The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage： Jeremy Said This Debate Wouldn’t Happen Edition

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00:00:37.580 Hey, Michael Knowles here, and do I have a treat for you.

00:00:40.660 The latest episode of Daily Wire Backstage is available now, and you do not want to miss it.

00:00:45.560 Join me, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, and the God King, Jeremy Boring,

00:00:49.580 as we discuss the latest news and cultural events, all while enjoying some fine whiskey and cigars.

00:00:54.620 It is all that and more. Take a listen.

00:00:58.020 Welcome to the Daily Wire Backstage.

00:00:59.780 Jeremy said this debate wouldn't happen edition. 0.97

00:01:01.940 I am the Jeremy in question, and we're just 15 minutes away from finding out if I owe every one of these schmucks $100 each, 0.87

00:01:09.480 which is still less than Ben had to pay us for his 2016 election prediction, but who's counting? 0.55

00:01:15.620 Joining me tonight to take my money are Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, and Michael Knowles.

00:01:24.620 We're glad you're here with us. We're going to watch this thing so that you also can watch it.

00:01:38.580 I mean, I was going to say it so that you don't have to, but everybody has to.

00:01:40.740 Like 65 million people watched the debates in 2016.

00:01:43.600 It's only going to be more people watching it this time to see the two oldest candidates in the history of the republic

00:01:49.620 duke it out with or without breaks every 30 minutes, depending on who wins the coin toss.

00:01:54.460 I know that's why you're here.

00:01:56.180 I'm here to tell you about our pals over at Bravo Company Manufacturing.

00:01:59.120 When the founders crafted the Constitution, the very first thing they did was make sacred the rights of the individual

00:02:03.800 to share their ideas without limitation by their government.

00:02:06.580 That is amendment number one.

00:02:08.360 The second right they enumerated was the right of the population to protect that speech

00:02:11.660 and their own persons with force.

00:02:15.180 That is amendment number two.

00:02:16.880 You know how strongly that I believe in these principles and everyone here, every one of us, a gun owner.

00:02:21.860 In fact, two of the three of you, I took to purchase your first firearms.

00:02:28.120 We are big supporters of firearm and personal responsibility, and we are big fans of Bravo Company Manufacturing.

00:02:37.300 Owning a gun, an awesome responsibility.

00:02:39.160 Building rifles, no different.

00:02:40.460 Bravo Company Manufacturing, or BCM for short, built a professional-grade product, which is built to combat standards.

00:02:45.680 The reason? Because BCM believes that the same level of protection should be provided to every American,

00:02:51.340 regardless whether they are a private citizen or a professional.

00:02:54.800 The people at BCM assume that when a rifle leaves their shop, it will be used in a life-or-death situation

00:02:59.080 by a responsible citizen, law enforcement officer, or a soldier overseas.

00:03:03.480 With that in mind, every component of a BCM rifle is hand-assembled and tested by Americans.

00:03:08.160 The people at BCM feel it's their moral responsibility as Americans to provide tools that will not fail the end user

00:03:14.100 when it's not just a paper target, but someone coming to do them harm.

00:03:18.440 BCM also works with leading industry instructors, excuse me, of marksmanship from the top levels of America's Special Operations Forces,

00:03:24.940 Marine Corps Force reconnaissance to U.S. Army Special Operations Forces, connecting them with other Americans.

00:03:30.940 The top instructors teach the skills necessary to defend yourself, your family, and others.

00:03:35.800 Anyways, that's why I love our pals over at Bravo Company Manufacturing. Benjamin?

00:03:39.800 They are indeed the best.

00:03:41.580 And one of the reasons that they are the best is because they make weapons that, again, you're going to use in self-defense.

00:03:46.440 It's not for hunting. It's not for target shooting.

00:03:48.240 It's because you might need to use a weapon.

00:03:49.740 And when you need a weapon to work, you need it to come from Bravo Company Manufacturing.

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00:03:57.260 You can discover more about their products, special offers, upcoming news.

00:03:59.960 That is bravocompanymfg.com.

00:04:01.800 If you need more convincing than that, I don't know, after that sale from Jeremy, I don't know what more you need.

00:04:06.560 You need to go check out youtube.com slash bravocompanyusa for videos even more amusing than this one.

00:04:12.100 Go check them out, youtube.com slash bravocompanyusa.

00:04:15.040 They do make better videos than we do.

00:04:16.640 Well, I mean, they don't have to watch the debates.

00:04:19.700 They're cheerful, right?

00:04:20.720 Yeah, exactly.

00:04:21.660 So, yeah, how much do you guys want to die?

00:04:25.120 I got to tell you, I'm very excited. 0.56

00:04:27.560 I'm hoping that I'm hoping Trump eats Biden for lunch.

00:04:31.040 I am a little nervous, though.

00:04:31.920 There's some pitfalls.

