plutherus | Sep. 29th, 2020

Sep. 29th, 2020

And, I'm using the word "presidential" very loosely where one party is concerned.

I'll be blogging during the debate here. Do not expect live fact checking. There'll be plenty of people more prepared to document all of donald's lies than I am. Mostly this will be my impressions and comments (and possibly rants) as it goes.

Also, don't expect any kind of "fair and balanced reporting" here. I am blatantly pro-science, pro-human rights, pro-democracy, anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-bigotry, anti-corruption, and therefore anti-trump.

Writing while watching is the equivalent of screaming, but doesn't hurt my throat as well.

The moderator will not be fact checking.
NBC has an entire crew on it. :) (But, they never showed up. Maybe they'll have a fact-checked version up later?)

"You won't see a lot of live fact checking from Biden, unless something is particularly egregious." Hah!

Why would he say what he's gonna do in his second term? He still hasn't come up with an agenda for his first term. (At least, none that he'll admit to)

First question, Supreme Court

What about the nominee? Should you continue, and what will change?

Trump: We won and we have the senate. She's super qualified and respected by everybody.
Her qualifications? A professor from her law school said she was the best student ever. (Seriously, he said that.)

Biden: Quoted McConnell, "The American people have a right..." but didn't give him credit.
100 million people have pre-existing conditions, and will lose them.
donald says no there aren't, so they don't matter. Reiterates that they *can* put her on the court, so therefore they will. Still hasn't said why they should. Reiterates that ACA is bad, so it's good that they'll be getting rid of it.

Donald says biden wants socialist health care, no private plans (that isn't true)

Biden already points out 200,000 dead, it would be worse without health care.
Donald again claims he did a great job, it's the democrats fault he didn't do anything about covid. He wanted to, but they said no.

Trump on roe v wade: "It's not on the ballot. You don't know that. you don't know what's on the ballot. You don't know her view. You don't know."
You mean, other than all her public statements?

Chris: You haven't you come up with a replacement for obamacare... "Yes I have! Yes I have!"

Wallace shuts him up, tells him he's wrong. Trump is upset at being called out.

Continuing health care

On coming up with a plan to replace Obamacare:
Trump says he will. He hasn't, but he will. He takes credit for lowering the price of insulin "It's so cheap, it's like water, it's so cheap" (Does he actually expect anyone to believe that?)

Trump is incapable of just not shutting up for a few seconds. It's impressive. "No I didn't! No I don't! Socialized medicine!"

"Pocahantas would have beat you!" More racism from trump.

Biden: "I'm not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he's a liar."
Trump interrupts more.
Chris: Let him speak.
Trump: I am! (continues yelling. Socialized Medicine!"

Biden: He has no plan. He has no idea how to fix it.
Trump: I already fixed it. "This is the way it is! My choice was to run it really well, or badly, but no matter how well you run it, it's a disaster. I got rid of pre-existing conditions"

Biden: The fact is, this man doesn't know what he's talking about.

Wallace: You brought up packing the court, adding justices. Are you willing to tell the American people that you will support ending the filibuster or pack the court with extra justices?
Biden refuses to answer. I think he knows that both of those things are unpopular.

Wallace brings up 200,000 dead. Trump glowers silently. Hah! Finally shut him up for a moment.
Wallace: Why should the american people trust you?
Biden: Lists the numbers. "It is what it is because you are who you are." "He's on tape acknowledging that he knew about it, but praised Xi, and did absolutely nothing else. He still doesn't have a plan." Biden points out that he has a plan already, he's been pushing for it. "Get off your golf course, and get into the oval office and do something about it."

Trump: "You don't know how many died in China." Claims he closed the border. Claims he was the only one who did and that he saved thousands of lives and that he's taking strong action. "All the governor's said that president trump did a phenomenal job. We're weeks away from a vaccine. We've done a great job. But the fake news gives me bad coverage." None of that is true, obviously. (Except the bad coverage - they keep reporting things he actually says.)

Wallace: "What about swine flu?"
Biden: 14,000 died. We didn't have a recession. We took action. It was horrible. But it wasn't anywhere near 200,000
I was disappointed he didn't point out that they came up with a pandemic response team because of it, which trump promptly dismantled.

Biden: We don't trust that there'll be a vaccine in two weeks.

Wallace: All your top scientists have contradicted you. Are they wrong?
Trump: I don't speak to the scientists, I talked to the companies, and they're right. (sniff)
He isn't sniffing as much as he has in past debates, but still a little bit.

