00:00:10.000How is Donald Trump supposed to handle Joe Biden and vice versa?
00:00:14.000We go through a historical analysis of can't miss debate moments and how President Trump can win these debates.
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00:01:08.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:19.000So look, we are less than a week to the first of the three presidential debates.
00:01:24.000We have been getting record amounts of emails from all of you at freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com, asking about who's going to win the debate, who's going to come out on top, what is the advantage, what is the conversation going to look like.
00:01:38.000So look, in United States political history, the presidential debates were actually born out of a series of seven Illinois senatorial debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858.
00:01:50.000They came about because as Douglass traveled the state, Lincoln would follow his path and guide his own speeches and response to his opponent.
00:01:59.000Eventually, the two agreed to take the stage together for seven debates.
00:02:04.000These became known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
00:02:08.000And they started a whole new style of Socratic dialogue.
00:02:13.000There were no moderators, and they just went three hours long, mono limano.
00:02:17.000This actually would actually be really strong for Trump as an aside.
00:02:21.000Now, putting aside the length and the lack of the dishonest media moderator, it would actually be a chance for Biden to have to answer for his positions, not just the one-minute soundbite chunks, but in a substantive longer form.
00:02:35.000Lincoln, of course, lost that Senate seat, but went on to win the presidency in 1860 without any presidential debates.
00:02:43.000Five election cycles have passed without much public argument between candidates.
00:02:49.000The dialogue was separate and usually in the form of campaign speeches.
00:02:54.000In 1948, the presidential debate would get a boost with a radio broadcast of a debate between a Republican primary contender, Thomas Dewey and Harold Stason.
00:03:04.000Between 40 and 80 million listeners tuned into the radio broadcast of the pair's debate over outlawing communism in the United States.
00:03:12.000But debates really didn't catch much steam.
00:03:14.000They didn't matter until 1960, when the form of debates we know is today were boring.
00:03:20.000A series of debates between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon, which was televised nationwide.
00:03:28.000And this made all the difference, and we'll get into this later.
00:03:31.000So I want to go through some of the most memorable and impactful debate moments from history and the lessons that both Trump and Biden can learn.
00:03:40.000Now, look, this is where I get the most excited.
00:03:53.000And I think there's a lot of substantive, important political lessons that Trump can derive from it, and also warning signs that I hope Trump knows not to fall into.
00:04:06.000So here's the first thing: image matters.
00:04:10.000Many of you probably know the Kennedy versus Nixon debate was not one on substance, it was one on style.
00:04:17.000In the first televised debate, JFK came across as the clear winner for a very simple reason.
00:04:23.000He was poised on air, which translates loosely to image.
00:04:28.000In fact, political mythology holds that those who listened to the debate thought Nixon had won, but those that watched it had a much different opinion.
00:04:37.000JFK was seen as being from a younger generation, even though Nixon was only four years older than JFK.
00:04:43.000His cool East Coast media savvy translated into resounding victory on air.
00:04:49.000Nixon was seen as nervous, constantly sweating, with darting eyes, choosing to forego wearing any makeup or powder, not used to the blare of studio lights and how that affects your image.
00:05:00.000And Nixon was actually the sitting vice president when he was doing these debates.
00:05:04.000Donald Trump has the clear advantage here, obviously stemming from his long career on television.
00:05:11.000People will rarely remember what you say, but they'll remember how you make them feel, and most importantly, how you look.
00:05:18.000I hate to be that superficial, but that's just the way a lot of people interpret politics and also how they analyze and how they digest this sorts of information.
00:05:28.000President Trump has the inherent image advantage against Biden.
00:06:05.000If you look at the Oval Office meeting with Schumer, leaned over while Trump has his hands out very wide, do you notice that Trump is always with his hands going like karate chopping?
00:06:16.000It's because it gets your attention and it looks like that he's in control and you have to follow his lead.
00:06:25.000Joe Biden is frail and looks like someone that should be in an old person's home.
00:06:30.000So here's another very interesting part of this: the incumbent disadvantage.
00:06:36.000In 1976, Gerald Ford, in what's considered the first real gaffe in a presidential debate, Ford stumbled over a question during the second debate regarding Poland, which he insisted was, quote, under Soviet domination.
00:07:05.000Did I understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence and occupying most of the countries there and making sure with their troops that it's a communist zone, whereas on our side of the line, the Italians and the French are still flirting with Poland.
00:07:22.000I don't believe, Mr. Franco, that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.
00:07:32.000Considering the fact that Ford was thrust into office following Nixon's resignation, this comment gave the impression that President Ford was in over his head.
00:07:42.000Carter went on to narrowly win that race.
00:07:45.000Now, Reagan did very poorly in his first debate against Walter Mondale in 1984.
00:07:50.000He came across as tired, confused, and aged, much like Joe Biden.
00:07:56.000This raised questions about his level of actual involvement in the White House and his ability to run the nation.
00:08:04.000Mondale saw a significant bump in the polls after this, but it was Reagan's move in the next debate between the two that became memorable.