00:04:32.740 I would like to point out that the first time in now six months that Drew has come to the backstage in person was to take $100 from Jeremy Ford.

00:04:43.340 It's so great.

00:04:44.520 I just want to say...

00:04:45.780 We almost escaped the place.

00:04:50.100 It is the first time we've all been together in like nine months.

00:04:52.360 It's kind of fun.

00:04:52.720 It's true.

00:04:53.080 It's pretty weird.

00:04:54.600 And the last one for a long time since we're all leaving.

00:04:57.900 Everybody's just leaving you here, Drew.

00:04:59.080 I'll be sitting here sweeping up the streets, you know?

00:05:02.020 Well, good luck with that because have you seen what's going on in the streets over here?

00:05:04.580 Oh, my God.

00:05:05.240 You've got to take a mop, not a broom.

00:05:06.800 You saw they shut down Sunset last night?

00:05:08.800 I saw that.

00:05:09.280 Like, BLM full-on shut down Sunset last night.

00:05:12.100 Because?

00:05:12.860 Why not?

00:05:15.000 Some men ask why.

00:05:16.100 Some men see a mountain and they ask why.

00:05:17.580 Others see a mountain and they ask why not.

00:05:19.220 Some men see Sunset Boulevard and they ask why not.

00:05:21.500 Well, because they already canceled Gone with the Wind, so they were going to cancel Sunset Boulevard, one of the other great films of the era.

00:05:26.700 Oh, was that a groaner?

00:05:28.260 All right.

00:05:28.440 Okay, okay.

00:05:29.020 So, predictions.

00:05:30.800 All right.

00:05:30.960 I have a prediction.

00:05:32.120 My prediction is this.

00:05:33.180 Everybody's focusing.

00:05:34.300 You'll love this.

00:05:35.060 You're going to love this.

00:05:36.540 Comes at me. 1.00

00:05:37.260 Hit him. 0.99

00:05:37.720 All right? 0.91

00:05:39.000 Everybody's focusing on Joe Biden.

00:05:40.500 Will Joe Biden be able to do anything other than stand on his feet and not drool?

00:05:45.140 But I actually think that Trump is the guy to watch today.

00:05:48.260 And the reason I think this is because Trump, as we all know, is not exactly a scholar.

00:05:51.720 He's not somebody who reads things.

00:05:52.900 What?

00:05:53.300 I know.

00:05:53.780 A shock.

00:05:54.020 A shock.

00:05:54.760 But he is a guy who learns on the job.

00:05:56.480 He is not the man he was in 2016.

00:05:58.500 He is a guy who actually now knows what he's talking about.

00:06:01.800 If he can convey that, if he can be articulate enough to convey the fact that he actually now knows that there is a country called Korea, maybe a North, maybe a South, somewhere out there, that he knows how things work.

00:06:13.040 He could actually make Biden look bad, even if Biden delivered.

00:06:16.620 Wait, hold up.

00:06:17.520 Wait.

00:06:18.040 So your theory is.

00:06:19.720 I just want to make sure that I'm following you.

00:06:21.500 I love this.

00:06:21.800 Your theory is that Donald Trump is going to drop knowledge on Joe Biden.

00:06:26.620 Not that he's going to drop a kitchen sink on him.

00:06:28.200 I agree he'll drop a kitchen sink.

00:06:29.700 That's a special thing, right?

00:06:30.420 No, but I actually think he now has something he didn't have before, which is knowledge, because this is the way he learns.

00:06:34.880 He learns by doing stuff.

00:06:36.820 I actually, I agree with that.

00:06:37.920 I'd also like to present Exhibit A.

00:06:39.820 I'd like to present some evidence for this.

00:06:41.920 I don't know if you guys, did you watch the Trump town hall?

00:06:46.340 So it was that he was sitting down, I forget, with some left-wing outlet.

00:06:49.340 Yes, yes.

00:06:49.900 Do you remember this?

00:06:50.520 Good point.

00:06:50.680 And he handled it incredibly well.

00:06:54.080 He was measured.

00:06:55.180 He was prepared walking in there.

00:06:56.960 There was a setup question that was so easy.

00:06:59.740 The only reason they let this question come into that town hall was because it seemed like it was pro-Trump, but it wasn't.

00:07:05.200 It was this woman who talked about how sad it was that her parents had died from COVID, and they all really loved Trump.

00:07:11.840 And so isn't he going to open up the borders and not build the wall and increase immigration?

00:07:16.480 And what did he do?

00:07:17.860 He was totally sympathetic.

00:07:19.940 He talked all about her and what a wonderful daughter she is, and then moved on, and he pivoted, and he didn't take the bait.

00:07:26.660 I think that is evidence of learning something.

00:07:28.700 So I agree that if the Trump who showed up for that town hall shows up tonight, he stands to really gain a lot.

