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First Presidential Debate Quick Take: Aggressive Trump, Old Biden

First Presidential Debate Quick Take: Aggressive Trump, Old Biden

Andrew Sullivan: “I’ve never seen Biden seem so old or so weak. He can’t land a strong blow. He’s being successfully heckled. I want to look away.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfE5Trv1KBA

What a s–tshow. Chris Wallace was horrible, at times literally arguing with Trump, and continually reprimanding Trump for interrupting when interruptions were bipartisan during the debate — Biden did it continually.

Hard to assess who “won” — I’m too close to it.

Trump did very well on law and order. Just when Biden had a potentially deadly moment of debate silence when Trump pressed him to name a single law enforcement group that supported Biden, and Biden had no answer, Wallace saved him by changing the subject.

I don’t think Trump won people over, but I could see Biden’s image as the supposed nice guy being damaged.

I value Andrew Sullivan’s view on this because he hates Trump and supports Biden, but he’s willing to speak some truth on this. He thought Biden did horribly:

Maybe that’s the only takeaway, that Biden came across as weak. It’s one I’m seeing from a lot of lefties on Twitter.

Update: I just switched to MSNBC and CNN, and they seem to agree with Sullivan that Trump dominated (of course, that means Orange Man Bad to them):

Nicole Wallace: Trump showed “an insatiable need to dominate and control.”

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Comments

Round 1
Trump Vs Wallace. Winner – Trump

Biden had notes that he had been looking at during the debate. At the end he picked them up and folded them in half and stuck them in his jacket.

    Squires in reply to UserP. | September 29, 2020 at 10:50 pm

    There were a few times when he seemed to start into a prepared answer for the wrong question.

      Even when reading his notes he can’t complete a sentence or thought. And he never answered the question even thought they were almost all softballs. He would just look fixedly into the camera with that confused, squinty expression desperately trying to not mess up his practiced statements. He looked scared and frustrated all night (I only watched the first 35-40 minutes).

      He would also only look at Trump when he was sniping and interrupting only to look away quickly. Even when he told him to “Aw shut up, man!”, he was looking down at his notes.

      I’m not one of those people who feels sorry for this pathetic corrupt fool. I remember Ted Kennedy mocking him back in the 1970-80s. A few years ago, Obama was quoted to say ‘Never underestimate Biden’s ability to screw things up.” Biden is getting exactly what he deserves. “Pride goeth before destruction.” He deserves to be destroyed.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to UserP. | September 29, 2020 at 11:03 pm

    Biden was given the questions long beforehand imo.

    Some sharp-eyed people caught Joe fiddling with a wire that peeped out of his shirt for just a second or two.

Biden sounded more coherent than I expected, but what was going with his eyes? They appeared to be totally dilated.

    Eddie Baby in reply to Diana. | September 29, 2020 at 10:51 pm

    That’s what happens when a guy is beaked out on stimulants.

      guyjones in reply to Eddie Baby. | September 30, 2020 at 7:59 am

      You hit upon something that I had pondered — specifically, the copious amount of stimulants that Biden’s handlers and doctors had undoubtedly injected him with, prior to the debate, in order to keep him awake past his bed-time, and, to stave off incontinence.

      Biden probably had enough dope in his system to keep an entire Luftwaffe squadron awake, for ten consecutive missions.

    Squires in reply to Diana. | September 29, 2020 at 10:52 pm

    And what the hell did he keep staring at above where the audience would have been?

    drednicolson in reply to Diana. | September 30, 2020 at 9:44 am

    It was the “caffeine zombie” stare, only much more pronounced. There was definitely something stronger in that old boy than just a pot of coffee.

    GatorGuy in reply to Diana. | September 30, 2020 at 10:25 am

    Taking a central nervous system stimulant, such as methylphenidate (Ritalin), or amphetamine/dextroamphetamine (Adderall) would explain that (adrenergic, or works-like-adrenalin) effect. A real close-up shot would have further revealed enlarged pupils (mydriasis, to take in more light — in survival terms, to get the clear, big picture).

    Overall, the individual so dosed is made much more responsive to stimuli, with substantially enhanced muscular, respiratory, cardiac, and cerebral function, in particular. It’s the “flight or flight” effect of adrenalin/noradrenalin (epinephrine/norepinephrine)’s being secreted by the adrenal gland, but with quite a bit of global brain-, but especially forebrain-stimulation, to make the real cognitive-mental difference.

    A low to moderately low dose of either drug might have truly and sufficiently sharpened Joe’s edge last night and made all the difference between managing as well as he did, and flopping, which he clearly didn’t.

    If he weren’t as so unusually successful on his feet as he evidently was last night, we could ascribe such an ocular effect merely to an eye med such as Visine. But I don’t think that was the reason for his bright-eyed look, for he was also quite bushy-tailed. (A little bit of political pun intended.)

    Anyway, Joe’s usage wasn’t to Donald’s disadvantage. The same drug would have likely rendered POTUS full-blown maniacal, wild-eyed psychotic; better he had not. Still, a little weed for the prez might have taken the (interrupting) edge off a bit, resulting maybe in a more warm and fuzzy, more relatable and re-electable creature than he came off to so many as last night: possibly somewhat off-putting. A claimed abstainer, he’ll learn — if there is a next time.