00:08:12.000Proof that a rebound is always possible.
00:08:16.000I also want to talk about the incumbent disadvantage for Barack Obama.
00:08:21.000Mitt Romney won the first debate back in 2012.
00:08:25.000In the 2012 election, Mitt Romney was poised, he was confident, and Barack Obama was not.
00:08:32.000Obama came to play in the second and third debate and did much better than Mitt Romney.
00:08:37.000It is a trap debate for the incumbent president.
00:08:39.000It always has been, it always will be.
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00:10:45.000You already are the oldest president in history, and some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale.
00:10:54.000I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuba Missile Crisis.
00:11:00.000Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?
00:11:07.000And I want you to know that also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign.
00:11:12.000I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.
00:11:25.000And if you're watching on video, you'll see very carefully that even the debate moderator and his opponent laughed at his joke.
00:11:32.000Now, a move like this in general won't land with Biden the way it did with Mondale or even play in the way in the media, but the base will love it and so will swing voters.
00:11:42.000Trump is a very funny person, and he should use that to his advantage.
00:11:47.000I think in the first round of debates with Hillary Clinton, he had a hard time letting that part of his personality shine through with one very notable exception, which leads us to our next example and very important takeaway.
00:12:39.000It's because it got the base motivated and it made a broader point.
00:12:43.000You see, creating organic and viral content is the key to making debates work in the age of 24-hour news cycle.
00:12:52.000Organic, though, is an important point, not the way that Hillary tried to do with her prescripted lines, such as, I'd call it, I don't know, Trump up, trickled down, economics.
00:13:04.000Aha, ha It didn't work for Hillary, okay?
00:13:08.000And it won't work for Biden, and it definitely will not work for Trump if he tries to have these one-liners saved.
00:13:15.000Now, remember, the town hall format was the one where that locker room talk topic was brought up.
00:13:23.000And that's where Trump's comment was about you'd be in jail.
00:13:26.000That's what people were talking about, not the Billy Bush tape.
00:13:30.000Hillary Clinton thought she had Trump in that matchup, and you could tell by her demeanor and her overall attitude.
00:13:36.000But he outflanked her with one simple quip and disarmed her attacks for the rest of the evening, refocusing the message back to where he wanted it, on her corruption, on how she can't be trusted.
00:13:50.000When it comes to Joe Biden, it is inevitable that Joe Biden is going to have some sort of mental stumble, that Joe Biden is going to forget a word or call Donald Hillary or call Chris Wallace Jill Biden or go bite Donald Trump's ear or something.
00:15:40.000So that was the number one thing that Rick Perry was defined for for years.
00:15:45.000For better or for worse, these politicians always found themselves in some form of a media-created straitjacket that they couldn't get out of at any cost.
00:15:56.000It is very likely that a moment like one of these will happen.
00:16:03.000Similar to when Chris Christie took down Marco Rubio over his pre-canned lines, let's play a montage of Marco Rubio saying the same thing over and over again on the eve of the New Hampshire debate in the 2016 primary.
00:16:25.000He wants America to become more like the rest of the world.
00:16:28.000We don't want to be like the rest of the world.
00:16:30.000We want to be the United States of America.
00:16:32.000And when I'm elected president, this will become once again the single greatest nation in the history of the world, not the disaster Barack Obama has imposed upon us.
00:17:11.000President Trump has to be able to shine a gleaming spotlight on Joe Biden's mental decline, but not make fun of it and not make light of it.
00:17:20.000Perry's oops moment effectively ended his campaign.
00:17:24.000Something similar could happen if Trump plays his cards right when Biden's oops moment surely comes.
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00:20:08.000President Trump must be ready to tackle unfair and outrageous questions from the moderators.
00:20:14.000During the 1988 debates, Massachusetts governor was asked, if Kitty Dukakis was raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty?
00:20:24.000His response to that question effectively ended his whole political career.
00:20:34.000Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?
00:20:46.000No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life.
00:20:51.000I don't see any evidence that it's the deterrent.
00:20:54.000And I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.
00:20:58.000We've done so in my own state, and it's one of the reasons why we have had the biggest drop in crime of any industrial state in America, why we have the lowest murder rate of any industrial state in America.
00:21:08.000All that Dukakis had to do was show a level of empathy or political tact, which he was completely failed to do, instead of opting to be a slave to his message.
00:21:18.000Dukakis would have done better to respond how I believe Trump would have responded by attacking the premise of the question and painting the media in a negative, unfair light.
00:21:28.000But the trap that Dukakis fell in, and the one that Trump is more likely to fall in as it relates to this example, is this, that Joe Biden is perceived to have empathy, if nothing else.
00:21:39.000I think that the more that Trump can show himself as a human being, as someone who is magnanimous, who's above the moment, the better.
00:21:56.000It would serve the president well to show that side of him during the debate.
00:22:01.000It's not dissimilar than Bill Clinton, who is the king of displaying empathy, sometimes in an inauthentic way, but still he came across as authentic.