00:07:35.580 My concern is that instead we'll get the Trump who showed up at that debate a couple of days ago, didn't know where Azerbaijan was, or was it Azerbaijan?

00:07:43.820 No, it wasn't.

00:07:44.200 I don't know where it was.

00:07:44.720 Yeah, Azerbaijan. 0.75

00:07:45.500 Yeah, you're not the president.

00:07:46.460 Yeah.

00:07:46.860 Thank God.

00:07:47.460 I think that the real fear going into tonight is that Donald Trump thought that he was in a WWF match. 0.93

00:07:56.580 I mean, he's good at WWE, right, and it's all crap talking beforehand, but Biden didn't take the bait.

00:08:01.960 And what you're left with now is that Trump has basically set the bar so low for Joe Biden that it's hard to see how Trump can actually have a victory.

00:08:09.840 If Joe Biden does stay on his feet for 90 minutes, he all but wins the debate.

00:08:15.020 It's a very dangerous thing to go into a debate that neither you nor your supporters believe you can lose.

00:08:20.200 Just ask Hillary 2016.

00:08:21.620 No, I think that's fair, but you've got to remember about these debates.

00:08:24.920 They're not debates, right?

00:08:26.000 They're not real debates.

00:08:27.440 They are opportunities to get a viral moment, and there are two or three viral moments.

00:08:32.900 And where do the viral moments come from?

00:08:34.380 They come from the quick wit.

00:08:35.520 All of Trump's big moments in 2016 came from, I don't want to live in Trump's America.

00:08:39.820 Yeah, because you'd be in jail.

00:08:41.520 All of these little quick moments there. 0.99

00:08:44.580 You call women ugly and terrible. 0.95

00:08:46.060 Only Rosie O'Donnell, right? 0.99

00:08:47.260 Zig, zig, zig.

00:08:48.180 And Biden, look, he can be charming.

00:08:50.860 He's a stand-up comedian, right?

00:08:51.880 I mean, he's great at going out.

00:08:52.960 Trump is a stand-up comedian.

00:08:54.300 Insult comedy is his thing.

00:08:55.700 The problem is, and I think this really is the difference between 2016 and 2020.

00:09:00.580 It's not Trump.

00:09:01.540 It's not that Trump has changed or anything.

00:09:03.340 It's that Hillary Clinton is not Joe Biden, and Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton.

00:09:06.560 What I mean by that is that people despise Hillary Clinton, and legitimately so. 0.89

00:09:11.000 I don't get the feeling that people viscerally despise Joe Biden.

00:09:14.020 Like, they look at him.

00:09:14.680 They're like, who is this doof? 1.00

00:09:15.940 Why is he here?

00:09:16.940 They're kind of mildly annoyed by Joe Biden, if anything.

00:09:18.880 Even if you really dislike him, it's mostly because you think he's a stand-in and kind 0.99

00:09:22.220 of a liar and kind of corrupt. 0.98

00:09:24.000 But in the same way everybody else in Washington, D.C. is a liar and corrupt, not in the unique, 0.99

00:09:27.980 horrible way that Hillary was, where just every time people on the right looked at Hillary 1.00

00:09:31.820 Clinton, they saw this machine that was designed to go after the presidency in the most

00:09:36.160 ambitious possible way. 0.99

00:09:37.640 I mean, he's a klutz and he's a buffoon, Joe Biden, who somehow found himself in this 0.99

00:09:41.540 position. 0.96

00:09:42.220 And so there isn't the same sort of drama to the debate, meaning that going up to the

00:09:45.780 debate against Hillary, and this really pervaded the primaries in the Republican side, it was

00:09:51.840 who is going to just clock her, right?

00:09:54.060 Who is going to go in that debate and just throw at her the Clinton Foundation and throw 1.00

00:09:57.480 at her corruption and throw at her bill and who's going to do a press conference with 1.00

00:10:01.860 the accusers five seconds before, right?

00:10:03.560 Who's going to do that?

00:10:04.240 And the only person up here who's going to do that is this crazy reality TV show host.

00:10:07.480 I think that was worth 10 points to him in the primaries.

00:10:09.280 This time around, I just don't get the sense that it's like people are just drooling, you

00:10:13.700 know, foaming at the mouth to see somebody clock Joe Biden.

00:10:16.380 All this I agree with.

00:10:17.600 Since we don't know what's going to happen, I can agree with anything could possibly happen.

00:10:21.080 But the one thing is, is that Biden has not been hit with a single tough question, not

00:10:26.720 one, since this thing has started.

00:10:28.620 I mean, he was being asked about the state of Trump's soul.

00:10:31.980 He, one of the questions he was asked is, why aren't you more angry at Donald Trump?

00:10:34.980 Right.

00:10:35.140 I mean, they have not been-

00:10:36.360 Like me, the unbiased journalist.

00:10:38.300 Exactly.