I thought 1968 would be the last time there would be a third party democrat named Wallace. *shrug*

Going forward, Wallace should be boycotted as a corrupt hack on the order of that weirdo brian seltzer, or whatever his name is.

    When he brought up the “very fine people” quote from Charlottesville and didn’t point out that it was a total lie we learned all we needed to know about Wallace. What a POS.

      heyjoojoo in reply to Massinsanity. | September 30, 2020 at 3:12 am

      You should have known that a long time ago. I’m shocked that people are so deceived by him.

      Terence G. Gain in reply to Massinsanity. | September 30, 2020 at 7:57 am

      This is not the first time that Wallace has peddled the Charlottesville Lie. I was very disappointed that President Trump did not say that in his comments about Charlottesville he had stated, very clearly, that when he said that there were good people on both sides he was referring to those who were in favor of the statues staying and those who wanted them removed. He went on to say in the exact same statement that he was not referring to the neo-Nazis and white supremacist and that they should be condemned.

      I was also disappointed that President Trump did not say that Fauci has stated on three separate occasions that the has followed each and every one of Fauci’s recommendations. I was disappointed that President Trump did not challenge Biden’s claim that he laid out a plan to deal with the coronavirus in mid-March. I do not recall him saying anything about COVID-19 until April and even then he didn’t make any specific recommendations, he simply criticized President Trump.

      It was obvious to me that President Trump did not prepare. He should have pointed out that Harris is in favor of bailing out rioters. If he had prepared he could have done a much better job of destroying Biden. I did not agree with President Trump’s strategy. He appealed to his base, which is already committed to voting for him en masse. IMNSHO, he should have tried to win over independents by being more presidential. We all know that he is an alpha male. His good decision-making is the reason he has been a successful President. It was not a good decision not to prepare.

      As for Wallace he showed his biased colors when he claimed that Blasey-Ford was credible. I was a faithful watcher of Fox News Sunday until then. I haven’t watched it since.

        Hieronymous Machine in reply to Terence G. Gain. | September 30, 2020 at 10:14 am

        I agree: Biden did better than expected (a low bar, admittedly). If Trump had just kept quiet(er), Joe would have exposed himself (whoopsie!) as the bewildered degenerate, er, degenerating antique that he is.

        Trump indeed came across as out of control (of himself). I am hoping it’s a strategy wherein, in the next debate, he portrays total control and allows Joe to appear out of control.

        My sincere suggestion is that the two candidates speak from separate locations, maybe something like a radio interviewers booth or some cone of silence where each is given 2 to 5 minutes to speak. Green light on = hot mic; off = well… off. Let each speak uninterrupted. And let’s go full Lincoln-Douglas style.

        Thing is, the media (and Chris Wallace) KNEW this was going to happen, but pretended to be shocked, SHOCKED at the way it went. It’s all about the Benjamins, bay-bee (aka ratings). You want a serious debate? “We can rebuild [it], make [it] better than [it] was…”

        Very well put, I agree.

Is Biden running for president? He won’t tell anybody anything about what he wants to do if he’s elected president, but he has a plan.

    Variant of “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it”

      GatorGuy in reply to pfg. | October 1, 2020 at 1:06 am

      The Dems’ pulling wool over America’s eyes, v2.0.

      And no hint of a more responsible mindset, going in: “. . . Fool me twice, shame on me.”

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Eddie Baby. | September 29, 2020 at 11:01 pm

    There’s precedent: Richard Nixon has a secret plan.

    Observer in reply to Eddie Baby. | September 30, 2020 at 8:02 am

    Well Old Joe did tell us a couple more things about what his presidency would be like: he won’t support the Green New Deal, and he will support “Justice” Amy Coney Barrett.

    That should make the lefties love him. LOL.

      henrybowman in reply to Observer. | September 30, 2020 at 2:26 pm

      Here’s an exercise: make a list of the things FDR said he would never support or approve, and in the next column, make a list of all of those things that he signed as laws and executive orders. To be bipartisan, I suppose I should add, “No new taxes!”

      CorkyAgain in reply to Observer. | September 30, 2020 at 4:05 pm

      According to Dan Bongino, Trump summarized the debate when he told Joe “You just lost the left.”

      … and with that, the election.

      Hard to see how or why the Bernie/AOC or BLM wings will be excited about voting for Biden after what they heard from him in this debate.

I do not think Trump changed any minds tonight and I am concerned that he may have lost some emotionally-based Undecided. He came across as a Bully, IMHO. Joe was never incoherent.

On content, of course, I believe he was accurate and Joe…said almost nothing. However, I don’t think that most undecideds give a damn about policy or accuracy or they wouldn’t be undecided. I am going to call this a loss for Trump with the note that he may have made some people aware of the Hunter Biden Moscow money question.

So…for what it’s worth Trump will fall in the polls after this. I am not happy.

    healthguyfsu in reply to Hodge. | September 29, 2020 at 10:59 pm

    BS…I’m pretty sure a POTUS should be able to stand up and defend themselves without needing a moderator partner. Xi, Putin, et al. are not going to allow that.

    Massinsanity in reply to Hodge. | September 29, 2020 at 11:04 pm

    Joe had numerous incoherent moments unfortunately Trump talked over most of them.

    Any time Biden tried to talk numbers it was a hot mess and he basically described the GND as his jobs plan then told us all he doesn’t support it.

