The final 2020 Presidential Debate happened tonight with Kristen Welker as the moderator. As always, I have to admit my bias in favor of Trump. I won’t do a blow by blow this time.
I have to note that Welker did a fine job and did not seem to propagate bias to any great degree.
All that said, some of Biden’s statements were earthshattering. They were admissions of lies and admissions that he follows a radical left agenda.
Optics
I thought Trump was the usual Trump. Biden at times seems small and old, and started to lose his voice a bit near the end. The camera positions were fine, no advantages there, the audio was good, and as mentioned before Welker did not interfere with the discussion and allowed responses when asked, while not losing control. Only Biden tried to speak into a dead mic.
Could be my imagination but Biden slipped into a rambling mode several times. Might not have been noticed by Biden fans.
Notable Trump statements
Trump nailed Biden on the corruption, Ukraine, China and Russia. Stated that he was corrupt, drove it home many times.
Trump at one point said, “Joe, I’m looking at you, you are the reason I ran for President.” Was a good line.
Trump was able to nail Biden several times when he described his plans for the future, “You were just in office as Vice President for 8 years, you’ve been in politics for 47 years, why haven’t you changed it already??”
In Trump’s closing speech, his message was “Success will bring us together”
Trump hammered Joe several times – “Typical politician” and “All talk no action”
Trump hammered home the point that children in cages were an Obama/Biden phenomenon, not a Trump administration issue.
Notable Biden statements
Said “Come on!” seven times by my count.
Fired back on the corruption charges talking about Trump’s tax returns and the meme that Trump only paid $750 in taxes one year. Trump answered adequately that his returns were still under audit, and that he actually has paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes.
Earth shattering –“Within 100 days, I will put 11 million people on a path to citizenship”
Earth shattering – Biden will shut down the oil industry in the cause of climate change.
Said that he was going to pay states $20 Billion to reduce their mandatory criminal sentences. I’m not sure what he is referring to, but is he planning to buy off states at 50 x $20B, a trillion dollars???
Earth shattering – Argued that he would not shut down fracking. Denied that he said he would many times, but then admitted that he said he would not allow it on federal land. It was very clear he was trying to deceive Pennsylvania. I believe Pennsylvania will get that message.
Earth shattering – Biden finally admitted that his 1994 crime bill was a mistake. Trump challenged him as to why he didn’t fix it during his tenure as Vice President.
Who will I vote for?
Trump, of course, I said that before. But Trump won this debate handily in my opinion. He had a better command of facts, he had better issues, he drove home points and forces Biden to make spoken admissions in several areas.
Most importantly, he made Joe respond to the corruption charges directly. This is important, because the issue has been largely confined to conservative leaning media. The debate reaches both Democrats and Republicans, and will be the first time that some Democrats will have heard. Liberals will be curious, its going to grow legs now.