00:10:39.020 I mean, they haven't been playing softball with him.

00:10:40.960 They've been playing like wiffle ball.

00:10:42.160 But he did take some blows during the primary and he held up.

00:10:46.400 He managed to be victorious.

00:10:47.600 But those were blows from the left.

00:10:49.820 Those weren't blows from the right.

00:10:51.080 Meaning that the blows from the left, his whole candidacy was, I am the moderate bulwark

00:10:54.900 against the Kamala Harris's, against the Bernie Sanders's, against the Elizabeth Warren's.

00:10:58.440 If he takes a blow from the right, like a serious blow from the right, it could theoretically

00:11:01.520 hurt him because his whole campaign is that he's a moderate.

00:11:03.440 So what that means to me is that the temptation for Trump, I think tonight and always, is going

00:11:08.060 to be go after the fact that he's quasi-senile, go after the fact that he seems like he's

00:11:12.080 in poor health, go after Hunter Biden's cocaine use, right?

00:11:14.680 Like go after the fact that he has grandchildren that he apparently doesn't know about, right?

00:11:18.140 Go after all the things that Trump really is animated by.

00:11:20.820 All the National Enquirer stuff is the stuff, like he won't read the Intel reports, but

00:11:24.100 he'll read the National Enquirer.

00:11:25.140 And so that's the stuff he's really interested in.

00:11:26.620 But the stuff he actually needs to hit him on is the radicalism of packing the court.

00:11:30.380 He needs to force him to answer whether he's going to disassociate from both Antifa and

00:11:34.640 Black Lives Matter.

00:11:35.580 And he should say why, he should ask him on the stage, Joe Biden, you expressed sympathy

00:11:39.800 for an alleged rapist in Kenosha while ripping into the police and saying they should be

00:11:43.200 arrested.

00:11:43.820 So what the hell is the deal with that?

00:11:45.200 Right?

00:11:45.380 That's the stuff where he really needs to hit hard.

00:11:47.020 And I think I, my fear is that he won't, that he'll go after all of the kind of red meat 1.00

00:11:51.380 for the crowd.

00:11:52.360 Exactly.

00:11:52.840 The Sleepy Joe stuff.

00:11:53.760 I wonder if this is the kind of thing that he has learned because he does, like, this

00:11:57.660 is where he's been living for the last four years.

00:11:59.220 So he does know stuff that he didn't know before.

00:12:01.000 Well, Jenna Ellis, your friend Jenna Ellis and ours, got mad at me on Twitter because

00:12:05.320 I said, don't get cocky.

00:12:07.160 No, that's right.

00:12:07.980 And she said, well, I think the president has earned a measure of trust that he always knows

00:12:12.080 what he's doing.

00:12:12.540 The problem is the president has not demonstrated for four years that he always knows what he's

00:12:17.360 doing.

00:12:17.700 He's demonstrated that he often knows what he's doing.

00:12:20.360 But there are several blunders that we've all skipped right over.

00:12:23.460 And the way that he has framed this debate, listen, if he, if he wins, then he did, then

00:12:29.520 he set it up the right way.

00:12:30.500 Right.

00:12:31.340 But he's made it harder to win by the way that he set it up.

00:12:33.800 That's what I'm worried about.

00:12:34.900 I'm also worried about who's at my front door.

00:12:37.260 I got this new kid, you know, I adopted this child, this human baby.

00:12:40.340 Beautiful, beautiful.

00:12:40.780 Thank you.

00:12:41.200 Thank you.

00:12:41.640 And well, I mean, I have nothing to do with it.

00:12:43.620 That's the only way that could happen.

00:12:44.880 Her mind is being crafted.

00:12:45.860 Her mind is being crafted by me and her soul.

00:12:48.460 Unfortunately, I, I have found this amazing thing though, that I am so much more defensive

00:12:52.660 and protective now that I have this child in my home.

00:12:55.460 Before you just had a wife and it was like, whatever.

00:12:56.900 But now I have a child.

00:12:58.040 She can take care of herself.

00:12:58.940 She married me.

00:12:59.780 But this poor child I want to know is at my door.

00:13:01.720 And that's why I'm happy to work with Ring.

00:13:04.560 Ring has security products for every corner of your home, inside and out.

00:13:07.560 Best of all, you can see it all in one simple app.

00:13:10.300 With Ring, you can keep an eye on your home no matter where you are, right from your phone.

00:13:13.900 If someone stops by or something's going on, Ring lets you know.

00:13:16.620 It's peace of mind anytime knowing that your home is protected.

00:13:19.400 I've been traveling a lot, going to our new homeland of Tennessee.

00:13:23.460 Still taking some getting used to for a Texan and a Los Angelino.

00:13:26.460 And I've been able to keep an eye on things back at home because of the power of Ring.

00:13:30.640 You can see and speak to whoever is at your door from anywhere with video doorbells.

