Hugh Hewitt, Crystal Ball, and Sagar and Jetty join host Meghan Kelly to give their full reaction to the first Democratic Debates. They discuss the moderation, the chaos, and where we probably now stand in the race.
00:00:00.480Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:11.600Hey everybody, it's me, Megyn Kelly, and welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:15.160Of course, today we're talking about the hot mess of the presidential debate last night.
00:00:20.680We've got Hugh Hewitt here today along with Crystal Ball and Sagar and Jetty to have full analysis for you.
00:00:25.940We've got our favorite clips, and I will have a reaction of my own to the moderation, to the candidates, and to where we probably now stand in this race.
00:00:36.360But first, before we get to all that, we have to talk about your security.
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00:01:43.540There's some positives to being connected, but there's so many downsides that we just have to suck up.
00:02:22.680He's done a lot of interesting things and has a great, great newsletter called Fourth Watch.
00:02:26.460So he's got his own independent thoughts on media and how this was handled.
00:02:30.860But I'll tell you, you know, Steve, overall, as I looked at that debate last night, my reaction was it was complete chaos and I learned nothing.
00:02:40.900It was mildly entertaining, just like in the way a boxing match would be.
00:02:45.880The dynamics of how Trump would keep punching and whether Biden would ever counterpunch as opposed to running to the corners of the ring.
00:02:52.600But overall, it was kind of like you want to cover your eyes.
00:02:56.480Yeah, I would have loved like a really exciting, like, you know, prime to two boxers in their prime kind of boxing match.
00:03:04.160But this was like two people that just put on a gloves for the first time and have never really, you know, it was so amateurish and just all over the place.
00:03:18.800He was like this big, scary sort of, you know, television show monster like and Biden was the old man kind of, you know, a little frail in the corner, like it's mean, which I don't know.
00:03:35.660I think Trump supporters will love how aggressive he was and want to see him give it to Biden, who's, you know, compared him to a Nazi.
00:03:42.680They have no empathy or sympathy for Biden.
00:03:44.860And Biden was probably thinking about those suburban moms and seniors and just fine with Trump appearing like a bully.
00:03:55.480And really, the bullying was pretty much just in the interrupting.
00:03:59.400That's really that's really what he was doing.
00:04:01.120Right. He was just he wouldn't let Biden get a sentence out uninterrupted.
00:04:05.040And therefore, Biden really doesn't have a clean soundbite all night.
00:04:09.100Yeah. And that's actually, I guess, a good dovetail way of talking about the moderation, because I'm curious, you know, you have co-moderated debates with Chris Wallace.
00:04:17.440And I think Chris Wallace is an excellent journalist.
00:04:20.500I'm not I guess I'm curious what your take is on him.
00:04:23.600And, you know, was it a mess, you know, because of him or in spite of him?
00:04:28.300You know, was there anything that anyone could have done to sort of, you know, force people to adhere to the rules in this or was it just sort of a lost cause?
00:04:39.780You know, he tried his hardest to keep control over the debate, but it didn't work.
00:04:43.960And for me, as somebody who's moderated these debates, including with Trump, it was frustrating because I do believe there was a way of controlling them.
00:04:53.760And what I would have done if it were possible, because to tell you the truth, I'm not sure whether it's the Commission on Presidential Debates that's controlling the optics of the night and the production or whether it's Chris's team.
00:05:05.260But either way, you'd have to go in saying I'm going to be the moderator and this is how I want it, because I do I I am there to protect the audience.
00:05:16.120You need to keep the camera on me when the two people are fighting and they won't listen to me.
00:05:20.860When I'm trying to regain control over this debate, I have the camera.
00:05:24.540And if I tell you to cut their mics, cut their mics.
00:05:27.360And let me tell you, that will have a magical effect of shutting people up once once they know the audience can't see them and can't hear them.
00:06:32.220We have about 100 million people tuning in for this debate tonight on one of the most important issues in their lives and one of the most important elections in their lives.
00:06:39.620And I think they'd really appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me and I won't interrupt you.
00:06:45.320Can we agree we're going to show the audience that respect?
00:06:52.940Just sort of say, again, he could have stepped into the role of protecting the audience at home and they would have been grateful to him for that.
