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Trump Wins Second Debate. Will It Be Enough?
The second debate was a completely different animal from the first. President Trump and former Vice President Biden were able to present their answers, arguments, and attacks without constant interruptions from each other or the moderator.
The new muted mics rule worked quite well and we should expect to see it in future debates. When one candidate answered a question, the other’s mic was muted. After both provided their statements, the mics were left open for that lively partisan bickering we’ve come to expect.
This worked greatly to Donald Trump’s favor.
The President vastly improved his performance, holding Joe Biden’s feet to the fire while maintaining his cool. Biden turned in the journeyman performance one would expect from a frontrunner. His job was to remain upright and not commit some outlandish gaffe, a feat he achieved. And yet…
That tricky Trump fellow laid several traps and Joe eagerly jumped right into them.
To start the debate, Trump hit Biden hard on the growing “laptop from hell” controversy. Biden’s answers were either unsatisfactory or downright deceptive; that will come back to bite him. Since about 20 minutes were dedicated to the issue, the press will have a hard time maintaining their embargo.
Impressively, Trump focused on the Biden family’s lucrative arrangements with China, Russia, and Ukraine in a relaxed manner. His “more in sadness than in anger” tone raised question after question without the need to bang the table. Trump concern-trolled the hell out of Biden and it worked like a charm.
He also got Joe to deny that he ever wanted ban fracking, although we saw him say just that in the Democratic primary debates. Trump has the video and promised to release it yet again to our ever-incurious press.
When Biden blasted Trump over putting children in cages, POTUS kept reminding him that Obama created them. “Who built the cages, Joe?” Trump kept asking. Biden had no response.
Biden’s worst moment was when Trump actually got him to admit that he will end the US oil industry. Later, Joe tried to massage that promise but Trump highlighted it repeatedly, calling out voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and Oklahoma to pay close attention to what that will mean for their jobs. Let a thousand ads bloom.
In addition to creating headaches for himself, Biden was remarkably inconsistent. Angry one moment, fake laughing the next, marble-mouthing convoluted answers. His energy level waxed and waned over the 90-minute affair, while Trump always appeared in command.
Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC wasn’t as dreadful as Chris Wallace or Savannah Guthrie, but she was faster to interrupt Trump than Biden, especially when the President was on a roll. According to the numbers, there were 24 interTrumps to two for Biden. And, of course, all the questions came from the left.
By the end of Thursday’s debate, the former vice president was looking at his watch, a move that doomed George H.W. Bush’s re-election (at least according to the press at the time). It was a visual reminder that Biden is playing a Prevent Defense and hoping to run out the clock.
A lot can happen in the second half of the fourth quarter. Tonight, Trump was moving down the field.
Published in General
Right, now let’s elect a man whose previous administration presided over the mass suicide of hundreds of thousands of people whose futures were destroyed by globalization. I mean at least the Democrats have the grace to make discussion of their victims taboo so we can all pretend they don’t exist.
Trump won the second debate. Kristen Welker did a better job than I expected. Biden talking about “transitioning from the oil industry” and his earlier admissions of wanting to ban fracking were devastating. Even without the Biden Family Corruption with China & the Ukraine Biden loses.
Biden: where’s this guy from? Trump: Queens
The headline assumes that Biden is leading and the polls are correct.
The polls are fake, a pack of lies with a couple exceptions such as Trafalgar and Democracy Institute.
Imagine a world where polls didn’t exist… who would think Biden is leading?
This line alone should disqualify from the Presidency.
There are at least 10 reasons why Biden is not fit for office
And one for you too
Yes, I know the original Allen line.
Excited thinking about getting screwed again by the Government.
It is possible you are right; however, be careful what you wish for. A blowout which decimates the republican party is unlikely to bring the country together. The democrats will interpret that as a mandate and will take steps to ensure they never lose again. Joe Bidden isn’t going to stop them. He may be trying to sell the tired bromide of I’ll be president of all the people; however, he was a hyper partisan senator and part of the a hyper partisan administration that actively wielded the levers of power against the opposition, so you will forgive me if that rings hollow.
I don’t think you are right though. Polling is a funny business and your side has created a climate in which errors are going to exists and they will all be in one direction. You can’t have ordinary people hounded out of work and then expect them to give a socially undesirable answer on a poll. When the STASI is asking the question everyone is a good communist. Additionally almost every election of my lifetime was about the economy and before COVID that was very good. In fact it is the one issue that normally Trump leads Biden on. Biden hurt himself in the Debate with the fossil fuel thing. Trump is going to be playing that ad on a loop in PA for the next two weeks. Also Trump has had tremendous outreach to minority communities, It is difficult to see if that will have an effect. But if it helps erode the monolithic support the democrats normally enjoy in those groups it definitely upends the script.