00:13:34.220 Keep an eye on every corner of your house with an easy to install indoor and outdoor cameras.

00:13:38.500 Protect your whole family with Ring Alarm.

00:13:40.880 A powerful, affordable, whole home security system that you can easily install yourself.

00:13:45.540 It's so easy that I was able to install it and then go over and help Ben install his.

00:13:50.020 That is 100% true.

00:13:51.480 What I'm looking forward to the most is that now when I'm not in L.A. anymore,

00:13:54.520 somebody is going to ring that doorbell and I'm just going to pick up and say,

00:13:57.000 I'm not in L.A.

00:13:57.860 Ha ha ha ha ha.

00:13:58.900 But you are.

00:14:00.060 So if you want that same feeling, all you have to do is both move and also get Ring.

00:14:04.140 Head on over to ring.com slash backstage.

00:14:06.640 You get a special offer on the Ring Welcome Kit at ring.com slash backstage.

00:14:09.620 It comes with Ring's Video Doorbell 3 and Shime Pro.

00:14:11.700 The perfect way to start your Ring experience plus free two-day shipping.

00:14:15.120 Go to ring.com slash backstage.

00:14:16.880 That is ring.com slash backstage.

00:14:19.520 So here's how this thing's going to work.

00:14:21.600 We're going to sit here and watch the debate.

00:14:23.400 All right.

00:14:23.760 If you are a Daily Wire all-access.

00:14:26.000 Wait, I'm leaving.

00:14:26.780 I know.

00:14:27.360 If you're a Daily Wire all-access subscriber, you're going to be able to join us as we watch the debate.

00:14:32.120 We'll be in the discussion group.

00:14:33.380 You can go up there, click on discussion, come on over.

00:14:35.340 We'll be answering questions as we go and maybe making little comments if I know us.

00:14:40.180 After that, stick around.

00:14:41.340 After the debate.

00:14:42.340 And we will be back here with the live stream episode of Backstage for some instant analysis from, you know, us.

00:14:47.800 If you're an all-access member, again, head over to the discussion page because that's where we will be taking questions and making, I think, pithy little comments that are sure to delight.

00:14:56.980 And, you know, also probably piss you off.

00:14:59.580 Because what I have found is that all of our super fans, they actually are not, like, if you were a band and you have some super fans, they're, like, always excited to hear the new song.

00:15:09.240 You know, they're always excited to find out, like, who you're dating now or what you're wearing.

00:15:13.220 Our super fans come for the dopamine hit of being pissed off every time.

00:15:18.000 It's like, they don't like soccer.

00:15:20.200 Officiate my wedding.

00:15:22.520 They always say that.

00:15:23.680 They always say things like that.

00:15:25.300 So here we go.

00:15:25.840 We're going to tune into this debate.

00:15:26.920 Thanks for joining us.

00:15:28.080 And we will see you right after.

00:15:29.560 No!

00:15:29.800 No! 0.96

00:15:29.960 Well, holy crap, if you're watching after all of that. 1.00

00:15:41.900 Shut up! 1.00

00:15:43.940 You clown. 1.00

00:15:45.420 I do want to acknowledge, after the worst debate that I've seen in my adult life, serving politics, I do have to confess that the debate did, in fact, happen. 0.99

00:15:54.940 So here you go. 1.00

00:15:56.080 What damn. 1.00

00:15:56.580 All right. 1.00

00:15:57.140 $100.

00:15:57.940 Thank you, sir.

00:15:58.780 Wow.

00:15:59.360 There you go.

00:15:59.960 And $100.

00:16:01.100 I basically made that peddling your name.

00:16:03.840 So it's only fair there is to get some money.

00:16:05.360 This might really turn out, actually.

00:16:06.640 I changed my mind about the debate.

00:16:08.380 This is great.

00:16:08.920 No amount of money to compensate for what we just experienced.

00:16:11.860 No, I'm cheap.

00:16:12.700 That actually was it.

00:16:13.900 Fair enough.

00:16:14.820 As a conservative.

00:16:15.560 A dollar a minute.

00:16:15.840 I'm handling over the price now.

00:16:16.920 At this point, I claim it.

00:16:17.560 As a conservative grifter, every now and then, it's good to part with some of the money that I've made.

00:16:21.900 Well, that was absolutely the worst debate I've ever had.

00:16:25.180 I have to say, I think we're all agreed on that.

00:16:28.160 It was a disaster.

00:16:29.260 It was a chaos.

00:16:29.480 Okay.

00:16:29.720 So who should we start with?

00:16:30.940 Because it was like a disaster all the way around.

00:16:32.620 Yes.

00:16:32.780 So here's the problem.

00:16:34.300 From a 30,000-foot level, if you think Trump already is winning, then you're real happy because nothing changed.