00:07:39.480That's interesting because, yeah, no, instead, it seemed like he was coached to almost do a different sort of strategy where he kept breaking the fourth wall, almost ignoring Trump, ignoring Wallace and talking to you at home through the TV, you the viewer.
00:07:51.800And it was, I mean, on one level, I guess there was some effectiveness to it, but it also, to your point, it never really took the high road and threw it back at Trump that way.
00:08:05.380You know, he couldn't do that because Trump just kept talking.
00:08:06.880And Biden, I mean, Biden needed to just at one point early on, be quiet, let Trump finish his rant and then do one of the things I just said.
00:08:16.620And by the way, I feel like people are missing one of the tactics I always use as a moderator and in interviewing people on camera, and it works really well.
00:08:24.040I learned it when I was taking depositions.
00:08:25.780If you just hold your hand up, you know, like the stop signal and, like, point it at the person you're talking to, man, you would not believe how well that works.
00:08:34.540It's a really effective tool for shutting people up.
00:08:40.160Anyway, I don't know that any of this would have completely controlled the situation, but I think it would have improved it.
00:08:46.400Well, that's I think you will see a different Biden next time out.
00:08:48.960Yeah, I mean, you talk about about moderating and interviewing people, but but is there a certain playbook for moderating a Trump debate versus a, you know, quote, unquote, normal debate?
00:09:00.560Because it does feel like he he escalates these things into into a whole another arena than than, you know, what is a typical what people are used to about a debate?
00:09:09.960Mm hmm. Well, it's you have to walk a fine line because it's really for the two guys to fight over lies that are told or misrepresentations.
00:09:19.160It's not for you. Remember, you don't want to have a Candy Crowley moment where you try as the moderator to step in and settle something.
00:09:26.980And in her case, she was wrong. Right. About whether Obama called Benghazi a terrorist attack.
00:09:31.780Right. And I like Candy Crowley, but that effectively ended her career that moment.
00:09:36.320So you don't want that. But my general approach was always if they're challenging the basis of my question, if they're challenging the facts I've asserted, then I'm going to fight.
00:09:48.000Right. I will protect my question and the integrity of my ask.
00:09:52.260But beyond that, it's for the other two guys. Like they have to go after it.
00:09:55.800So, you know, if if if if Biden saying Hunter didn't get all this money from Burisma and overseas, that's for Trump to have his facts on, not Chris Wallace, although I'm sure Chris did have them.
00:10:07.740So I thought Chris did a fine job on that. He did cut off some of those discussions a little prematurely.
00:10:16.000And the one that really jumped out at me was that one on Hunter Biden.
00:10:19.160Like Trump was starting to sort of zero in and throw his jabs at Biden on Hunter.
00:10:25.480And and Biden went to that moment about Bo. Right.
00:10:29.200And, you know, whenever you bring up Bo Biden, you have nothing but sympathy for Biden.
00:10:34.380Right. I mean, it's just a it's such a sad story.
00:10:37.260But the truth is, Biden brings that up and not infrequently and and has already been accused of using that sad story too much on the campaign trail.
00:10:48.880And I think that's one of the reasons Trump blew right by it.
00:10:52.180He wasn't going to take the bait on that. And he just stayed laser like focused on Hunter.
00:10:56.600But then Wallace shut the discussion down. So and Trump did try.
00:11:00.640He tried to fight on that discussion. He wanted that to come out.
00:11:03.740But, you know, at some point, the moderator has moved on and you got to move on, too.
00:11:09.100Right. Yeah. And I will say I just as an aside that one at that moment, he brought up Bo Biden in the context of the, you know, Trump calling the military losers and suckers,
00:11:18.260which was this anonymously sourced story in the Atlantic. He actually brought up another anonymously.
00:11:22.940So I think we leave as a single anonymous source in Axios about this, like Trump saying we should nuke a hurricane, which, you know, Biden brought up again.
00:11:29.900It's like these anonymously sourced stories, which we don't know how the truth of it.
00:11:33.640They just become ingrained. And then Biden uses them as talking points during the debate.
00:11:37.880It's you really kind of see the effect of the of the media's, you know, actions when it comes to anonymous sources here, which I don't I don't love.
00:11:46.800Let me let me ask you this. I'm curious. One of the main talking points, I think, that came out of the post debate is will there be more debates?
00:11:55.580I mean, that was actually floated by multiple CNN anchors and a lot of people on Twitter.