Biden: You said, it'll be gone by easter. You mentioned injecting bleach.
"I was saying it sarcastically!"
"Hopefully we will have a vaccine, but the scientists said it'll be at least summer"

Biden: Yes, you can trust the scientists. Most of them don't work for him, their jobs don't depend on him. You can trust them. Not him.

Donald goes off on the economy, (his economy - the best ever) - and claims biden isn't smart like he is.

Wallace: Can we reopen?
Biden: You need a plan! You can't just say they're opening, you need a plan. You need the money, you need to provide PPE. We all want to reopen, but you need a plan.
trump: He wants to shut down the country, and I want to open it. That's what's important.

Wallace: What about masks? Are you questioning the effectiveness of masks?
Trump: No. I wear one when it's necessary, not like him that always has one.
Biden: Masks make a big difference -- his own CDC head said that if we just all did masks and social distancing from the beginning

Trump: We have had no problem with disease spread at my rallies. Tremendous crowds. 35, 40 thousand. No issues.
Nobody called him out on that. Again, I was disappointed that Biden didn't point out all the incidents of covid linked to trump's rallies.
Biden: Note how he stays far away from the crowd. He's not worried about you, just himself.

Continuing on Covid:
Trump: 2 million would be dead if Biden had been in charge. Now we are doing record business. 10 million people are back to work and nobody's ever seen that before.
They have to open the states! Only I want to open them. Calls out divorce, alcoholism, says that Biden wants to close down the whole country.

Wallace: s this a V-shaped or a K-shaped recovery? What's the difference?
Biden: Billionaires, and millionaires like him are doing really well. Other people? Not as well.
trump interrupts. Doesn't like Biden's mention of his taxes.
Biden: "Why aren't schools open? Because it costs money to open safely. He wouldn't even approve money for masks for teachers."
Trump: "People want their schools open." Still no mention of how. He can't say how because he has no plan.
Trump: "I brought back football! That was me! People of Ohio are very proud of me."

Wallace: Brings up taxes. $750 per year. What about income tax? Is this true?

Trump: I paid millions of dollars of income taxes. I paid 38 million.
Biden interrupts this time: "Show us your tax returns"
Trump: I will! I am extremely under-leveraged because I'm a very good businessman"
Wallace: Will you tell us how much you paid.
Trump: Millions of dollars. I paid millions of dollars. And you'll see it.
Biden: When?

Trump then goes on to say that all his tax breaks were because of Obama. He took advantage of them because he's smart. So, he's smart because he doesn't pay taxes, but at the same time it's fake news that he doesn't and also it's Obama's fault. Hm.

Wallace: What about the economy?" The Biden tax plan raises taxes. Is it too much?
Biden says his plan raises corporate tax rate and individual taxes on over $400,000/year.
He doesn't mention changes to capital gains.

And then the internet goes out. I have Comcast, so this happens from time to time. It's been doing it all day today. At this point, though, it's almost an act of mercy.

I missed about ten minutes or so because the internet went out. When I got back, they were apparently talking about Trump's plan to stop teaching about bad things in America's past, like slavery or Japanese internment.

Trump: They were teaching people that our country was horrible, and making people hate our country.
Biden: No, that's not it at all. There is racism. Trump is racist. People like him look down on people, like Irish Catholics like me, also poor people, and people with a different skin color.
Trump: There was racism during Obama, not now. And crime is down because of me.
Biden: Violent crime went down 17% during our administration. It went up during his.
Trump: We went down more.

Chris: Next topic, law and order. You say crime is down, but violent crime has gone up. And it's in republican cities as well as democratic cities.

Trump: Under biden, suburbs would be gone.
Biden: You wouldn't know a suburb unless you took a wrong turn. This isn't the 1950s, your racist dog whistles won't work. (Yep, he said this, that's not me paraphrasing this time.)

Wallace: Do you support defunding police?
Biden: No. (Boo!) Trump's budget reduces it, though. We need community policing, and more psychiatrists. (Not nearly enough, Joe! -Pat)
Trump: That's not what you mean! You don't have any law enforcement groups supporting you.

Wallace: OK, enough of that. (Hah! He's just giving up now). What about the protests, some of which are riots. Biden, have you called the democrats and demanded them to bring in the national guard?
Biden: No, that would be inappropriate, since I'm not in public office. (Also would be exactly the wrong thing to do! -Pat)

Biden: His own spokesperson said that riots help his numbers.
"I don't know who said that."
"I do."
"Well I don't."
"It was Kellyanne Conway."
"I don't think she said that"
"It doesn't matter what you think. She did."

