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Thursday evening was the second and final presidential debate. C-Span
The right argues that Trump won the debate.
“Mr. Trump was both better prepared and more disciplined than in the first debate, and if he loses on Nov. 3 he will wish he had done that the first time. He offered the best defense we’ve heard him make of his coronavirus effort, focusing on the vaccines in development, his mobilization of resources in the spring, and the need to balance protection of the vulnerable with reopening the country…
“Mr. Biden is his most demagogic when he addresses the virus, saying at one point that ‘anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President.’ We’ve criticized Mr. Trump’s inconsistent and sometimes Panglossian rhetoric, but calling him responsible for every American death is neither honest nor decent. Mr. Biden’s ‘plan’ on Covid is essentially Mr. Trump’s with more prudent rhetoric and a warning to wear a mask. On potential future lockdowns, Mr. Trump says no while Mr. Biden says maybe.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Tonight, Trump forced Biden to reveal that he wanted to grant amnesty to over 10 million illegal immigrants, to transition American energy away from oil and that he still has no defense for the 1994 crime bill. The first two are disasters for middle America; the latter is no winner among minorities…
“Trump was perhaps most successful in presenting his vision for a post-COVID America, something that will certainly appeal to individuals who have been harmed economically by the lockdowns. The President spoke optimistically about reopening the country safely, rolling out a vaccine and getting children back in school… It is a shame for the Trump campaign that they only got two debates, because this one was a major win for their team.”
Amber Athey, Spectator USA
“Biden, who has led Trump by an unusually stable margin not just nationally but also in key swing states, closed out an otherwise well-done debate committing to combat climate change not by maximizing the fracking operations that have helped the United States reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than other nations in the Paris climate accords or by embracing GHG-neutral nuclear power. Instead, he decided to obliterate his potential odds in Pennsylvania, perhaps the single most important battleground on the map. ‘Transition from the oil industry? Yes,’ Biden said…
“According to the American Petroleum Institute, more than 300,000 of some 6 million Pennsylvanians in the workforce are employed by jobs supported by oil or natural gas. That's 5%, or 1 in every 20 workers there, who rely on those related industries.”
Tiana Lowe, Washington Examiner
“Moderator Kristen Welker asked both candidates whether they understood the fears of Black and brown families who worry their children ‘could be targeted, including by the police, for no reason other than the color of their skin.’ When it was Trump’s turn to answer, he said ‘Yes, I do’ and laid out his record, including opportunity zones to bring investment into struggling Black communities, substantial funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, prison reform and criminal justice reform. By contrast, he said, Biden has ‘been in government for 47 years. He never did a thing except in 1994 when he did such harm to the Black community’ with his crime bill…
“Biden has an enthusiasm problem with Black voters. One of the reasons Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 is because the Obama coalition did not turn out for her. Biden was supposed to energize those voters, but according to CNN, Biden’s support among Black voters, a key part of that coalition, is smaller than Clinton’s was in 2016. And The Post reported in late May that only 68 percent of young African Americans aged 18 to 29 said they intend to vote for Biden — 17 points fewer than supported Clinton four years ago…
“Trump successfully reminded these voters of Biden’s role in the mass incarceration of African Americans — and how Biden failed, and Trump succeeded, in passing criminal justice reform to end it. That exchange could have a lasting impact on Election Day.”
Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post
“Trump scored his most effective criticism when he asked Biden why he never enacted all of his grandiose plans during his previous 47 years in the Senate and vice presidency… At one point early in the evening, moderator Kristen Welker asked Biden, ‘do you want to respond to that?’ And Biden answered, ‘no.’ If the Democratic nominee were a football team, he would line up in the victory formation and take a knee every play. Biden is convinced he has the race effectively won, and simply wants to run out the clock and avoid making mistakes. (If Trump surprises everyone and defies the polls, Biden’s closing strategy will be seen as an epic miscalculation.)”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
The left argues that Biden won the debate.
The left argues that Biden won the debate.