00:12:00.100What do you think of that and that direction?
00:12:03.920I just think that's that's the media running cover for Joe Biden.
00:12:08.340Biden's ahead. He's ahead. He's ahead nationally and he's ahead in most of these swing state polls, though.
00:12:13.480Anything could change. You know, Hillary Clinton was ahead, too.
00:12:17.220And the media, they don't want they don't want game changers or potential game changers between now and Election Day.
00:12:23.500They want Biden to win. That's really clear.
00:12:27.180And so even just the discussion that it would somehow be unseemly to subject oneself to another debate with that man shows their bias.
00:12:35.340If it's up to the audience to decide whether they think Trump's behavior was bad or a deal changer.
00:12:42.700And, you know, the media last night was in full elite mode.
00:12:47.360You know, the scoffing Donald Trump's behavior.
00:12:50.880David Axelrod actually said he thought Trump ended his president or his presidency last night.
00:12:57.220I mean, come on. Come on. Right. Like he he he was so bad.
00:13:08.620It was almost like they were in this competition to to one up each other on what could be the most extreme thing you can say after the debate, which, you know, was it was obviously a mess.
00:13:17.080But at the same time, like, you know, yeah, come on.
00:13:19.340Is anyone completely shocked by how all this went down?
00:15:23.260Joe Biden couldn't punch back because he's weak.
00:15:25.500I already said I think some some seniors, some women in the suburbs might not have seen it that way.
00:15:30.960But it isn't a universal thought that Trump lost and did horribly because he refused to let Biden speak.
00:15:41.400No. In fact, the CBS News flash poll after of Battleground tracker instant poll of debate watchers had it at 48 percent Joe Biden, 41 percent Donald Trump, 10 percent a tie, which is almost identical to what the actual national polls are.
00:15:54.660It's like no one changed their minds at all so far.
00:15:58.960The other thing is, I think I don't know what was in Trump's mind.
00:16:08.100He had his facts last night, which, frankly, is a change for Donald Trump.
00:16:11.640Usually, you know, last time around, he winged a lot of it.
00:16:13.680And you could tell this time he had his facts.
00:16:15.840But if his approach was to try to make Biden look old and tired and himself younger and more spry, you know, and up for the fights that are coming to our country, whether it's covid or something else, he did well.
00:16:31.460Right. You'd have to give him that point.
00:16:33.560You can talk about whether you liked the style.
00:16:35.740But I haven't heard a ton of Trump supporters saying he completely muffed it.
00:16:39.880I've heard them express irritation that they couldn't hear, right, that they couldn't hear the substance.
00:16:46.460They didn't necessarily come across like their three years difference in age.
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00:19:34.720Hugh, I'm looking forward to getting your reaction to this because I was watching your Twitter feed last night and I thought you had an interesting take on it.
00:19:41.520First of all, you were you were thinking Biden was going to play possum, that he was playing possum before this debate.
00:20:20.600But what did you think, like overall, first of all, just not Trump, not Biden, but just rate the debate on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the greatest thing you've ever seen, one being a total disaster and awful.
00:20:40.940But in some respects, it reflects where the country is.
00:20:43.820The country is so deeply divided that old friends can't have civil conversation.
00:20:48.820So I doubt we can expect political opponents for the highest job to do so.
00:20:53.420But to call the president of the United States a clown and a fool and to call him a liar and a bigot and for the president of the United States to continually interrupt and for Chris Wallace to lose control.
00:21:02.900You and I have both had the unenviable job of trying to keep Donald Trump in his lane at a at a debate.
00:21:10.560You have more of them than I do. But Chris last night, I think, would have been better served if he just laid back, clothed his arms and let them go at it.
00:21:19.860Now, that's interesting. See, I think I think he should have taken control early on and sort of set the standard for how it was going to go and then and then maintain that.
00:21:28.500Then you just sort of refer back to the initial.
00:21:30.200But I was saying earlier that I really thought the burden was on Joe Biden.
00:21:33.780And I don't think he has to go to the school teacher, Chris Wallace, to say, I mean, this guy wants to be president.
00:21:37.760But so it's like you should be able to control your own back and forth with the other person.
00:21:43.600I feel like most of us, had we been out there, would have found a way to make ourselves heard as opposed to just sitting there looking irritated and looking at, you know, sort of daddy Chris Wallace to solve it.