00:16:39.940 If you think Trump is losing, like the polls say, then you're happy because nothing changed.

00:16:45.240 Meaning that what the debate really did more than anything else was just to underscore all of the personality foibles and flaws of both of the candidates.

00:16:52.720 Biden is not completely there.

00:16:53.900 Biden is not completely there.

00:16:55.340 He is irritable.

00:16:56.640 He is irascible.

00:16:57.500 He can get under his skin. 0.67

00:16:59.500 He says nasty things.

00:17:00.880 Yeah. 0.99

00:17:01.240 And Trump is a badger.

00:17:03.340 And there is a theory out there that one of the reasons that Trump has not been able to pick up support, despite the fact that Biden is an incredibly weak candidate, is because people are just tired. 0.88

00:17:11.240 If you are of the mind that people are so tired of all of this, this has been an exhausting year from beginning to end.

00:17:16.980 It's been exhausting.

00:17:17.700 And really, it's been exhausting since before the election, 2015.

00:17:20.700 But it's been exhausting for four years because the news cycle has been nonstop for four years.

00:17:25.340 If you abide by the theory that the least exhausting candidate wins, Trump was absolutely exhausting tonight.

00:17:33.140 Now, if you are somebody who thinks, okay, well, he took it to Biden and he was punching him and he was rabbit punching him and it was just punch, punch, punch, punch all night.

00:17:39.660 Like, that's okay.

00:17:40.960 I mean, that's fine.

00:17:41.760 But if you're thinking of this outside of the vacuum of the debate alone.

00:17:44.280 It has always been Biden's biggest strength.

00:17:46.500 The reason he's, and you and I talked about this in the West Wing three years ago.

00:17:50.040 The reason that Biden is the greatest threat to Trump is because he is the alternative to all the chaos of the last three years.

00:17:57.620 Whereas a Bernie would have represented a new kind of chaos.

00:18:00.360 That's right.

00:18:00.720 A Warren would have represented.

00:18:01.820 But Biden, despite all of his flaws, I think benefits from tonight for the simple fact that I wasn't exhausted when I watched him.

00:18:10.080 This is the issue, though.

00:18:11.080 I take issue with this.

00:18:12.600 I half agree with you then that it was a chaotic, horrible debate.

00:18:16.020 Yes.

00:18:16.280 I thought it was a chaotic, horrible debate.

00:18:17.920 It's worse for Trump because if the polls are right, he's trailing in the polls.

00:18:21.600 Right.

00:18:21.860 And I think it moved the needle not at all.

00:18:24.460 I think that Biden, it confirmed everything we thought about each candidate.

00:18:29.760 Biden was a bore.

00:18:31.880 He didn't know what he was talking about. 1.00

00:18:33.220 He was a blithering idiot. 1.00

00:18:34.580 He said some pretty horrible things, by the way. 1.00

00:18:36.140 He did.

00:18:36.680 Antifa is only a philosophy.

00:18:38.560 It's not a group. 1.00

00:18:39.220 Trump's a racist. 0.99

00:18:40.480 Systemic racism infuses every single element. 1.00

00:18:42.600 There's a two-tier system in America, in every single part of America.

00:18:47.600 Right.

00:18:47.720 He said not just about the justice system, but in the economy, everywhere.

00:18:50.880 I mean, that's an evil thing to say because it is not true.

00:18:52.580 And Trump benefited from the fact that Chris Wallace was the worst thing in the debate.

00:18:57.520 He benefited from that, but his constant interruptions, A, were bad strategy. 1.00

00:19:02.180 Let Biden talk because he makes a fool. 0.99

00:19:03.720 That's right. 1.00

00:19:04.200 It's just bad strategy.

00:19:05.600 And B, it's just annoying.

00:19:07.200 It's annoying.

00:19:08.020 The funny thing is, Donald Trump and Chris Wallace had the same strategy.

00:19:11.680 Yes, you're right.

00:19:12.420 Which was just Hector and Badger and Interrupt.

00:19:14.320 Yeah.

00:19:14.680 The best thing that the president had going for him tonight was Chris Wallace.

00:19:18.120 Totally.

00:19:18.660 I do want to say this because a lot of people watching-

00:19:20.620 Which was by default, by the way, that Biden wins.

00:19:21.680 That's right.

00:19:22.160 Meaning that if Trump and Wallace were the losers of the evening, being with all the badgering, 0.79

00:19:27.540 then Biden is what he has always been.

00:19:28.980 He's the guy who's still standing after the giant NASCAR wreck.

00:19:32.180 Yeah, but I want to say-

00:19:32.960 And he's just trailing the field.

00:19:33.640 I want to say out of the gate before we talk any more about this, the vast majority of the

00:19:37.820 people watching us are going to vote for Donald Trump.

00:19:40.660 We're all going to vote for Donald Trump.

00:19:41.580 The vast majority of the people watching us want the president to win.

