I couldn't bring myself to watch it. But I heard and read about it the next day. This article from the Washington Post is right on the money:
Five Takeaways fromThe First Presidential Debate by Aaron Blake Washington Post
September 29, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. E
President Trump and
Joe Biden took part in their first of three one-onDT-one debates of the 2020 general election
Tuesday night in Cleveland.
It was so contentious and full of interruptions that it was almost
unwatchable, but there were some takeaways. Here they are.
1. Biden resists Trump’s goading — mostly.
Trump’s strategy
was clear: to steamroll both Biden and debate moderator Chris Wallace, hoping
to provoke a bad moment. It was the strategy of a challenger, more than of an
incumbent, and seemed to reflect that Trump needs to change the race more than
Biden does.
Biden’s strategy
was also clear: to stick to his talking points, try not to engage much, and
deny Trump what he wanted.
Biden lost his cool
at a few points, including asking, “Will you shut up, man?” At another point:
“It’s hard to get any word in with this clown — excuse me, this person.” At
another: “Keep yapping, man."
At times, Biden was
exasperated, and at other times, he dealt with the barrage effectively. At one
point, Trump tried to cut in by saying, “Can I be honest?” Biden shot back:
“Try and be honest.”
But all told, Biden
didn’t allow himself to be pulled off his game. And he avoided some of the
lapses and uneasy moments that marked some of his Democratic debate performances.
The debate wasn’t
enlightening from a policy standpoint, mostly because Trump wanted a food
fight. Biden didn’t give it to him, which reinforced the reality of who’s
leading this race right now.
2. Trump’s coronavirus answers get no better.
Trump’s biggest
liability in the election is the coronavirus pandemic, on which polls regularly show even
some of his supporters don’t think he’s done a good job.
Trump offered
little to change that. And Biden had some of his strongest moments on this
subject.
At one point, Biden
noted that Trump once floated injecting disinfectant into people to combat the
virus. Trump maintained he had been speaking “sarcastically.” (Trump’s presentation at the time did not suggest it was in jest.)
Trump was also
asked about his mask skepticism, at which point he argued that masks are fine
and that he wears them when he thinks he needs them (which is rarely in
public). Biden noted that Trump continues to hold rallies at which masks have
often been scarce.
“He’s not worried
about you,” Biden said. “He’s not worried about the people out there
breathing.”
Biden summed up his
case accordingly: “He’s been totally irresponsible in the way in which he has
handled the social distancing and people wearing masks, basically encouraged
them not to. And he’s a fool on this.”
Trump gambled that
voters would be more turned off by Biden saying he would shut things down again
if health officials advised it, baselessly accusing Democrats of using current
mitigation methods for electoral benefit.
3. It was an awful debate.
A few weeks ago,
Wallace delivered one of the toughest interviews of Trump to date — a rare instance in
which Trump was repeatedly fact-checked on his falsehoods and didn’t seem to
know what to do.
Wallace was in some
ways set up to fail on Tuesday night. He wasn’t supposed to fact-check the
candidates as he did Trump a few weeks ago. And it wasn’t clear that any
moderator would have been able to handle what was thrown at him. But it just
wasn’t a good debate.
Wallace allowed
himself to be something of a wallflower early on, as Trump repeatedly
interrupted Biden and Biden sometimes interrupted Trump — before either of them
could convey a cogent thought.
But most striking
was Wallace’s attempts to almost placate Trump.
“Mr. President,
you’re going to be very happy, because we’re going to talk about law and
order,” Wallace said at one point while trying to move past Trump talking over
Biden.
“Let me ask — sir,
you’ll be happy, I’m about to pick up on one of your points to ask the vice
president,” Wallace said at another point.
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At other points,
though, Wallace noted that Trump was clearly the chief offender.
“And by the way,
Mr. President, your campaign agreed that both sides would get two-minute
answers uninterrupted,” Wallace noted later in the debate.
Again, it was an
impossible situation, but it will hardly go down as a great presidential
debate.
4. Biden distances himself from the left.
One of the
prevailing GOP attacks on Biden is that he would be beholden to the far left.
Biden set out at the start of the debate to combat that.
When Trump goaded
Biden on some of the more extreme elements of his party, Biden shot back, “I am
the Democratic Party right now. The platform of the Democratic Party is what I
in fact approved of,” adding for emphasis: “what I approved of.”
When Trump tied to
connect Biden’s health-care plan to Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a rival in the
Democratic primaries, Biden responded, “The fact of the matter is I beat Bernie
Sanders.”
Trump retorted:
“Not by much.”
Biden responded: “I
beat him [by] a whole hell of a lot.”
(Biden won more
than 2,600 Democratic convention delegates, while Sanders won 1,073.)
Biden also maintained
that there is systemic racism, but echoed an argument that the GOP often makes
about police — that those who abuse their power are the rare “bad apples."
Later on, Biden
again pointedly declined to attach himself to a push by liberals upset over Judge
Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court to abolish the filibuster
or pack the Supreme Court, saying voters should have their voices
heard on the topic.
“Whatever position
I take … that will become the issue,” Biden said. “The issue is the American
people should speak. You should go out and vote.”
It wasn’t a profile
in bold politics, and it could disappoint some of his liberal allies — Trump at
one point shot back, “You just lost the left” — but it was clear Biden wanted
to insulate himself, which was probably the smart play given that he leads the
race.
5. Trump declines to condemn white supremacists.
Trump has
repeatedly resisted denouncing white nationalists and white supremacists who
have allied themselves with him. So Wallace asked Trump to make his position
clear.
Trump left it very
unclear, and at least one group saw his words as giving them a nod.
Asked whether he
was willing to denounce white supremacists and militia groups, Trump said,
“Sure.” He added, speaking broadly, “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would
say almost everything I see is from the left wing.”
Biden and Wallace
then invited Trump to say it more explicitly, but he went in a different
direction. Trump asked them to name specific groups, at which point Biden
volunteered the “Proud Boys.”
Trump offered
something besides a condemnation.
“Proud Boys: Stand
back and stand by,” Trump said, adding: “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you
what: Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left, because this is
not a right-wing problem.”
The most charitable
read on Trump’s comments is that he was truly suggesting that such groups back
off. But he clearly didn’t condemn them, and the Proud Boys didn’t take it as
such.
As one of my Facebook friends posted:
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