    Agreed, Trump was a bit of a bully. Joe’s never experienced that sort of manhandling before. It was enjoyable watching ever-smug Joe get owned. With the truth.

    So while Trump was aggressive, maybe even to the point of rudeness, I think it was necessary given how he’s been treated these last 5 years.

      tom_swift in reply to pfg. | September 30, 2020 at 12:34 am

      Personally, I want a President who’s aggressive without straying over the line into illegal (“All I need is a phone and a pen”—type illegal).

    They also heard about Biden calling the troops dirty names.

    And that Biden brought up the Logan Act to spy on Flynn.

    Some things likely hidden from much of the public.

    Hodge…

    I don’t know, Hodge….do you think there are any undecideds….? (I don’t)

    I thought this debate was like all the political round table shows are now….everyone talks at once…

    Mercyneal in reply to Hodge. | September 30, 2020 at 6:51 am

    Um, sport? Telemundo poll with Hispanics say Trump won the debate, 60 % to 30 %

    CorkyAgain in reply to Hodge. | September 30, 2020 at 4:24 pm

    I already referenced Dan Bongino’s podcast in another comment, but another interesting point he made in it is that there really aren’t that many undecideds left to fight over. After three+ years of Trump’s presidency, most people have already made up their minds about him.

    According to Bongino, the outcome of this election is going to depend on who can energize and turn out their base. Trump didn’t do anything to make his voters decide to sit this one out, while Biden explicitly dissociated himself from issues his party’s leftwing cares about.

    “You just lost the left.”

    It’s an interesting analysis, and something to watch for in the followup to this “debate”.

“”I could see Biden’s image as the supposed nice guy being damaged.””

I think he blew that against Ryan.

Very hard for me to have any sympathy for Wallace. His sniveling and letting the pack the court question.

Relative to expectations I don’t think this was a win for Trump. It might have been but he talked over Biden too many times when Biden was rambling aimlessly. Trump clearly had him rattled early but didn’t step back to let Biden fail… Trump just kept talking and it hurt him.

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Massinsanity. | September 29, 2020 at 11:04 pm

    I’m hoping Trump’s advisors clue him in, and he takes their advice. Let Biden ramble and say nothing. Maintain a neutral expression.

Trump came across as in command sometimes bullying at times. Sometimes too much for my taste.

Biden did not come across as presidential material though.

The headlines tomorrow will be around bullying rude Trump. But there is nothing much to say about Biden because he has nothing much to say.

At the end, I don’t think this changed much or changed minds. But regardless of the immediate reaction, I see a small edge to Trump from this.

C’mon man, Biden didn’t make much of a case.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to PrincetonAl. | September 29, 2020 at 11:16 pm

    Interesting comment……

    Bigly said:

    “I’m in a house full of dems and they all think Biden is weak and pathetic

    Trumps killing Biden”

Trump did pretty well for a 2-on-1 free-for-all.

He missed a couple of easy layups, I thought, though. His closing argument (the “Why should people vote for you?” question near the end) should be something he has down pat by now. Jobs, the Economy, Law and Order. He’s got a really strong case to make, and the one-minute version of it should be automatic by now.

And the “will you condemn white supremacists?” should be an easy “I condemned white supremacists unequivocally at the time of the Charlottesville protests, though you wouldn’t know that from the fake news or the lies of Joe Biden’s teleprompter.” And the anti-semitism charge, which Biden threw out, is an opening to compare Middle East Peace to funding the Iranian nuclear program.

Unfortunately, Wallace did a pretty good job of shielding Biden, if only by drawing attention away from Biden. It would be interesting to see a comparison of how long each of them spent talking. It felt like Wallace spoke more than Biden did.

    Massinsanity in reply to clintack. | September 29, 2020 at 11:15 pm

    You are needed at the WH ASAP as your comments are so spot on.

    And why didn’t he give himself some pats on the back for some Mid East break-throughs, successes?

    And not going into new wars, and bringing troops back.

    guyjones in reply to clintack. | September 30, 2020 at 8:10 am

    On anti-Semitism, the easy response is, “I have a Jewish daughter and grand-children, I’m proud of that, and, I love them.” And/or, it would be especially effective to point out that it’s Biden’s supporters in “Anti-fa” and “Black Lives Matters” who are desecrating synagogues, right now, in Los Angeles, and, other locations.

    Biden’s supporters vandalize American Jews’ holy places, and, he has the nerve to charge POTUS with anti-Semitism? This would have been a nice comeback.

1) Getting Biden to say Antifa was an idea and not condemning them was a major strike against Biden. 2) Biden staying the New Green Deal would pay for itself and when asked. by Wallace, if he supported the New Green deal, Biden said he did not. 3) When asked what Law Enforcement supported him, dead silence, until Wallace came to the rescue.

Would China’s People’s Liberation Army count as a law enforcement group that supports Biden?

JackinSilverSpring | September 29, 2020 at 11:11 pm

I guess I’m an outlier here. IMHO Biden won the debate. That’s because we on the right set the bar too low for Biden. He remained standing and reasonably coherent for the 90 minutes, and that’s good enough. Biden had two approaches: Trump has no plan, and Trump is a liar. His responses were centered on those two points.
Also, I think Wallace was an awful moderator.

    filiusdextris in reply to JackinSilverSpring. | September 30, 2020 at 12:09 am

    Bingo. 🙁

    The “winner” of any debate* of this type is the one that gains votes, not the one the entirely corrupt media tells you is the winner.