00:21:52.800I agree with that. I think the worst moment for the vice president.
00:21:56.220Well, there were two last night, Megan. He was asked, name a law enforcement agency.
00:22:00.280The president said, name one. And Joe did not have one.
00:22:03.980And that was a terrible moment. And Chris Wallace should have allowed the moment to go on.
00:22:08.580As a television person, you will know that you don't step on your your moment.
00:22:13.600Chris Wallace did. The other terrible moment for for the vice president.
00:22:17.880And it's not going to go away is refusing to answer the most important question.
00:22:21.240Will you pack the Supreme Court? You're a lawyer. You're a Jones Day alum.
00:22:24.760You know that this is a fundamental question to the republic. If we expand the Supreme Court, there is no refuse in the law.
00:22:31.220There is no refuge in the law. And no, Kamala Harris is done.
00:22:35.080If if they expand the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is done as a branch of government.
00:22:40.100It's over. It will lose all of its credibility and power.
00:22:42.900I thought that was a huge moment, too. Let's run the soundbite so people know what we're talking about.
00:22:47.120This is the pack the court soundbite. All right.
00:22:49.200I have one. I have one final question for you, Mr. Vice President.
00:22:52.860If Senate Republicans we were talking originally about the Supreme Court here, if Senate Republicans go ahead and confirm Justice Barrett,
00:23:03.080there has been talk about ending the filibuster or even packing the court, adding to the nine justices there.
00:23:10.560You call this a distraction by the president. But in fact, it wasn't brought up by the president.
00:23:14.840It was brought up by some of your Democratic colleagues in the Congress.
00:23:19.040So my question to you, as you have refused in the past to talk about it, are you willing to tell the American people tonight whether or not you will support either ending the filibuster or packing the court?
00:23:30.400Whatever position I take in that, that'll become the issue. The issue is the American people should speak.
00:23:35.640You should go out and vote. You're in voting now. Vote and let your senators know how strongly you feel.
00:23:42.020Vote now. Make sure you, in fact, let people know you're a senator.
00:23:48.200I'm not going to answer the question. Why wouldn't you answer that question?
00:23:50.060Because the question is, the question is, the question is, the radical left.
00:23:54.460Will you shut up, man? Listen, who is on your list, Joe?
00:25:07.260Journalism does mean getting an answer.
00:25:08.700But broadcast, to your point earlier, means knowing when you have a hot moment and how to exploit it and either let it play out or at least pour enough fuel on the fire that it keeps burning.
00:25:18.860We should send it to every journalism school in the country because apparently people have to go to that now instead of law school.
00:25:24.820But you have to let the moment play out.
00:26:18.260You know, like I remember even as a lawyer, you know, this, Hugh, I used to take these depositions and I was this young gal, you know, 24, 25 years old.
00:26:25.460And I'd be up against opposing counsel, stronger, you know, big guys, men who'd gone to Harvard and I only went to Albany Law School and they would just be crushing me with all these angry, aggressive accusations and threats to call the judge.
00:26:39.440And I used to try to fight and get – match their aggression and then later in my career I realized, you know, it's more effective to just stay the calm one and make fun of them.
00:27:11.580Trump intended to shatter every norm and have us all talk about the norms being shattered.
00:27:18.380Well, what did you make of the reaction to the whole exchange?
00:27:21.600Well, let's play it so people know, but there was another big exchange of the night involving Antifa and how Biden sees that and whether he would condemn it and other – and also whether Trump would condemn white supremacy.
00:27:34.760You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left-wing extremist groups.
00:27:43.820But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland?
00:30:23.840And Trump's not – he doesn't respond well to being bullied or bossed around, right?
00:30:27.620And I think that's why he got on his heels and didn't want to call out proud boys or get specific or do what they – he didn't want to be in a position of, you know, being their little puppet.
00:30:36.140I'll do what you say because I think he accurately judged he would have been – he would have been – he would have looked weak on style.
00:30:43.140But he should have condemned proud boys more clearly, right?
00:30:46.140I mean, meandering off into stand by and stand back, that was not good.
00:30:52.560Well, originally, I almost – I was getting up to move because I did radio before and after.
00:30:57.060I hosted the Salem Network after and before.
