Trump Derails 1st Presidential Debate With Biden, And 5 Other Takeaways

Speaker 1: 00:00 When rating last night's first presidential debate. It seems that the American people came at the losers voters, hoping to hear what policies and ideas, separate candidates, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump got to hear insults and interruptions instead. Speaker 2: 00:17 Well, then we're done. We're done, sir. [inaudible] tells you the truth is a passive bad idea. I have no ideas and Kiva is a dangerous gentlemen. We're now moving on to the Trump presidency. I'm going to ask you a question. Speaker 1: 00:39 The president did not abide by the rules. His campaign agreed upon to allow his opponent to answer questions. And Joe Biden was exasperated enough to tell Trump at one point to shut up moderator Chris Wallace lost control early on, and now many people are wondering if there should even be another presidential debate. Joining me is San Diego state political science professor, Benjamin Gonzalez O'Bryan. And welcome back. Thanks for having me again. Now, when we spoke yesterday in a debate preview, did you ever expect to see anything like the melee last night? Speaker 2: 01:13 Not really based on Trump's past performances, I expected him to be bombastic and perhaps even a little insulting towards Joe Biden, but I didn't expect what we saw last night, which as you mentioned, was a real new low for political debates in this country and was something that was incredibly hard to follow. And I'm not sure there's really much that the American public can take away from that performance on the part of either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Speaker 1: 01:47 Now as a political science professor, can you figure out what kind of strategy was behind the president's rude, disruptive behavior? Speaker 2: 01:56 The strategy behind it was to try to take Biden off his game and perhaps through the, the interruptions and the talking over Biden regularly, the insults that were directed towards Biden. I think that the, the goal was to try to elicit some kind of emotional reaction from Biden, a burst of anger or something like that. Biden actually seemed pretty well prepared for what Trump brought into the debate. He did. Uh, he did get exasperate exasperated a few times. Uh, he did show a little bit of a temper on a few occasions, but overall he managed to keep his cool, despite the fact that the president was, uh, regularly cutting in when Biden was trying to make a point that, uh, Trump was talking over, but the moderator and Biden, and, you know, we launched a few of his own zingers back at, uh, back at the precedent either, you know, looking at it, regardless of who you support, it was an incredibly ugly debate if we could, even if we can even call it in which I, uh, I think is very questionable. You know, Speaker 1: 03:00 When we spoke yesterday, you said you thought this debate might be more important for Joe Biden than for the president. How do you think that turned out? Well, Speaker 2: 03:08 I think Biden did what he needed to do. He really couldn't control Trump. That's the job of the moderator and Chris Wallace lost control pretty early on the exchanges between Wallace and Trump dragged out on a few occasions and Biden did what he needed to do, which was, you know, there were no big gaffs, he didn't stick his foot in his mouth. On many occasions. There were a couple points in the debate where he lost the thread a little bit, but overall he did exactly what he needed he needed to do, which was to kind of stay the course, uh, hit a few of his talking points. He spoken to the camera on a number of occasions. It's kind of speaking directly to the American people, which I thought was pretty effective considering everything else that was going on. And I didn't see anything that should really change anyone's mind regarding Joe Biden. Uh, it didn't really say anything that's going to probably change many people's minds when it comes to Donald Trump either. Speaker 1: 04:03 Do you get any substantive information at all out of this debate? Speaker 2: 04:07 I didn't really a lot of what both candidates said was known going in. I didn't really see anything that was new. There wasn't really any deep discussion and policy, uh, that occurred even those, those instances where there was a little talk about actual policy making or Trump's record or the environment or anything like that. Everything else that was going on was so completely distracting from those moments. Then I think what's going to stick in the, in the minds of voters are, you know, both how ugly the debate was overall and how it broke with so many established norms of American politics and the history of presidential debates in this country. And also, um, the exchanges around, um, white supremacy towards the end of the debate. Speaker 1: 05:02 Yeah, I was going to say that was one of the headlines that came out of this debate that the president declined to condemn white supremacists. What was your reaction to that? Speaker 2: 05:10 Frankly? I found it both upsetting unpresidential and, and somewhat disgusting. Uh, he was asked on with a audience of millions, uh, to condemn a white supremacist groups and he refused to do so. There was a, you know, this odd pause after that, after Wallace asked that question and, you know, there were a few beats where Trump just didn't say anything. And, you know, it's clear that he knows that white supremacist groups are supportive of his presidency and his candidacy. And so he, it didn't didn't seem to want to rush to condemn them, but he ultimately didn't do anything. And that I think was, uh, it was really hard to watch. And it, as you mentioned, it's become the kind of headline post debate that, you know, the president of the United States, who's supposed to represent all Americans, uh, refuse to condemn racism and hatred. And that is a really dark day for the presidency. Speaker 2: 06:08 And, uh, was probably one of the most depressing things I've seen in a presidential debate. Now that said, uh, it shouldn't be surprising coming from Trump. He equivocated in the past about, um, when he was asked to about the supportive David Duke, former a member of the KKK, uh, as well as some of his comments about Charlottesville and the white supremacist, uh, presence in Charlottesville. So it probably shouldn't have been surprising that he refused to condemn white supremacy. But again, I think, you know, if you consider the office and you consider, uh, the past norms that were established, um, you know, this wasn't a dog whistle to white supremacist groups. This was a, this was a Bullhorn showing that, uh, the president, uh, supports these groups at some level or at least refuses to condemn them and their beliefs. Speaker 1: 07:00 Now, the president also repeated the false claims about fraud with mail in ballots. How do you think these statements impact potential voters? Speaker 2: 07:09 If you're in the position that Trump is in, in terms of the, the polling that we're seeing both out of close States, uh, as well as nationally, uh, you want to plant that seed of doubt about the outcome of the election. And I think that that was the goal, uh, to undermine the results before, you know, the votes have even been counted. And I think that's incredibly dangerous, especially when you're making calls to groups like the proud boys to stand back and stand by encouraging her supporters to go to the polls to ensure voter fraud doesn't occur when you're undermining the results of the election. And when you're encouraging your supporters to try to protect the integrity of the election. On the one hand, it could demobilize certain groups of voters at both having large crowds of Trump supporters. As we've seen in places like Virginia outside of polling places could be seen as voter intimidation. Uh, it could lead some to believe that even if they do vote that their vote won't matter because of perhaps a delays in mail, uh, mailing, boating, and deliveries by the United States postal service. And I think that that narrative is to a certain extent, um, meant to kind of tamp down turnout Speaker 1: 08:27 Are two more presidential debates scheduled. Do you think they'll happen? And should they happen? Speaker 2: 08:33 Sure they should happen at this point. Um, what we saw last night, didn't do anything to deepen our understanding of either candidates, positions on really important policies or even, you know, the, the future path of this nation. Speaker 1: 08:51 I've been speaking with San Diego state political science professor, Benjamin Gonzalez. And thank you again. Speaker 3: 08:58 Thank you for having me.