00:22:13.000And he did this in the H.W. Bush debate, where he revolutionized the town hall style of debate, responding to a struggling woman asking about the economy.
00:22:22.000Clinton responds to, I feel your pain.
00:22:38.000Every year, Congress and the president sign laws that make us do more things and gives us less money to do it with.
00:22:47.000I see people in my state, middle-class people, their taxes have gone up in Washington and their services have gone down, while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts.
00:22:57.000I have seen what's happened in this last four years.
00:22:59.000In my state, when people lose their jobs, there's a good chance I'll know them by their names.
00:23:04.000When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it.
00:23:06.000When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them.
00:23:09.000And I've been out here for 13 months meeting in meetings just like this ever since October with people like you all over America.
00:23:17.000People that have lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost their health insurance.
00:23:20.000Whereas when George H.W. Bush in that very same debate was asked about the national debt, he was talking about cutting spending and curbing spending.
00:23:42.000How has national debt personally affected each of your lives?
00:23:47.000And if it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them?
00:25:08.000This is an opportunity for Trump to show a human side of himself.
00:25:12.000Not that he doesn't do it at rallies or other places, but this is when the most amount of people are going to tune in.
00:25:18.000And going back to the Dukakis example, when someone asks about your raped wife, maybe you should address how horrendous that scenario is to begin with.
00:25:26.000Dukakis just ignored the terrible hypothetical situation and went straight to policy.
00:25:31.000Here's how Dukakis should have answered the question.
00:25:34.000By the way, Dukakis was ahead of H.W. Bush by 18 points in August of 1988.
00:25:40.000Here's how Dukakis should have answered the question.
00:25:43.000If somebody raped my wife, you would have to prevent me from killing that person.
00:27:10.000Reminding people that Joe Biden is not an outsider, that Joe Biden is actually the incumbent.
00:27:16.000While he might not be literally the incumbent, he is the metaphorical incumbent for the philosophy, the worldview, and the decisions that have been ruling Washington, D.C. in our country for the last four decades.
00:27:29.000Donald Trump is the disruptor that needs more time to achieve his vision successfully of why people rose up in numbers for him in 2016.
00:27:37.000Trump needs to highlight himself as the candidate that can do that.
00:27:42.000In just the month that preceded this debate, Trump will have signed three peace deals, gaining two different nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
00:27:50.000He will have nominated his third Supreme Court justice, doing more to change national policy with three appointments than Joe Biden did through the policy in this Senate or the White House.
00:27:59.000But everything needs to be this: I'm the janitor.
00:28:02.000You're the person who created the mess.
00:28:20.000Every time Joe Biden attacks Trump, he should respond calmly and gently by saying, Okay, Joe, why didn't you do that in 47 years when you're in Washington?
00:29:22.000Hillary Clinton, the worst smile I've ever seen of any smile in the history.
00:29:25.000When she was smiling, it looked like she was doing some sort of Machiavellian intercontinental takeover.
00:29:31.000And by the way, Joe Biden might wear a mask, which just might kind of play into this whole idea that he's about to be admitted to the hospital.
00:29:38.000And what's the over-under on the mask?
00:30:27.000President Donald Trump needs to lean in and firmly and clearly say: the future under four more years of means more justices you can count on, a safe country, a stable country, safe communities, and a vibrant economy.
00:30:47.000I hate to get back to just kind of how the corporate types in the Republican Party are always repeating these pre-rehearsed talking points, but there's truth to it.
00:30:57.000President Trump's numbers on the economy are double-digit better than Joe Biden.
00:33:07.000Don't ignore the accusation because a lot of people think it's true, and then transition.
00:33:12.000So here are the questions that President Trump needs to be prepared for.
00:33:15.000We mentioned the Atlantic story and also the COVID issue.
00:33:19.000I mentioned this on a previous episode of the Charlie Kirk show, but if Joe Biden tries to pin COVID on Trump, then he needs to pin H1N1 on Biden immediately.
00:33:27.000Say that you left my cupboards bare, and this is the top issue for Democrats.
00:35:00.000Noom teaches you why you do the things you do and empowers you with the tools you need to break bad habits and replace them with better ones.
00:38:16.000Be prepared for the climate change issue, the COVID issue, and the Atlantic story, or anything else that they might be able to drum up.
00:38:23.000If Joe Biden mentions his treatment of women, just say, Tara Reed, that's all I have to say, is Tara Reid.
00:38:30.000Your VP said we must believe all women.
00:38:32.000Therefore, you're a rapist, Joe Biden, according to your vice president.
00:38:38.000Donald Trump has the upper hand in this debate simply because the Democrats have created rules of engagement that when it's applied against themselves, they shatter against public cross-examination.
00:38:51.000This is exactly why Joe Biden does not take questions from the press because of their hypocrisy, the troubled record, and the corruption.
00:38:58.000They are afraid for good reason to come up against any form of criticism.
00:40:24.000If you guys want to get involved with TurningPointUSA, go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com, get engaged, get involved with turningpointusa at tpusa.com, tpusa.com.