US Presidential Debate 2020: Biden attacks Trump, calls him 'clown'; here's why

Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden squared off in the pair's first televised US Presidential debate in Cleveland ahead of the November election.

Joe Biden called Republican incumbent Donald Trump a "clown" on Tuesday as tension boiled over. "It's hard to get any word in with this clown -- excuse me, this person," said Biden, moments after Trump was warned by moderator Chris Wallace not to interrupt.

"Folks, do you have any idea what this clown is trying to do?" Biden said to Americans as Trump talked over him. "Will you shut up, man," he grumbled moments later.

For the uninformed, US presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign broke its single-hour fundraising record as the Democrat's debate with President Donald Trump wrapped up on Tuesday, pulling in $3.8 million, a campaign official said.

Biden's deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, announced the online fundraising haul on a phone call with reporters.

Hours before the debate began, Biden released his most recent tax returns, signaling that he wanted new revelations about the President’s taxes.

Biden paid nearly $300,000 in income taxes in 2019, according to his returns. Billionaire Trump, meanwhile, paid $750 in 2016 and 2017, and nothing in ten of the last 15 years, according to a report in the New York Times.

The debate was due to be divided into six segments: the records of Trump and Biden, the Supreme Court, the pandemic, the economy, election integrity, and "race and violence" in US cities.

One planned topic of the debate was the battle around Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court as a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died September 18.

(Inputs from Reuters)