00:19:44.740 That's right.

00:19:45.060 And when you watch tonight-

00:19:46.480 Including us.

00:19:47.020 It may be frustrating to you that we say that the president had a bad night.

00:19:51.020 A lot of media outlets take the position that what we're supposed to be doing right now is

00:19:55.040 basically image building for the president.

00:19:57.600 That we're supposed to basically fly-

00:19:59.020 No matter what he did tonight, our job is to come out and tell you how great he did.

00:20:02.440 How successful he was, how undefeatable he is, and give you some kind of talking points

00:20:06.640 so that tomorrow, when you're at the water cooler, you can defend the president's performance.

00:20:11.240 That's just really not what we're about.

00:20:13.100 I think if you want that, go tune into Fox News.

00:20:15.240 If you start getting mad because we say the president didn't do great tonight,

00:20:19.040 be mad at the president for not doing great tonight.

00:20:21.400 He's got two more debates.

00:20:22.840 I'm not paying on every debate.

00:20:24.100 I think this was like-

00:20:24.880 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:20:25.160 The debates happen.

00:20:26.220 You got your money.

00:20:27.800 The president has time to make up some ground.

00:20:29.840 But if he gives that performance at each of the two subsequent debates, I don't see how he-

00:20:35.800 I agree that the badgering was frustrating and he shouldn't have done it.

00:20:39.380 I agree with that.

00:20:40.120 He shouldn't have done it as much as he did.

00:20:41.580 He should have done it a little bit.

00:20:42.940 But the issue is, Ronald Reagan said it.

00:20:44.960 The only way you can have peace, you can have it in the next minute.

00:20:48.080 The only guaranteed way to have peace is surrender.

00:20:50.500 And this is the issue and this is why Trump's got to pester and badger.

00:20:53.740 Because when you actually threaten the left, I'm not talking about just cutting taxes or something.

00:20:58.220 I mean, actually threaten what the left is about.

00:21:00.640 They come at you relentlessly like Chris Wallace did tonight.

00:21:03.840 Chris Wallace, I think, is a Democrat, but he's on ostensibly the right-wing network.

00:21:07.340 And he was awful.

00:21:08.800 He was terrible tonight. 0.84

00:21:10.120 And think about it.

00:21:10.600 It's only going to get worse, right?

00:21:11.720 He's the most conservative guy.

00:21:12.920 I will say that Wallace did morph over the course of the night.

00:21:15.540 So for the first 45 minutes, he wasn't terrible.

00:21:17.560 And then he started to get very, very terrible.

00:21:20.460 On climate change, he interrupted the president six times and debated him.

00:21:24.440 The white supremacy question was absolutely awful.

00:21:26.380 Because the premise of the critical race theory thing was completely awful, where he suggested

00:21:30.840 that it was just, you know, racial sensitivity training, where we're all supposed to be nice

00:21:33.300 to each other.

00:21:33.980 And that's also Trump's fault for not being able to explicate it. 0.99

00:21:36.300 But it is Wallace's fault for asking a garbage question. 0.74

00:21:38.640 But you got the impression with Wallace that he came in with a game plan and Trump completely 0.98

00:21:42.520 threw over the table.

00:21:43.540 And Wallace didn't know what to do.

00:21:44.760 And so he just became another one of the debaters.

00:21:46.800 It was like a three-person debate again.

00:21:48.140 And we saw this a lot in 2012 with Romney and Obama, where the moderator trying to save

00:21:53.820 Obama would insert themselves into the debate and become part of the story.

00:21:57.160 I thought you saw that with Wallace a lot tonight.

00:21:59.760 But to me, the bottom line is that when it comes to Trump's hectoring and badgering,

00:22:05.500 listen, I'm good at debate, right?

00:22:06.920 I do it professionally.

00:22:08.620 There are times where this is good.

00:22:10.300 When you ask somebody a question and they refuse to answer the question, and you follow up

00:22:13.680 with the same question, and they refuse to answer the question.

00:22:15.700 And so you follow up again, and you ask them the same question.

00:22:18.420 And so he could have done that a series of times.

00:22:20.540 He did it a little bit on packing the court.

00:22:22.260 And then he did it a little bit again later when he said, you know, can you name a single

00:22:26.000 police organization across the country that supports you?

00:22:28.600 The problem is when you do it on every single thing all night, there is no point of contrast.

00:22:35.660 No, even I want to hear what Joe Biden has to say.

00:22:37.800 And it's not just I want to hear what Joe Biden has to say.

00:22:39.500 It's that you really have to pick your spot, right?

00:22:41.360 If all you're doing is throwing haymakers all night long, and some are hitting and some

00:22:45.420 or not, it's very difficult at that point to even tell which ones are hitting and which

00:22:48.260 ones are not.

00:22:48.800 All you get is the general sense that he's punching.