Wallace: Are you willing to condemn white supremacists?
Trump: All the violence is from the left wing.
Biden points out his own people say right wing terrorism is the real problem.
Trump says they're wrong. "They have very bad ideas."
Biden calls him out on it. "You say everybody who doesn't tell you what you want to hear has very bad ideas. You have no idea."
Trump wants again claims that all his judge openings are because Obama didn't think to fill them.
Biden doesn't call him out on the reason they were open. I wish he would have.

Biden brings up the bounty on American soldiers. Trump tries to interrupt. Wallace calls him out and asks if he wants to address it. Trump shuts up for a several seconds.

Trump: tries to repeat lies about Hunter Biden, Biden points out he's lying.

Wallace: What will you do about climate change: What do you believe about the science of climate change?
Trump: I want crystal clear water and pure air. Keeps saying that. Also goes on about forests. "We don't clean out trees when they fall down"

Wallace: What do you believe about the science of climate change? He tries to get him to say whether he believes in anthropogenic climate change.
Trump: I want clean water. We need forest management. Fires are because of lack of management.
So if you believe in man made climate change, why did you roll back fuel economy standards, and climate change actions?
Then rambles on incoherently about how cars are too expensive because they have computers all over them. (Huh?)

Biden: There aren't going to be more coal and oil plants built. Renewable is the energy of the future. It will stimulate the economy, not tank it. The federal fleet switching to all electric alone will create thousands of jobs.
Says he WILL rejoin Paris accord. Because without it, too much damage is being done. Points out Brazil - he'd lobby for international cooperation (and funding) to save them.

Biden: Has several details on his plan. All these changes will create jobs. When the federal government updates buildings or gives tax credits for new construction, it creates jobs. That helps, not hurts the economy.
He then goes on to talk about how much just reacting to issues costs more without creating lasting jobs.

Trump rambles incoherently for a long time, ignoring biden and wallace.
Wallace, finally: Biden, please answer his final question.
Biden: What was his final question? It's hard to tell in all that random rambling.
Wallace agrees! Then asks, Green New Deal, do you support it?
Biden: No. (Boo! Support it, you jerk! -Pat)
Trump says Biden really does support it. "Yes you do! Yes you do!"

Q: How will you ensure election security?
Biden points out no evidence of election tampering via mail in ballots. Says that trump himself uses mail in ballots. Lists other specific methods to make sure everybody can vote, including more polling locations and increased funding to keep them safe.
"He cannot stop you from determining the outcome of the election"
"If he loses, he'll leave. He can't stay in power no matter what he wants."

Trump: There's been no transition. I won the election. (What?) There was no transition because crooked Hillary tried a coup. (What?) We caught you. We caught you. There was no transition.
Repeats lies about election fraud through the mail, and claims everybody gets a ballot no matter what, they're just sent out indiscriminately.
"They're losing 30 or 40%. It's fraud. It's a rigged election."

Wallace: Calls out his lies. Wow. A quarter of the people in 2018 mailed in their ballots and they didn't find significant fraud.
trump: They threw out millions of ballots in 2016. "Mailmen are selling ballots"
Biden: "No they're not"

(I hadn't heard the one about mail carriers selling ballots before. I don't know if it's something right wing media has been promoting for a while, or if he just now made it up.)

Wallace: Final question.
Trump won't let him ask it.
Trump finally shuts up.
Wallace says it could be days or weeks before everything is counted. "Will you urge your supporters to stay calm and wait for them to be counted?"

Trump: I am urging them to go into the polls to watch to make sure people who aren't supposed to vote aren't. I sent people into the polls in Philadelphia and they were thrown out because it is rigged and I am treated very unfairly.

Biden: Yes. As you pointed out, many of them can't even open until election day. Also, points out that military has been voting by mail since the civil war. Nobody has found widespread fraud. He will accept the outcome. And so will trump, whether he thinks so or not. (hah!)

Post debate comments: Commentator says that this was basically a food fight. Other commentator, Chuck, disagrees, and says it's a train wreck, and it's a train wreck because that's all that trump knows how to do. Apparently, a large number of people just turned it off.
I lost half the audience here as well. Of the four in my household, only two of us made it to the end.