    *of course it’s not a debate. A debate has fair parameters, these things are rigged from the start with a moderator on the marxist side. Trump has no choice but to be aggressive.

    Biden came across as weak and glassy aderall eyed, who robotically parroted the same lines over and over with ill timing and context.
    Trump was the dominating alpha male.

Wallace got what he deserved. If he has anything upstairs, he’ll never do this again.
.

    Eastwood Ravine in reply to DSHornet. | September 29, 2020 at 11:30 pm

    He’ll do it again, cause he figures this is the last time he’ll moderate a debate with Trump. He’ll keep on throwing Democrat candidates softballs. It’s a wonder why Biden refused to sit for his Sunday morning show.

One comment that Biden made I thought was interesting was that the country is systemically racist but in the suburbs black families and white families are going to soccer games together. not sure how simultaneously those two can be true

    Biden also spoke about “equity” and “equality” when dealing with so-called systematic racism. That should be disturbing to anyone opposed to holding back one group of people to elevate another.

    CorkyAgain in reply to Wade Hampton. | September 30, 2020 at 1:08 am

    Does he have an honorary degree from Princeton?

    henrybowman in reply to Wade Hampton. | September 30, 2020 at 2:36 pm

    Maybe because the suburbs are redder, as opposed to the big blue cities, who are obsessed with viewing everything in terms of race and intersectionality. Just as one or two big blue cities can turn an entire state’s election results blue, it looks like they also can turn its statistics systemically racist.

Hillary is ahead by 91 percent.

Jerome Corsi claims that Biden got the questions in advance. Of course, it would only be a surprise if he hadn’t.

Trump should have told Wallace in turn that it was Joe’s question to answer…

Somebody find a good clean view of Joe’s pupils…

With joe biden parroting lies from the “press,” it was really PDJT vs. the MSM, chris wallace, joe biden and the never Trump GOPe. PDJT is fighting them all on our behalf, so I’m not really surprised or concerned he came across as aggressively as he did.

There are maybe four kinds of voters as it relates to debates:

1. Political junkies that watch the whole thing
2. Marginal political consumers who will read a synopsis and watch highlights on video and read a Twitter thread etc
3. People who will read the headline of the paper or a 5 minute news report
4. People who didn’t know or care a debate was held

My point is with Biden acting like a disrespectful jerk who was in some leftie eyes getting pushed around by Trump and with Wallace unable to restrain his bias did this debate move the needle?

Trump supporters will point at Wallace running interference and at Biden’s disrespectful attitude to the office.

Biden folks supposedly think he got pushed around by Trump.

Most folks didn’t watch live to make up their mind. They will rely on the interpretation of the newspaper or TV news they watch to tell them who ‘won’.

    VetHusbandFather in reply to CommoChief. | September 30, 2020 at 9:36 am

    Great point… so what blurbs did they give the media.

    Biden not having a single law enforcement backing him +1 Trump

    Trump’s weak response to condemning white supremacy +1 Biden

    Trump allowing Wallace to call Critical Race Theory “racial sensitivity training” +1 Biden

    Trump spinning “I am the Democrat Party” against Joe +1 Trump

    Trump “I’ve done more in 47 months than you’ve done in 47 years” +1 Trump

    I mean all the big scores from Biden were really made by Wallace though…

There was nothing here that would sway anyone.
Joe did better than expected, but Trump said Biden would be at his best with 47 years at it…

Unlike Trump, Biden will always have somebody on his team moderating the debates.

I think it’s time to acknowledge that Fox News is starting to turn left, and that the Chris Wallace’s of the world cannot be trusted to be fair and impartial.

I watched on internet tv, USTV. Look it up. Excellent. Can get on any internet apparatus including Firestick, Roku, etc. As well as ordinary computer. Gets the main channels for free, your time zone, including OAN, Etc. the usual ads running.

Prior to the debate we were quite taken aback by the repeated claims that Biden was very ahead in polls and had been for months. It seemed odd as I don’t think that is true. Somehow they were placing an idea that Trump was somehow desperate to be able to win the debates.

We thought the debate was not much of a debate at all, a lose for both. I am quite disappointed that not much was put forward at all regarding policy, how to achieve goals, or even what the goals are at all.

While I/we firmly support Trump, it appeared as if he was hot headed although passionate, I believe that instead of interrupting he could have stood back to formulate his answers more thoroughly and had a broader and deeper impact, especially if he had reflected on the successes of his administration in COVID, blacks employment, the middle east, taxes and so on. I feel he could have been better prepared with more solid material to support himself than what he chose. He can be both concise and powerful in his message.

On Joe, 47 years of being a politician meant he could be calm, collected and appeal to people through the camera. At times I felt his appeals were more like a telethon, or an ad looking for 38c a month to save a dog, and he appeared weak. I feel the democrats felt this may be a good approach since the country needs some relief from conflict. However, he was very insulting, and seemed to have no real policies, no means to achieve them, nor any idea of the economic impact his so-called green policies would have. I felt he was shuffling notes and was not strong in his assertions.

Disappointed.