The news media and big tech has put their thumbs firmly on the scale for this election. I am not sure what to believe anymore and that is a huge problem, with lasting effects. I don’t think there is any way predict the outcome at this point. I doubt very much that it looks like the 2016 electorate or the 2018 electorate, which means the polling is probably terribly skewed. There is a lot of Trump fatigue; however, Biden has run a terrible campaign in some ways only really buoyed up by the Media.
In the end I know you are a style over substance guy. You hope that a loss will cleanse or destroy the republican party and think it will be rebuilt along the McCain Romney lines of the party. That is not going to happen. If Trump looses he’ll be back in 4 years running against Kamala, assuming the Dems haven’t managed to rig the system (big if) and have managed to overreach (virtual certainty) He’ll have ben proven a prophet. It will be a formidable weapon. I suspect if you get your fondest wish and Trump loses big Trumpism is cemented in the republican party forever.
LOL.
Because in Gary Land none of this is visible.
Biden Democrats and NT….
I’m still against muted mikes. Allowing someone to interrupt gives voters a glimpse of that person’s character and demeanor.
Still, it was good to hear the muted mikes worked in Trump’s favor. This means the MSM and Debate Commission’s plan backfired, because I bet you they thought muting Trump would give an advantage to Biden.
The Twits [sic] are saying that Trump lied because he accused Biden of wanting to ban fossil fuels when he really said “transition from.”
When the government says “transition” they mean “ban slowly.”
I think that is political spin, and I’m not even sure what it means. What would “Biden losing” look like? A freeze-frame on him tucking in his shirt? His eye blowing up as something exploded within it? An incoherent ramble in which he obviously forgot Jill’s name?
I think that Biden is in the lead, and he may very well win the election, but that is a different question.
Who won the debate?
President Trump.
How will this win impact the election?
That I can’t answer, but I really do feel better about how I’ll cast my one, little vote. I’d guess there are other people like me?
One area I think Trump was weak on (in both debates) was healthcare. He keeps saying how he’s going to replace Obamacare with “something better” and never outlines what that is. He’s been saying this since 2016. But if you look at what he’s actually done, he’s been “doing something” all along. He really needs to emphasize how his administration’s deregulation lead to lower prescription drug prices. I know that asking the average American to understand economics may be asking too much, but you have to make the attempt. He really doesn’t need to “do something,” he needs to keep doing what he’s been doing.
Wordplay like this is why people don’t trust lawyers… or the media.
Considering that Trump is down 10 points nationally, and down in many swing states how is he not the winner of a push debate? It’s not like any one is dumb enough to believe Trump isn’t the man we saw in the first debate. An unfiltered and incoherent a-hole. Thanks to external moderation he was able to sound more human tonight. But sadly for him, us, and the nation someone isn’t muting Trump all the time.
Yep. Right here.
Sadly, that also doesn’t apply to a long list of Democrat chowderheads, too.
You could just tune out. You have that option. You don’t have to listen to anyone you don’t want to.
Trump should just tell them to have the NYT share them.
And for the most part I don’t. But still sadly because he is president I can’t not fully avoid having to hear or see him. I recall before 2015 when Republican chose to embrace this gapping sore of a man I went years without thinking or hearing from Donald Trump and when I did it was only indirectly.
I loved the “Panel” afterwards with Bret Baier and Martha McCallum at the head. Wallace, as a member, could only cry about not having a mute button when he was the moderator in the first fiasco, uh …debate. What he still doesn’t realize is that the mute button would have been used to silence him as much as Trump or Biden.
You have to remember that JPod is manic/depressive on Trump, based on what the last thing he saw happened to be. So his New York Post column today on the debate was about as upbeat as possible for him:
He does go on to ask whether or not Trump’s debate performance comes a little too late to turn things around, but given the amount of early voting this year, that sort of crushing morosity is a legitimate question. Of course, Noah or Christine could have a different take when the Commentary Podcast goes live in an hour or two….
It’s a little-known fact that the Lincoln-Douglas debates ended when Lincoln hit Douglas with an early version of the jackknife powerbomb.
Considering what the Republican party has done in the last several years, calling it an “embrace” is a reach.
But now you know how I felt during Obama’s 2 terms.
The only thing I can figure after watching the debate was that Biden was interviewing for a job at Burger King. He was serving up one Whopper after another.
I’ll give the man credit. He lies convincingly enough to persuade his credulous supporters on Ricochet.
Biden said last night that his goal was to end reliance on fossil fuels by 2025.
I mean, that might have sounded almost plausible 20 years ago. But 2025 is right around the corner, and that simply will not — cannot — happen. That statement by Biden (like so many of his statements) was a nonsense slogan. And like so much of what he said last night, it was what he had to say to retain the approval of the hard left.
There was a ridiculous moment early in the debate (on the subject of the Bat Flu Virus) where Welker asked Biden what his plan was for dealing with the COVID crisis, and Biden’s response was basically, “My plan is that I will have a plan.” (Except he spent a least a minute explaining his plan to have a plan.)
I wish the President had jumped on that dodge.