00:30:58.940So I was getting up when the president said, proud boy, stand down, and then I missed him say, stand by.
00:31:06.160So if you read the transcript, it sounds like he's saying, get ready, which is horrible, right?
00:32:05.100They've worked together in nodes as opposed to a structural hierarchy.
00:32:08.900But he said this is an incredibly dangerous group.
00:32:11.500So how Biden can just sort of take one little word that it's not an organization, it's not it's a movement, not an ideology and dismiss this group, which Trump is right, has been causing chaos in our cities was pretty stunning.
00:32:26.420And he's been given a total pass for it because of the Proud Boys comment.
00:32:29.620If there is a shy Trump voter, Megan, and I don't know.
00:32:34.020Nobody knows because it would defy polling if it does exist.
00:32:37.180Is it defied polling in the famous John Major upset in Great Britain?
00:32:41.020If it exists, it will exist because of that comment, because they see in front of them and they are afraid to go places.
00:32:48.180I know people in Washington, D.C. who will not go downtown, not because of Antifa, but because of fear of their safety and dining out.
00:33:16.980The only problem is only one of those comments gets any air in the media whatsoever, because all along the media has not wanted to talk about Antifa and what it's actually doing.
00:33:27.080The other sort of related issue was critical race theory.
00:33:30.520And Trump's just issued this executive order getting rid of these mandatory critical race theory, quote, trainings at the federal level.
00:33:38.320And, you know, the left doesn't like that because they think that it combats implicit bias or inherent bias.
00:33:46.860But a frustration for me as somebody who's also been critical of critical race theory, which actually, Hugh, actually tells you that you have to sit there.
00:33:56.040You have to listen to any person of color, a black person, tell you, you know, how racist white people are and how it's affected them.
00:34:19.740Critical race theory, which has been around in Harvard Law School since I was in law school in the 80s, is a deeply destructive paradigm of understanding the law.
00:38:22.760You know, the punching and the avoidance and what's the next move from a strategic perspective.
00:38:27.100But you're right, if you don't like conflict, if you don't want to tell the cable guy he's screwed you over one too many times, you probably were like, and back to the real housewives.
00:38:40.660You know, life is hard, especially for people who are in COVID situations, who have kids at home who don't have computers, who can't go to school.
00:41:59.860But certainly it did change some of my relationships there with people I really cared about and respected in ways they just they couldn't forgive.
00:42:08.740You know, they just they didn't understand why I wouldn't back him.
00:42:12.800But, you know, that's been well documented.
00:42:14.560And, you know, you've seen the movie and all that stuff about why I why I couldn't support him.
00:42:20.240Anyway, so I did leave and it was the right move for me because my life was utterly joyless.
00:42:25.520It was totally joyless, even though I was making money and I had a position of power.
00:42:28.840But I was totally unhappy and the NBC experience was not a good one.
00:42:35.320So I think everybody knows it had some highlights and I met some lovely people, but it didn't work out.
00:42:41.960And that could have been foreseen if I had just taken a harder look and thought about it more.
00:43:30.840And and for what it's worth, my relationship with my family, you know, with my kids and my husband and for that matter, with my friends has never been stronger or or more joyful.
00:43:41.760So I, I did land that football in the end.
00:44:19.820One of the things I was thinking as I watched the debate last night was I guess it was co-sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic because it was in Cleveland.
00:44:26.900And I was thinking, well, that well, that's just perfect.
00:45:48.880And then, look, Biden really struggles to be able to articulate a vision and be able to, you know, effectively communicate what he would be doing in a first term.
00:46:01.480So, I thought it was just on the substance, there was nothing there.
00:46:05.860And I can't imagine one single person learning something last night that made them change their minds.
00:46:35.320Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it was also the worst presidential debate.
00:46:38.240And just to think about Trump and that mask moment that you highlight, I think it's funny.
00:46:41.920But it also highlights a real problem for me.
00:46:44.280I mean, looking at this from a right perspective for Trump, which is he found himself on the wrong side of so many issues, on which, in my opinion, he was on the right side of in 2016.
00:46:54.160I mean, if you look at it whenever it comes to health care, last time he said in 2016, he was like, everybody's going to have health care.
00:46:59.840And then on this one, he was basically arguing in favor of striking down Obamacare at the Supreme Court.
