Well, the debate tonight between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was certainly a far cry from the Reagan-Carter debate of 1980.
If anyone wanted to see the closest thing to a true debate, rather than a glorified press conference, this was it. Both men "took it" to each other, sometimes bordering on fierceness.
Moderator Chris Wallace showed his bias against President Trump when he would admonish Trump for his interruptions, but not when Biden interrupted. Wallace is being skewered on this on social media.
Trump was being Trump. Since he was essentially debating both Wallace and Biden, I can understand why he had to interrupt to get his points in. Trump, I felt, was more effective when he held back and let Biden ramble on. I wished he didn't interrupt so much. But Biden is not off the hook on that either.
Biden rarely directly answered the questions put to him. He would have be far better off if he showed respect, if not to Trump, but at least to the office. Telling Trump to "shut up" and calling him a "clown" hurt his cause. He came off as a nasty old man. He clearly lost his cool in telling the President to "shut up." Not good. He also talked over the President while he was speaking, but Wallace hardly rebuked him.
Still, despite the bias by Wallace, this was the closest thing to seeing a true debate we've ever seen on television for the presidency since the invention of television. Each man gave as good as he got.
I don't think too many minds were changed tonight. It'll be interesting to hear El Rushbo's take tomorrow. I'll be adding the more interesting reactions as I see them.
Meanwhile, Rush's brother David Limbaugh posted:
I don’t quite understand why some on our side expect Trump to have a personality transplant at every tense moment in the campaign. He is what he is. he’s a warrior. But as far as governance — OMG he’s been outstanding.
Actor James Woods posted:
Donald Trump is a blood and guts gladiator. Joe Biden is a tired old husk.
Commentator Mark Levin:
Biden got away with endless lies and cheap shots. The questions were mostly asked from a left perspective ("the science of climate change," what's wrong with "critical race theory" training," etc.) and Biden went unchallenged by the moderator far too often. For example, for months Biden was silent about the riots, he has no real plan for the coronavirus, he supports public funding for abortion, etc. I'd also be interested in seeing the time allocation as well as it certainly seemed to me that Biden had more time. The president had to force his way into the discussion at times, he was quite good on specifics and getting his issues into the debate. Biden unleashed repeated personal attacks, including resorting to name-calling, like "clown," "racist," "shut up," etc. And Biden looked 10-years older than his 77 years. More thoughts tomorrow.
Conservative Dana Loesch wrote on Twitter:
Never allow Chris Wallace to moderate another debate again. This was an absolute shit show. The viewer wasn’t even a secondary concern.
Bill O'Reilly:
Chris Wallace doesn’t have the facts at his command about the Ukraine payments made to Biden’s son that Trump brought up. Big mistake by Mr. Wallace.
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