we can have it a lot sooner,” Trump said. “It’s a very political thing because people like this (Biden) would rather make it political than save lives.” 

Biden retorted and pointed out how Trump has made false promises like this before.  

“This is the same man that said this thing would be gone by Easter,” Biden said. “By warm weather it would be gone miraculously — like a miracle. And by the way maybe you can inject some bleach into your arm and that would take care of it.”  

As the night proceeded, the racial divide in America was brought up. When asked about how to close the divide, Biden said all races must come together.  

“The fact is that there is racial insensitivity, people have to be made aware of what other people feel like,” Biden said. “The only way we’re going to bring America together is to bring everyone together. There is nothing we cannot do if we do it together. We can take this on and defeat racism together.”

Trump interrupted and said America under Biden was divided. 

“During the Obama-Biden administration there was tremendous division,” Trump said. “…you look at Ferguson, look at Oakland, look at what happened in Baltimore, frankly there was more violence than what I’m seeing now.” 

One of the last topics was about climate change. Both candidates were asked on how they would approach climate change.  

“We have to do better management of our forest,” Trump said. “Every year I get the call ‘California is burning.’ If you had forest management, you wouldn’t be getting those calls.”

Biden talked about his prior experience as vice president and hopes to make America waste free in the future.  

“During our (Obama-Biden) administration in the recovery act, I was able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than or as cheap as coal and gas and oil,” Biden said. “We can get to net zero in terms of energy production by 2035. Not only not costing people jobs but creating jobs.” 

Mack Shelley, the chairman of political science, said the chaos and war of words that ensued was Trump’s goal.

“Part of the Trump strategy is to kind of push Biden into saying things offhand,” Shelley said. ”It is to try to catch Biden off guard so he couldn’t give his preplanned statements.” 

The vice presidential debate is Oct. 7 between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Vice President  Mike Pence in Salt Lake City.