00:47:07.180I mean, if you look back, and I think about this a lot, which is style points aside, people were willing to say, I do not like Trump personally, but I'm willing to vote for him because he's going to stand up for me on China, on trade, on immigration, on political correctness.
00:47:22.840These are all issues which the public, by and large, agrees with.
00:47:26.740This time around, whenever it comes to mass and even reopening, and I know this is controversial on the right, a lot of people don't want to hear it, but the public is generally 75% in favor of more social distancing, even if it means economic pain, because they realize that Congress could actually alleviate their economic pain if they wanted to.
00:47:45.180So, in several different instances, in a way, I said this on the show today, like Trump became a real Republican in terms of embracing a lot of the GOP kind of conventional orthodoxy, which was his strength, was running against it in 2016.
00:48:21.860I mean, Frank Lundstedt, his, you know, focus groups, and he said for the first time ever, you actually had voters who were undecided who made up their minds after watching that just not to vote, like just to opt out of all of it altogether, which is really depressing.
00:48:36.760I mean, we already have a population where something around 40% doesn't vote in the presidential election because they don't feel like they've been offered a real choice or any real reason to show up.
00:48:47.000So, yeah, I think it just contributes to an additional sense of nihilism and apathy.
00:48:52.320You know, one thing to pick up on Sagar's point there, in 2016, part of Trump's power was you had the Democrats running around being like, the economy's great, and we've had this amazing recovery, and everything's coming back, and we did a great job.
00:49:05.060And he said, no, if this is a great economy, you have millions of Americans whose towns have been decimated, whose jobs have been shipped overseas, who are truly struggling.
00:49:15.800Now, that is more true now than ever because of the pandemic, because of the shutdowns, because you've had a Congress and a White House that has failed to really provide an economic response that gets people through this rough time.
00:49:29.060But now he's on the flip side of being the one that's like, the stock market's amazing, and everything's coming back, and everything's great and rosy.
00:49:37.020So, he's on the completely opposite side of where all his power lied back in 2016.
00:49:55.520He didn't need a game changer, and Trump did.
00:49:57.740So, you'd have to say Biden comes out still in the same position, still on top, and ultimately, that's a win for him as he tries to just run out the clock.
00:50:06.060Yeah, I mean, I generally agree there.
00:50:08.000Yeah, no, I mean, I basically agree with Crystal, which is in terms of the game change.
00:50:11.340If we think about who needed the game change moment, it's obviously Trump.
00:50:14.400He either needed to try and win back suburban voters, especially suburban white female voters, which have been fleeing his campaign basically since 2017, and especially after 2018.
00:50:25.000Or he needed to excite working-class voters who do not generally vote the way he was able to in 2016.
00:50:35.100And, you know, as somebody, I kind of want to see this realignment within the party, which is that I want to see a message that tries to excite more of those working-class voters.
00:50:42.940There are so many millions of working-class voters.
00:50:46.320Working-class voters, all along, one of Trump's big appeals has been he's a fighter.
00:50:52.180They like that, whether it's picking on a news person or picking on Joe Biden and not letting him get his answers out.
00:50:58.540Does that appeal to those working-class voters who are like, yeah, get in there, keep busting up everything, bust up this debate, bust up big government?
00:51:09.160It's always been about fighting, but for what, to what end?
00:51:12.200It's fighting against a political establishment bent upon wanting to sell their jobs out to China or institute political correctness or have a trade deal, you know, which is going to oppress them, which they can see with their very own eyes, ripped a factory out of their community.
00:51:26.800So, it's fighting to a certain political end.
00:51:30.960So, I don't think we should read as much into the style.
00:51:33.700And, of course, look, the style is important, but it's all about what was underneath.
00:51:39.100I think a lot about that moment from 2016 where Trump brought this same level of energy and just ripped into Hillary about TPP and about her flipping her position, talking about NAFTA, the giant sucking sound.
00:51:52.800And if you brought that level of energy coupled with that message, that's the winning formula about how you could excite these voters.
00:51:59.920Well, I mean, they went where Chris Wallace took them.
00:52:03.660So, some of those subjects weren't teed up to give them the opening, but the whole mastery of a debate for a candidate is taking it where you want it to go.
00:52:11.500Crystal, what do you think was Biden's best moment?