Did anyone else notice Biden say New York City and Chicago were Republican controlled? Trump was on point and I think Biden’s brain locked up.

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Blue Collar Todd. | September 30, 2020 at 7:53 am

    I think Joe was mixed up about Chicago.Theydid indeed have some Republican leadership during Joe’s 180 years of public service. (One of his recent gaffes.)

My Take.
Trump loss.
1.For 45 minutes he would not address issues. He tried to rattle Biden and it did not work. But it made Trump look unpresidential. There were 2 times when Biden lost it mentally. Instead of letting Biden hang himself, Trump rescued him by interrupting. (Dana Perino saw exactly the same mistake).
2. Wallace twice misquoted or misdescribed a Trump position. In the Charlottesville question he used an old debater’s trick of putting the fallacious premise up front on an extended question so that the respondent forgets to address that premise. Trump fell or that because he was not taking notes.
3. Biden’s economic plan was juvenile. if you raise taxes, how can everyone afford to “climate proof” their homes, even with a tax credit that may bring them back to neutral ..if they can’t afford it now? This is first year Economic’s laugh questions. It is impossible to create well paying jobs by forcing people to pay others from their own capital reserves.
4. Biden had a mic. He would look up to hear, down to write the notes. He had a receiver/repeater on his chest (he adjusted it once), and a mirco-mic in his ear, a deep insert. It is Hollywood’s latest tech, and it served him well.
5. Trump might have taken a few notes himself. Because he forgot Wallace’s extreme prejudicial premises at least 3 times by my count.

    You take Dana Perino, a Bushie who treats her dog like a ral child seriously? Good luck with that.

    I disagree with your take, but

    “(Dana Perino saw exactly the same mistake).”

    You do realize she is a neverTrumper Bushie?

      puhiawa in reply to Barry. | September 30, 2020 at 12:55 am

      Indeed I do. Which makes her observation that much more important. She saw Biden falter…and Trump throw him a rope. Clearly she saw Trump the better candidate and wondered why he did not see the cracks in the wall.
      Trump needs to calm down.

        Barry in reply to puhiawa. | September 30, 2020 at 1:17 am

        Everyone always wants to tell Trump what to do / how to act / what to say…

        And yet, it is President Trump that understands what he is doing. And, how to win against a 100% in the tank for the democrats media. Tonight, most people just look at personality. A week from now they will realize what they didn’t know about half wit Biden. They might even wonder if it is Biden or Wallace running for president.

        When you need Perino to back you up, you’re flailing.

Trump wasn’t a bully, he was trying to destroy the leftist poison

    Sanddog in reply to Gersh204. | September 30, 2020 at 12:33 am

    I’d say he was very assertive in the face of two opponents on the debate stage.

    GatorGuy in reply to Gersh204. | October 1, 2020 at 1:19 am

    I agree: to that extent, not a bully; but the POTUS, at least for the purpose of a live, televised debate — ie, a very civilized procedure that’s intended to tease out the modern sense of decency from the ancient understanding of brutality; IOW, this ain’t our civilizational ancestors’ Colosseum — Trump needed to show his presidential knowledge, talent, and skill, to end an enemy’s struggle in life at our expense, far more civilly.

    A debate is where ruthless effectiveness AND civility — and neither alone — are scored.

buckeyeminuteman | September 30, 2020 at 1:09 am

Did nobody else here Biden call Trump a “clown”? He immediately said, “sorry, president”.

    Walker Evans in reply to buckeyeminuteman. | September 30, 2020 at 2:42 am

    Rule #3 from the Yellow Journalists’ Playbook: Throw out a nasty insult, wait a beat for it to take root in the audience’s mind, then issue the “faux apology”. It was a hallmark of Chicago’s Daly Machine!

Was anyone else annoyed with Chris Wallace…?

His questions were….TOO LONG…!!!!!

It seemed like every question had these long set ups…!
Why can’t the questions be short ?

We, the American People, didn’t tune it to hear you yak, Chris!
Shut Up, already….! Ask a short question, then get out of the way… (Who’s with me ????)

Yes he called President Trump a clown twice amd also a racist amd a liar

And people think he won?

There is one thing we can all agree on: Biden’s had work done, whether it’s Botox, plastic surgery, or both.

Well I called it! Biden wouldn’t be a car crash (too many people behind him to get him to stand up) and far to many whiney bitches crying about what Trump should have done (variations between he was too mean and he wasn’t mean enough ?).

Did Trump win anyone over? Well fuck me if you need to hear a debate to make your mind up then you most certainly do not deserve the privilege of voting in an election.

If you haven’t made your mind up by now based on the track record of those running you are a brain dead zombie and fully deserve a Democrat in the White House.

We had the same bitchy whiney ass moaning after the last set of Presidential debates and how Hillary won blah blah blah but fuck me if the only thing anyone remembers from those debates is the “you’d be in jail” comment (that really in itself should tell you who won those debates ??).

Stop being crying ass whining girls and go get yourselves some testicle ?

Regarding the performances given by Chris Wallace and Old Hairplugs:

Among the shameful items that I do NOT include on my resume is the fact that I wrote news-copy for a newspaper and its “affiliated” (read ‘wholly’ owned editorial slave) radio/TV outfit in my Midwest hometown. My hero there was a crusty old poot named Charlie (maybe) whose ready wit was the bane of many blowhards … um, I mean politicians. At one rally that went on for more than two b-o-r-i-n-g hours the crowd was slowly vaporizing and Charlie stretched out across three empty seats in the first row and gave all appearances of sleeping. The windbag on stage saw him and commented that he was being given a hint by the press.