“The president had no good answer as to why the United States accounts for 4% of the world’s population and 20% of its COVID-19 deaths. Nor could he answer for Russia’s attempts to interfere in the U.S. election while he refuses to criticize its leader, Vladimir Putin. North Korea’s continued arming after Trump ‘fell in love’ with its murderous dictator is hard to defend, as is Trump’s effort to throw 20 million people off their health insurance by repealing, or overturning, the Affordable Care Act… Trump called Biden ‘all talk and no action,’ but it is difficult for an incumbent with a record to defend to run as an insurgent outsider.”
Editorial Board, USA Today
“For some reason, Trump thinks it's comforting to tell people who have lost loved ones to the virus and are keeping their children at home that getting the Covid-19 is [no] big deal. The US is not being congratulated by foreign leaders because of Trump's handling of the pandemic, as Trump claimed. In fact, we are being banned from traveling to other countries. Trump claims a vaccine is coming by the end of the year, the same way he claims he has a health care plan, the same way he claims he will release his tax returns -- which gives us zero confidence that any of these claims of a cure are more than a pipe dream.”
Nayyera Haq, CNN
“Trump was asked to answer for the 545 migrant children who may never see their parents again after his administration separated them from their families at the US-Mexico border. But the president instead took the opportunity to air his xenophobic views of immigrants, falsely claiming that the affected children were brought to the US by smugglers known as ‘coyotes,’ cartels, gangs and ‘lots of bad people.’… All of the 545 children, who are now party to a lawsuit in federal court, came to the US with their parents. Many of them have been separated from their parents since 2017… Trump offered no plan to help reunite the families.”
Nicole Narea, Vox
Biden “managed to land the best lines of the night. On the coronavirus, Biden mocked Trump's line that ‘we're learning to live with it’ by saying, ‘We're dying with it.’ After an extended back-and-forth over their families and allegations of corruption, Biden turned to the camera and said: ‘It's not about his family or my family. It's about your family.’ And when the debate turned to race, Biden got this line off about Trump: ‘This guy has a dog whistle as big as a fog horn.’… But it wasn't all good…
“Biden's answers to Trump's attacks on why he didn't get more done on immigration or race relations during his eight years as vice president were weak. (Biden blamed the Republican-controlled Congress.) And particularly toward the end of the debate, Biden seemed to flag somewhat -- losing his train of thought and misspeaking at times. Biden will never be a great debater, and he wasn't *on* on Thursday night. But he did enough -- more than enough -- to keep the race roughly right where it is. Which is with him as a clear favorite to win on November 3.”
Chris Cillizza, CNN
“In the middle of a heated exchange on climate change during the final presidential debate, President Donald Trump went on the attack: He repeated his go-to claim that Joe Biden plans to ban fracking, a drilling process that injects a chemical cocktail and water into rock to extract gas…
“As Biden reminded voters, ‘I said no fracking on federal land.’ That’s a big distinction: Roughly 90 percent of fracking occurs on state and private land, meaning he’d be leaving the vast amount of existing fracking alone. And even if he wanted to ban all fracking, he couldn’t. According to Harvard’s Joseph Goffman, the EPA’s former top climate attorney, the president wouldn’t have the executive power unless Congress passed a new law.”
Rebecca Leber, Mother Jones
Regarding healthcare, “‘The reason why I had such a fight with 20 candidates for the nomination was I support private insurance,’ Biden said. ‘Not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare.’ To be clear: Some Americans had a private plan canceled when the ACA’s new rules took effect (but most of them qualified for new coverage); Biden’s plan as written would allow people who get private insurance through their work to enroll in a government-run public option, but only if they choose…
“Trump has tried to turn Medicare-for-all into an election-year bogeyman, part of his strategy to make Biden look like a stalking horse for the left. But Biden keeps rebutting that argument with a simple truth: He doesn’t support Medicare-for-all. He wants to build on Obamacare with a plan that the Urban Institute estimates would provide insurance to every legal resident in the United States, including 25 million currently uninsured people. At Thursday night’s debate, he said he’d even have a name for it: ‘Bidencare.’”
Dylan Scott, Vox