00:52:15.780So, there isn't a lot to say about the substance of this debate, but I thought to the extent that Biden was able to be effective at all, he definitely was better at bringing the conversation to the place where voters actually are, and that is on the economy and on coronavirus.
00:52:34.400He had a couple of moments where he did sort of straight to the camera, you know, what people in the suburbs are really worried about is coronavirus.
00:52:41.780We have the suburbs clip, so let's listen to that, and then I'll get you to finish.
00:52:45.700Crime, it is crazy what's going on, and he doesn't want to say law and order because he can't, because he'll lose his radical left supporters, and once he does that, it's over with.
00:52:55.460But if he ever got to run this country, and they ran it the way he would want to run it, we would have, our suburbs would be gone.
00:53:03.240By the way, our suburbs would be gone, and you would see problems like you've never seen.
00:53:07.800He wouldn't know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn.
00:53:17.960Well, I mean, basically, he just sort of intervened there to try to say, I'm a man of the people and you're not, Mr. Fifth Avenue.
00:53:23.320Yeah, so there's a couple things in that moment as it continues on.
00:53:27.960He really makes this direct appeal of like, no, actually what people are concerned about is being healthy and, you know, ultimately being able to send their kids to school and have a job and all of that.
00:53:37.440But you also see there a sort of failed strategy from Trump, which is to paint Biden as a radical leftist.
00:53:44.020This is a man who has a lot of things, but he's been in public life for decades, and no one believes that he's Bernie Sanders.
00:53:50.580This lands with no one outside of the Trump base.
00:53:56.620This attack on him just doesn't land whatsoever.
00:53:59.820He had a better moment, Trump, that I think, you know, Sager can speak to where he talked about how long he'd been there and how little he'd done.
00:54:06.980That's a much more effective line of attack.
00:54:09.300But this idea that he's like a puppet of AOC and Bernie Sanders, frankly, I wish that was the case, but that is certainly not the Joe Biden that we've seen for decades in Washington.
00:54:19.160All right. Here's that moment of 47 years versus 47 months.
00:54:27.040Look, the tax code that made him put him in a position that he pays less tax than a schoolteacher makes on the money a schoolteacher makes is because of him.
00:54:39.140He says he's smart because he can take advantage of the tax code and he does take advantage of the tax code.
00:54:44.980That's why I'm going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts and we're going to we're going to eliminate those tax cuts and make sure that we invest in the people who, in fact, need the help.
00:55:29.840I'm going to shake things up here in Washington.
00:55:31.580And that is where I agree with Crystal, which is that trying to paint Biden as a tool of the radical left.
00:55:37.340I mean, it's very like an RNC strategy.
00:55:39.680Hear that type of stuff about Mitt Romney.
00:55:41.540You know, Mitt Romney probably would have run a very similar type of campaign this time around.
00:55:45.680It should have been the same callback to Biden is not a tool of the radical left.
00:55:49.560He's a tool of the of the globalist establishment of the same ones that we beat in 2016.
00:55:55.060Then he could have pivoted more towards issues like on China and on trade.
00:55:59.120And you saw I mean, look, Biden was outright lying whenever it came to several of the allegations against Hunter Biden.
00:56:04.700And Trump, I thought, did a fairly effective job in some cases of at least pushing back against that and having some things which if reporters wanted to check them, I doubt they will.
00:56:16.820So bringing up the corruption angle and the tool of the establishment, 47 years is a damning indictment because Americans, 14 percent of Americans right now say they like the path of America.
00:56:26.860But, you know, if you look and you go back and you see what the underlying bubbling of discontent, it didn't end with Trump's presidency.
00:56:34.460And instead of trying to paint a rosier picture, he could paint one of we're in a crisis.
00:56:39.920But we're not going back to the 2012 years, which you all rejected in 2016.
00:56:44.500Crystal, what do you think about that moment with Hunter where Biden switched to to Beau Biden, you know, that his his rising star son who died, you know, two years ago or a couple of years ago.
00:56:58.500And and, you know, Trump stayed laser focused on Hunter and really went after him.
00:57:02.540And then Trump and then Biden switched again into what I think was an attempt to be more sympathetic towards his son and talked about his his drug problem with cocaine.
00:57:11.900You know, Biden was sort of over there defending his boys and trying to get empathy from the audience.