Without even lifting the hat from his face Charlie shot back, “Don’t fret about the time. I can lie down here as long as you can lie up there!”

I miss that kind of chutzpah. Journalism at its finest!!

Didn’t watch it. The reports and comments make it sound a bit like professional wrestling comes to presidential debates.

Seriously? Breonna Taylor is brought up in the debates? Feelings and #waroncops reigns supreme in the far-left MSM. Breonna had the dead body of her boyfriend’s prison cellmate in her car. Breonna is on video transporting packages to and from a drug stash house. Breonna is in an apartment where a cop was shot trying to serve a lawful warrant. The #waroncops must stop or the whole nation is going to be like the old wild west.

Watched it all all Sundowner Joe had was old lies

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | September 30, 2020 at 6:11 am

The “debate” is, or ought to be, irrelevant.

They can’t be rewarded with power for what they’ve done to Trump. Three years falsely smearing him as a Russian lap dog – if not an outright Manchurian Candidate. Then impeaching him for suggesting Ukriane investigate obvious corruption.

The gaslighting and Democrat/Deep State abuse of power can not be rewarded by giving them the levers of power.

A candidate can promise basically two kinds of things for his upcoming administration.

First, the things he might actually be able to do something about. This might involve specific legislation he might be able to manhandle through a recalcitrant Congress, specific treaties he might sign or kill, plans to reorganize government departments or the military, appointments of federal judges/ambassadors/attorneys general, etc.

Second, the things he almost certainly can’t do anything much about but can only talk about and make vague hints of vacuous promises. These are the “lookit the mess my competitor made of things! I can fix it . . . errr, somehow . . . in some mysterious and secret way . . . even though I’ve never demonstrated any such ability in the past and don’t really have any ideas about how to do it in the future” topics. Obama’s fantasy about healing the planet and commanding the tide come to mind. Similar would be yammering about signing “verifiable treaties” with implacable enemies, mystical techniques to control diseases, deflecting asteroids, balancing the budget, etc. All that’s offered are hints of dreams about the award-winning architecture of the decorative corral for the pink unicorns.

It was conspicuous how Joe concentrated on the second type of claim, but made no clever attempt to hide the painfully obvious fact that he was avoiding the first. The list of future federal judges was perhaps the most glaring example. He won’t even pretend to answer. Joe is not saying anything useful at all—not even King Canute-style grandiosity—involving executive functions. And that is not too good when he’s running for an executive office.

With Joe, there’s nothing there. Just noise, like a baby in a playpen; he really has nothing relevant to say about the Presidency or why he should be chosen for the job.

I would drag myself across broken glass to vote for Trump but I don’t think he won any “moderates.” For the jelly-kneed among us I think he came off as a bully. I don’t mind that much but people the “college-educated, suburban women” certainly aren’t gonna flock to Trump after that.

    Mercyneal in reply to NH Guy. | September 30, 2020 at 6:50 am

    Nonsense. Joe was weak and addled. And watch what the Dems do to Amy Comey Barrett. Suburban women will not be happy.

Andrew Sullivan has occasionally shown a modicum of independence, in rejecting the extremes of Dhimmi-crat ideology, but, that he’s ultimately supporting Biden, despite the Dhimmi-crats’ obnoxious, destructive and vindictive totalitarianism and violent behavior, over the past six months, demonstrates his moral stupidity.

There isn’t any valid reason for a rational person who supports free minds, free markets and law & order, to support Biden.

Does anyone actually believe that there are still allegedly “undecided,” fence-sitter voters who haven’t made up their damn minds about POTUS or dim-witted, dotard-marionette, Biden, after four years of the former’s tenure in office, and, fossil Biden having been in politics for half a century? The debates are gladiator sport and entertainment. Precisely why I don’t watch them. Nothing that occurs will change my mind that POTUS must be supported by rational patriots who reject the Dhimmi-crats’ infantile, corrosive and bullying totalitarianism. That said, I want to see POTUS do well and tottering Biden fall on his face.

It was shocking how rude and disrespectful Biden was, what an absolute petulant lying child he came across as…this alone…not to mention the mid stage dementia he is in should disqualify him

Trump blew it big league last night! For the first time he had an audience that had probably never seen him before, but only watched what the media said about him. He acted frantic and defensive, was unable to tout his accomplishments. When answering the question about what he’d done for blacks, he never mentioned Opportunity Zones, First Step or School Choice, instead he went off on Biden’s racism. He could have explained the entirety of what he said about Charlottsville, but didn’t, he allowed Biden to get away with accusing him of calling soldiers “losers” and “suckers” and never pointed out that it was Iran, not Russia putting bounties on American troops in Afghanistan and his killing of Soleimani in response. Trump’s quirky facial expression would have been better served with a look of strong confidence. Trump had the chance to thoroughly discredit not only Biden, but the news media and Wallace as well. Even though there is never a second chance to make a first impression, hopefully Trump will calm down and nail it next time

    caseoftheblues in reply to MarkS. | September 30, 2020 at 8:41 am

    Such wishful thinking Mark…hope you are able to scrape off that Biden-Harris bumper sticker after that embarrassing team loses

    mailman in reply to MarkS. | September 30, 2020 at 8:45 am

    For the first time? Do you live in laalaa land moron?

