MSNBC's Lawrence on Biden-Trump debate: "We live in a country where most commentators declared the liar the debate winner" -- (video, 20 min) ( iv.datura.network )

Here is the original link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgjyHwQOUoo

"Last night in Donald Trump's first debate appearance since January 6th, the debate moderators did not ask him what the January 6th committee very much wanted to ask him, what were you doing for those 187 minutes?"

"Instead ... the very first question to Donald Trump was:"

CNN: You want to impose a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. How will you ensure that that doesn't drive prices even higher?'

TRUMP: It's not going to drive them higher.

tardigrada OP ,

Just stumbled upon this (it's a podcast, 7 min, contains some explicit language).

I apologize for losing my shit here

I just spent 7 minutes losing my shit. I apologize, but No regrets. Because they're doing it again. Trump & his sycophants are spreading lies, attacking our democracy and inciting violence again. On purpose. They are traitors. We must defeat them.

esaru , (edited )

Trump can win a match by lying and playing foul if his opponent looks weak and his sole goal is to convince people. Integrity and experience are not enough to compete Trump. It needs someone in better physical conditions and charisma than Biden to prevent Trump.

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

I really hope that there weren't many burgeoning conservatives hearing Donald Trump speak for the first time, but I'm not sure how likely that is. For everyone else he's a known quantity. His performance was more or less like his historical performances although for Trump it was probably the worst he's ever performed while being more vulnerable than he ever has been (which could only have been irrelevant in this context). His base liked it, everyone else thinks he's a psycho, and Republican voters are just going to vote for the Republican regardless.

I'm seeing a lot of people upset that the moderators didn't do a better job debating Donald Trump. Joe Biden was supposed to debate Donald Trump, and he was not up to the task. He rebutted many of Trump's lies and said many things that would probably have been effective if he had the energy he had even 4 years ago, but it didn't matter because he could hardly get words out and looked terrified most of the time. Worse still, many of the things he did say which were understandable were word salad (contrasted to Trump who speaks so fluently in word salad his base doesn't notice). The thing is though, most democrats already knew Biden was this bad and are deliberately obfuscating to others and perhaps even themselves this fact even now. No one who was going to vote against Trump is going to change their vote just because it got way more difficult to be dishonest about the Joe Biden's abilities for 90 minutes. Biden is really irrelevant to this election anyway, it's still about whether or not we want Trump in office.

What seems to me was most relevant about this debate is that we have reached a new low which is strikingly obvious to everyone paying attention who isn't pursuing their political party's interests above even their own. We have never had a debate which was almost totally unintelligible from beginning to end like this one was. I can't guess what the effect of that might be.

t3rmit3 ,

I'm sure the Romans were used to seeing performance like this from their leaders towards the end, too.

On a more serious note, thank you for pointing out that the debate was supposed to be between Biden and Trump, not CNN and Trump.

Kissaki , (edited )
@Kissaki@beehaw.org avatar

I think it's a question of how you see the debate. What it is, or should be. Is it between the two candidates, and moderators merely give it structure? Or is it a debate with an expectation of truth and trustworthiness, fulfilling the press code, where the moderators would have to at least point out lies or ask for clarifications?

A debate between two candidates has its value, but we can't deny it strengthens Trumps position as an apparently to many people charismatic liar. Between only two people it's about who is more charismatic and convincing, not about truthfulness, verifiability. All of those only go as far as the other candidate can establish them.

If many citizens watch only the debate, is that enough to inform them / base their voting [or omission thereof] on?

In the end, it may be understandable to wish for moderators to point out lies. It can be irritating and frustrating to see lies on a podium finding success, without successful, conclusive rebuttal. But that's not the moderators' place in the show format as it is.

Disclaimer: I haven't watched it.

Zaktor ,

If our system had an option for "none of the above, find new candidates and try again" it would be leading.

storksforlegs ,
@storksforlegs@beehaw.org avatar

He's right, the real story should be how badly CNN shit the bed with how they handled this debate. They basically let Trump run wild, didn't challenge or correct him.

And all rveryone can talk about was how energetic trump was, and how Biden "stumbled" etc. The coverage is way more appalling than the actual debate. Hell even in Canada the media is running stories about how Biden 'lost' the debate and "time to panic!" Despite Trump making no sense and lying 100% of the time.

What in the fuck is happening here?

PythagreousTitties ,

They love the drama, that's what's happening.

aleph , (edited )
@aleph@lemm.ee avatar

What happened is that Biden and his team completely screwed up. They called for this debate and agreed to its terms, which included the fact that the moderator team would not be fact checking Trump in order to avoid accusations of bias.

These terms shifted the onus of calling Trump out on his biggest lies to Biden himself, who would have known that Trump would try to gish-gallop his way through the debate and avoid discussing policy because that's precisely what he did in 2020. The fact that Biden failed spectacularly to counter Trump in any meaningful way is the reason why he lost the debate.

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

The worst moment of the debate was when the moderators asked Trump about Roe and Trump doubled down on the extremely unpopular stance. Instead of seizing on the single greatest advantage the democrats have during this election, Biden instead decided to make an appeal to racism which I can only imagine was an attempt to capture some of Trump's racist supporters which I could have advised is the dumbest possible strategy for a democrat to employ unless they're running against a democrat to the left of them. He changed the topic from ending federal protections for abortions to one of the Republican's favorite stories of the time a single undocumented person committed rape, and they like the way Trump tells that story way better. Changed the conversation from protecting women to who can make life harder for immigrants, and Trump wins that competition despite the Biden administration's efforts.

aleph ,
@aleph@lemm.ee avatar

Yeah, that was the single biggest Biden blunder of the evening, IMO. I was dumbfounded.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

That's not how structured debates (Policy, Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, etc) work. Judges don't tell a team their facts are wrong, the other team does. Judges decide which of the teams had better argumentation. If you spout lies and I don't call you on it, as the opposing team, I will probably lose.

But let's say we accept that this is barely a structured debate, and the structure that was there sucked anyways, so hey- maybe it's was really a speech event (like Big Question, Extemporaneous, Humorous Interpretation, etc). That makes it even clearer why people are reacting like this, because those are not about facts at all, they're all about performance (as in 'acting').

My own view is that presidential debates are more akin to throwing the candidates in a gladiatorial arena and seeing whoever comes out least bloody. And that was always going to be Trump. Biden and his team are to blame for this, because it never should have taken place.

Kissaki ,
@Kissaki@beehaw.org avatar

Judges don’t tell a team their facts are wrong, the other team does. Judges decide which of the teams had better argumentation.

I find the judge symbolism interesting and compelling, but moderators are not judges. They're not making a judgement in place of the citizens by the end.

Rather than only letting two people debate, they could ask for clarifications. If you see them as press, and as representing the citizens, you may even think they have to to fulfill the press code and their responsibility.

Truck_kun ,

On the CNN side, my biggest complaint was the mics were not indeed cut at the end of each persons time. If I was undecided, I wouldn't want to listen to two old men bicker, I'd want to actually hear their opinions and viewpoints.

They let it slip to some back and forth with both mics active at the same time on occasion. If they can't manage that, then they shouldn't get to host any presidential debates in the future. Luckily the next and last debate for this election is not them; we'll see how ABC does.

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