00:57:17.560And Trump was basically saying, I'm not going to talk about Beau, but no, Hunter, it's not about his drug problem.
00:57:24.640It's about his money problem and him exploiting your position to line his own pocket to the millions.
00:57:32.060Well, let's first talk about the substance, which is that, look, what Hunter did, the money that he took overseas and with policeman, all of this.
00:57:40.000Like Democrats are very uncomfortable talking about this and want to just be like, oh, we didn't do anything wrong.
00:57:44.400Just because something is not illegal doesn't mean that it's OK.
00:57:48.340And Biden's response was basically just to outright lie and say there was nothing to see here.
00:57:54.460However, because Trump did go after Hunter on his drug use, I thought he had managed to make a person who is fundamentally sort of unsympathetic, Hunter Biden, into a sympathetic character.
00:58:07.720You know, Biden rightfully got sort of outraged about the attack and said, look, a lot of people are struggling with addiction.
00:58:15.260And again, this is a flip from what Trump did in 2016 when he spoke very compassionately about the opioid crisis that has ripped through our country and upended lives, you know, coast to coast.
00:58:25.280You can scarcely meet a person who hasn't been impacted by this crisis.
00:58:35.140Some of the worst, you know, some of the hardest hit places in this country are key swing districts.
00:58:41.360And it was a major part of his appeal last time around.
00:58:43.820So I thought that was kind of a swing and a miss.
00:58:45.560And look, the big moment that's going to get replayed over and over on cable news with some justification is when Trump sort of struggled to condemn white supremacists, which plays into the worst caricatures of him.
00:58:59.000And his, frankly, is sort of hectoring and bullying personality also plays into the worst caricature of him at a time when it's a different moment than 2016.
00:59:20.420There was a hand, you know, there was a hand ring, there was a pause, and then ultimately says this bizarre, like, stand by and stand back.
01:00:24.940Yeah, I mean, it goes back to what Crystal just said.
01:00:27.480For a lot of people, Sleepy actually sounds decent right now.
01:00:29.860And so leaning into Sleepy doesn't exactly seem, I mean, Lil Marco was, it seemed to be like, oh, here's this young senator, too big for his britches, wants to be president.
01:00:40.280Lion Ted, I mean, it was, again, it was like, this man will say anything that wants to be president.
01:00:45.620Low Energy Jeb was about the fact that this is a establishment Republican who's not actually going to fight for the wants and needs of the Republican base.
01:00:53.140This time around, Sleepy Joe does not encapsulate it in the same way.
01:00:58.520I mean, Crooked Hillary, again, I can't think of anything better to describe, like, so much of the political establishment that she represented, the type of politics, her many years around Washington.
01:01:09.920That was a dagger to the heart of what the core argument against her was.
01:01:14.900And in this particular case, this isn't the strategy that, again, they should be leaning into against Biden.
01:01:20.100I think that they've misread the situation from the very beginning, and we say this all the time on our show, it's not a secret, which is that trying to lean into the rosy picture of America, especially right now at a time like this, and not instead leaning back onto the original way that you won the presidency by indicting the forces that are keeping so many Americans down and feeling as if they have no agency in the political process has just been a major strategic mistake.
01:01:47.580So Sleepy, I think, from the beginning, didn't encapsulate, like, a core policy argument against Biden, and that there was something about that that has just gone astray for him recently.
01:02:09.640I mean, that was one of the things Frank Lund's focus group was saying, was some of the people who were undecided were like,
01:02:13.780I can't wait till the next debate, because I really do need something to help me make up my mind, because they couldn't hear a damn word last night.
01:02:20.980People deserve so much better, and that was what really made me mad than what they got.
01:02:26.080Well, I mean, if both men lose, and then one man is down seven points in the real clear politics average, then by default, you generally lost.
01:02:33.100And so I think that's it. Like I said, if there's no game-change moment, if you're not able to actually convince large swaths of voters to come back to your side,
01:02:41.120or to come out who generally don't vote and back you, then that's what this is all about.
01:02:45.320It's not a style competition. This is about winning an election.
01:02:48.860And I don't think that there was anything last night for Trump that is going to help him win the 2020 presidential election.
01:02:55.300It always morphs into a bit of a style election.
01:02:57.360All right, I'll take the final word by saying I think the big loser last night was us, the American people, the viewers, and I think the big winner was Kanye West.