    Every time Trump speaks he is reaching out to people who have only ever heard him through the veil of the Democrat media. Last night was no different. Trump isnt an unknown and if this person does actually exist who doesnt know who he is then they dont deserve the privilege of voting in a Presidential election!

    Morons like you are either “he wasnt aggressive enough” or “he let him get away with too much”. For people like you there never is a middle ground and its moaning whining 24/7

    Go vote for Biden. You totally deserve a Democrat President. Lets just hope you dont have business or expect law enforcement to come to your aid because you wont be able to protect you or your family at all.

      MarkS in reply to mailman. | September 30, 2020 at 9:41 am

      For example, my next door neighbor, my wife’s friend in TX and my sister will not watch any Trump rally, press conference or event. They hate him so much, they only watch CNN/MSNBC and get their version of what Trump has said or done. They all still believe that Trump colluded with Russia and that he said white supremacists are very fine people. But they all did watch the debate last night and what did they witness upon their first actual view of Trump unfiltered?

        Barry in reply to MarkS. | September 30, 2020 at 10:32 am

        “But they all did watch the debate last night and what did they witness upon their first actual view of Trump unfiltered?”

        Well, since “They all still believe that Trump colluded with Russia and that he said white supremacists are very fine people.”, they are too stupid for us to give a damn what they think.

      henrybowman in reply to mailman. | September 30, 2020 at 3:42 pm

      Although, if you do it for yourself, you can expect that same law-enforcement to happily come out to arrest you. Probably at 2:30 in the morning.

    mailman in reply to MarkS. | September 30, 2020 at 8:46 am

    DAMMIT! Hit the wrong vote button! 🙂 You got a bonus up vote Mark!

    Barry in reply to MarkS. | September 30, 2020 at 9:04 am

    Another neverTrumper explaining why Hillary is going to win.

    avi natan in reply to MarkS. | September 30, 2020 at 5:30 pm

    Defensive?
    he dominated like the alpha male he is

I didn’t watch the “debate” last night. What was the point? Biden would not be asked any hard questions; Trump would be criticized as being too aggressive; Chris Wallace would alternate between make it all about himself and protecting Biden; the Joseph Goebbels would declare Biden the winner and Trump as Adolph Hitler Jr.; and the rules would be flouted in the holy name of shielding Biden. So predictable.

I agree with the negatives, like MarkS. Trump was a bore. His worst characteristics were on display. All he had to do was to act even slightly presidential. Can no one in his inner circle tell this ass how to behave? His stupid remarks, you’re not on the block, Donald! aggravated the hell out of me.

Fortunately, Biden made some mistakes as well. His utter disrespect for the president didn’t do him any favors. The ass sees himself as a tribune of the people.

Thank God he’s a halfwit.

I did not watch the “debate”. Beside the fact I would learn nothing from listening, I would be tempted to display bias based on who I thought should win or more likely why the other guy is unfit and should be incarcerated or terminated.
I would watch a 90 minute debate if the candidates had jointly about ten minutes to discuss policy issues about
1. The American Economy
2. Healthcare and funding in America
3. Crime in American cities
4. American Laws that look at outcomes versus intentions
5. America’s industrial place and policy in the world
6. America military purpose and use in foreign countries
7. Federal rule making by unelected bureaucracies
8. Constitutional tethers on federal laws
9. Vision for America’s future.
Nowhere is there room for a network moderator, nowhere are questions asked of one or the other as the topics are already stated as the free flowing article of discussion.
Americans will then have the ability to rationally make decisions based on policy of the candidate and their ability to stay on topic with relevant comments

Wallace interrupted Biden 15 time,
and he interrupted Trump 76 times.

    hopeful in reply to kittymyers. | September 30, 2020 at 9:33 am

    There were several/many times Biden looked straight ahead as if he were listening. My take on the debates: May the lying POS rot in hell as he’s rotting in dementia.

If my fb feed is anything to go by, the “suburban women” hated Trump’s aggression.

Lots of concern trolls on this thread.

Ann in LA. Agreed. But the ones I see have had MEAN TWEETS! as their primary concern for years. I don’t think anybody with policy concerns changed favorites due to the debate.

Two days ago a friend of mine emailed me and asked about the debate: “How do you see this going?”

My reply:
1. Biden bombs bigly.
2. Failing that, post-debate, Team Biden objects to something Trump did or said, and advises that the remaining debates be called off. This prevents the possibility of #1, above, from occurring in a subsequent debate.

Calls for #2 were being made within minutes of the end of the debate.

The big mistake that people are making, with regard to Trump’s performance in this debate, is that they want to impart their personal idea as to how it should have been run. And, they are wrong.

This was never going to be a debate on the future vision of the two candidates. It was going to be a forum to stage a two-on-one attack on Trump. That is what the Trump camp planned for and what they fought against. It was going to be a carefully scripted series of gotcha questions for Trump and allowing Biden to slide with non-answers. But, Trump derailed that in the first two minutes.

