BY TYLER O'NEIL | P J Media
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden went head to head on Tuesday night, and moderator Chris Wallace got knocked out. Wallace seemed to push left-wing talking points to help Biden and hurt Trump, but both candidates talked over him. Trump and Biden brought out the fisticuffs and both got in a few good hits. Biden stumbled but he did not come across as a bumbling fool.
While Trump and Biden both went on the offensive, Trump
got in more clear statements and Biden came across as shifty, especially on
packing the Supreme Court.
Wallace asked Biden if he would support expanding the
Supreme Court to more than nine justices, noting that Democrats brought up the
issue first. Biden refused to answer the question, and Trump pressed him.
When Trump asked, “Why aren’t you going to answer that
question?” Biden shot back, “Would you shut up, man?”
After Trump pressed, “Who is on your list, Joe?” Biden
responded by saying, “This is so unpresidential.”
Not only did Biden dodge the question, but he lost his
cool about the issue, and then accused his opponent of being unpresidential
right after he said, “Would you shut up, man?”
On the issue of nominating Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s
replacement to the Supreme Court, Trump insisted, “I’m not elected for three
years, I’m elected for four years.” He suggested that Biden’s call for delaying
the nomination and confirmation until after the election would essentially deny
Trump’s presidency — an effective counter.
When Trump tried to catch Biden on the extreme measures
of the far left, the Democrat responded, “I am the Democratic Party right now.”
We’ll see what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has to say about that.
On the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Biden claimed that
the U.S. has 4 percent of the world’s population but 20 percent of coronavirus
deaths. Trump rightly called him out on this, noting that countries like China
are likely undercounting their deaths. (He should have mentioned Iran and
Russia, but he did mention China and India.)
Biden repeated the false claim that Trump suggested
injecting “bleach into your arm.” In reality, Trump asked the experts a question about using a disinfectant
to fight the virus, and he suggested that people should not try this without
medical doctors.
When Trump brought up Hunter Biden’s notorious
corruption, Joe Biden insisted, “My son did nothing wrong at Burisma.” The
president countered, “Why did he deserve three and a half million from
Moscow?!”
Biden noted that black Americans have died from COVID-19
at higher rates, insisting that Trump’s presidency has “been disastrous for the
African American community.” Yet Trump rightly countered by citing the 1994
crime bill and Trump’s criminal justice reform. “I’m letting people out of jail
now.” Trump accused Biden of using the term “super-predators.” Biden did
condemn “predators,” but Hillary Clinton was the one to call criminals
“super-predators.” Clinton was defending the bill Biden championed, however.
Trump championed law and order, noting that 250 military
leaders and generals have endorsed him, along with a long list of law
enforcement organizations, including the national Fraternal Order of Police.
The president challenged Biden to name a single law enforcement group that
supports him and the Democrat could not.
When Wallace asked Trump about his decision to end “white
privilege” trainings in the federal government, the president explained, “I
ended it because it’s racist.” He noted that the trainings, many of which
follow Marxist critical race theory, “were teaching people to hate our
country,” claiming that America is fundamentally racist. Biden countered by
saying that “there is racial insensitivity.”
Trump rightly noted that Biden’s policy would destroy the
suburbs by getting rid of local control over zoning. Biden responded by saying,
“all these dog whistles on racism don’t work anymore.” The Democrat is correct
— dog whistles don’t work, because Trump’s argument isn’t a dog whistle.
Biden supports the Obama administration’s radical AFFH (Affirmatively
Furthering Fair Housing) regulation which gets rid of single-family zoning in
the name of diversity. This would end local control, which is the real issue.
President Trump touted that he will have nominated and
the Senate will have confirmed approximately 300 federal judges, along with at
least two — and likely three — Supreme Court justices.
Biden countered by claiming that Trump is “Putin’s puppy”
and accusing the president of “causing the recession” associated with the
coronavirus pandemic.
As Reason’s Robby Soave pointed out,
Trump painted Biden as the candidate of lockdowns and Biden did little to rebut
the idea. The Democrat has suggested he would shut down the country again if he
wins in November.
Wallace pulled a fast one toward the end of the debate,
bringing up the issue of climate change. President Trump condemned the Paris
Climate Accord, noted that the environment has gotten better, touted the
project to plant a billion trees, and emphasized the importance of forest
management in states like California that have been overwhelmed by forest
fires.
“If you had forest management, good forest management,
you wouldn’t be getting those calls,” Trump said, explaining that dead leaves
on the forest floor contribute to wildfires. I grew up in dry rural Colorado
and I spent my summers clearing up the forest floor in the mountains. My father
is a volunteer firefighter and I did my Eagle Project in wildland fire
mitigation. Forest management is far more critical to preventing forest fires than the
unproven claims about climate change increasing the temperature by a degree or
two.
In one of the more memorable events of the night,
President Trump called on the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” while
Joe Biden refused to even address the instigators in antifa. Instead, Biden
cited FBI Director Christopher Wray, who has called antifa an ideology, not a
group. “Antifa’s an idea, not an organization,” the Democrat said, supposedly
quoting Wray.
While Wallace took Trump to task for interrupting Biden,
Wallace himself interrupted Trump.
“Gentlemen, I hate to raise my voice, but why should I be
different than the two of you?” Wallace said. Wallace suggested that Trump had
interrupted more than Biden, but Biden also interrupted both Trump and Wallace
throughout the debate.
CNN’s Jake Tapper called the debate “a hot mess, inside a
dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”
President Trump got in more good jabs at Biden than the
Democrat got in at him, but Biden did not prove the stuttering fool that many
on the Right expected. I would say Trump won the debate, but it was grating to
hear three people talk at once so many times.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