In the course of the entire debate, Biden answered only a single question, which concerned how he would handle global warming. And, he muffed that by reciting the specifics of the New Green Deal and then inferring that the US should pay Brazil to make its citizens stop burning its rain forests. WTF? Everything else was a non-answer, sometimes not even attempting to address the substance of the question. His big vision for the future was that he would not govern like Trump. Though, in his current campaign adds, his promised actions mirror those already done by Trump. Then, there was his vision of saving the economy. It seemed to revolve entirely around the government giving people tax money. Doe she have any idea the source of government funds? It is taxes. His plan would require giving people money and then taking it back to balance the books.

Trump was denied the time to present specifics on his plans as he had to spend so much time countering the flat out lies pout forth by Biden and, to a lesser extent, Wallace. Trump presents evidence to disassemble the Biden lies, in most cases, while Biden simply claimed any negative information about him were lies, without presenting any particulars.

Contrary to pundits, Trump does not have to sway undecided voters to support him. His supporters roughly equal the number of people who will vote against him, either on philosophical grounds or because they believe the Orange Man bad propaganda. The undecideds are going to remain mostly undecided, regardless of what Trump or Biden do. So, his only real need is to keep his supporters energized and voting and to fight the absolutely egregious amount of vote fraud that the Dems will engage in. And, it is clear that it is coming.

Trump correctly assessed the threat from Biden, in the debate. And, while not pretty, he effectively nullified it.

The best part of the debate was that Wallace looked like a totally inept tool, which is exactly what he is.

Two takeaways:

First, Biden was doing his version of Armchair Quarterbacking, or in this case Basement President. He repeatedly kept saying that Trump is doing a bad job, he’s messing up. Trump kept asking Biden what he would do but he had no answers just more jabs at Trump’s bad decisions.

Second, Biden has been running a lot of nonsense ads in southeastern Michigan. By that, I mean ads that are flat out wrong, like Trump is taking away pre-existing coverage when he just signed an exec order to the contrary. Well, all of Joe’s points were straight from his campaign ads. No policies. No actual commitments. No plan.

We heard nothing new from Sleepy Slow Creepy Joe other than he proved he can stand and keep his eyes open after ten in the morning. This gives him the win thanks to the compliant media.

Trump on the other hand, while combative, made a lot of points that half the population of the US never heard before because of the Lame Stream Media blackout of anything good that Trump does.

The debate was annoying and pointless … thumbs down for everyone …

The interrupting was very deliberate and had specific intent.

1- Break Joe’s train of thought
2- Fluster Joe (and Wallace)
3- Present an image of damning convention- we like Trump because he does not play by their rules.
4- Present an image of being in control. This was his stage and he’s not sharing it with sleepy joe.
5- Make Wallace look like he’s running a circus.

The risk of coming across as a bully was very calculated. Trump knows how to do this.

I tuned in for the second half and the interrupting and attacks were effective at ticking boxes 1-5. Joe’s pharmacist did a great job to his credit. Bet we don’t see him for a week while he recovers.

Yes, Trump did indeed interrupt Biden repeatedly when we would have liked to see him sit back while Joe dug himself into a hole. Joe digs lots of holes when nobody gets in his way.

That would have been a good debate tactic, perhaps even an elegant one.

But this was not a debate in any useful sense. This was a joust, a show of force. In one corner, PDJT; in the other, Wallace/Biden. Which side was going to dominate the other? That’s what the spectators were there to see. The show was not about presenting carefully crafted arguments backed up with sensible conjecture and verifiable fact. Any attempt to develop such a thing would collapse immediately under “spoiler” attacks, sniping and unsupported innuendo.

Standing back while Biden self-destructs is the sort of thing we might see of a GW Bush or maybe a Romney. But we all know that’s not the way to defeat Dems. Something a bit more active is needed. The Dems can do terrible damage even if they’re standing in a big hole of lies and illogic, one they themselves dug, and beating them will require far more than watching them make fools of themselves.

We don’t need Biden to look like a doddering old fool; we need him to be crushed. Miss Manners wouldn’t be able to it.

    “But this was not a debate in any useful sense.”

    Way too many people fail to understand this. If we had a truly neutral moderator with tough questions for both sides we *might* get something resembling a debate.

    We don’t have that and Trump knows it. He came out firing from word one, the right approach IMO.

I watched the whole thing, and I think the biggest danger here is that Trump thinks he won it (he’s tweeted this). If he really thinks this performance was stellar . .. ugh.

His worst moments stemmed from Chris Wallace, who most of knew was going to be all-in for Biden. I didn’t see him being all-in for the radical left, though, so that was a surprise. I mean spit polishing critical race theory (a Marxist, black supremacist, anti-America ideology) as “racial sensitivity training” was a bridge too far for me.

But Trump wasn’t ready for it, and it showed. He also wasn’t ready for the Wallace regurgitation of the Charlottesville “good people on both sides” lie. He should have been.

Over all, very disappointing “debate” in which I wish Trump had let Biden keep talking when he was starting to sputter into word salad land and in which I wish Trump had been better laying out the great achievements of his first term.

I doubt very much that Trump LOST voters, but I am equally sure he didn’t gain any, either. That’s not good in a race that is going to be far too close for comfort.

Hopefully, Trump is not sitting around thinking that was enough and that he’s good going into the next debate. Because it wasn’t and he’s not.