00:22:50.560 So we're going to keep talking about it.

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00:24:54.320 Okay, guys.

00:24:54.740 You got anything to say about this?

00:24:56.000 I do.

00:24:56.840 I do.

00:24:57.220 I actually do have anything to say.

00:24:58.740 Which is-

00:25:00.140 All of my inhibitions are gone.

00:25:01.360 There, it's totally, I agree, I totally agree with your point that Trump was throwing way

00:25:05.800 too many haymakers and he was badgering too much.

00:25:07.600 But the thing I think we're overlooking here is, here's what I think we're overlooking.

00:25:12.140 In a normal presidential year, yes, no, in a normal presidential year, you want the president

00:25:16.240 to seem stately and in control and to, right, and he's just debating the Democrat.

00:25:20.080 But that doesn't work for Trump.

00:25:21.580 That's not how he got elected.

00:25:22.620 That's not how he's ever thought about running for office.

00:25:24.900 He is this different thing, which is he's got to be the outsider.

00:25:27.680 I think one-on-one does not work as well for Trump as two-on-one.

00:25:31.760 I think he actually, it benefits Trump to have Chris Wallace jumping in there, Jeremy

00:25:34.920 just said at the top of it.

00:25:36.300 And the crazy thing about Trump is, he is this billionaire who is outside the establishment.

00:25:41.560 How has he worked to that image?

00:25:42.860 I don't know, but he sure has.

00:25:43.960 He talks like a truck driver from Queens is part of it.

00:25:46.500 And what's even crazier is, he's a billionaire for 40 years or whatever, he's now the president

00:25:51.040 and he somehow presents as outside of the establishment.

00:25:54.660 The only way that works is when you're fighting Joe Biden, very establishment Democrat, and

00:25:59.620 Chris Wallace, who's been part of the D.C. establishment forever.

00:26:02.360 I'm not saying it was a great night for him.

00:26:04.240 I'm just saying that framework is-

00:26:06.720 I agree with that.

00:26:07.340 The only thing I think about this is I just think it was a wash.

00:26:11.980 The media is going to come out tomorrow.

00:26:13.620 Their whole story is going to be that he didn't denounce white supremacy clearly enough.

00:26:18.320 You know, that when they said white supremacy, he said, proud boys, stand back, but somebody

00:26:21.800 has to deal with these people.

00:26:23.040 That sounded like he was saying, you know, wait, hold your water and then go into an

00:26:26.820 attack.

00:26:27.360 That's what they're going to run.

00:26:28.560 So that's what they've been doing to him for the whole time.

00:26:31.660 If everything else is a wash and he's behind in the polls, that means he remains behind.

00:26:36.540 It's a blown opportunity.

00:26:37.560 It's a blown opportunity.

00:26:38.540 Yeah.

00:26:38.740 And by the way, that's typical for a first debate for the incumbent.

00:26:41.780 Well, I mean, we'll see.

00:26:43.420 I mean, maybe on Jeremy's side, I'm not sure there will be a second.

00:26:45.760 I'm not.

00:26:46.300 I mean, like, especially after that one, I could easily see Joe Biden saying that was completely,

00:26:49.760 that was a complete waste of time.

00:26:50.680 He wouldn't let me talk.

00:26:51.420 Look, I'm just not doing it anymore.

00:26:52.880 And I'm calling a lid on the rest of the campaign, basically.

00:26:55.020 I really, I could absolutely see him doing that.

00:26:57.920 The last answer that he gave about voting and the Supreme Court and not accepting the

00:27:03.600 results of an election is a complete fail.

00:27:07.480 Honestly, it's extraordinarily counterproductive. 1.00

00:27:09.520 It's discouraging his own voters from voting by mail, which is idiotic because all the Democrats 0.99

00:27:13.180 are going to go vote by mail. 0.98

00:27:14.640 And it's legitimizing all of the Democratic complaints that he's not going to hand over

00:27:17.980 power because he's going to try and go through the Supreme Court, which now puts Coney Barrett 0.97

00:27:21.060 on the hook for whatever dumb crap he says about, you know, ballot counting or whatever. 0.93

00:27:25.060 Do I think it's a major mistake? 0.99

00:27:26.080 No.

00:27:26.520 But do I think that he can afford any mistakes at this point?

00:27:28.600 No.

00:27:29.220 And that's the bottom line.

00:27:30.160 If you want him to win, the whole thing is he has to do better than this.

00:27:33.540 It can't just be a wash.

00:27:34.680 OK, when you're behind nine points in the polls, in two separate polls in Pennsylvania,

00:27:38.080 when you are running dead even in Florida and you're running within three in Georgia,

00:27:42.480 right?

00:27:42.680 And there's a poll today that had Biden up in Georgia.

00:27:44.960 OK, these are not the numbers you need in order to be this sanguine about these opportunities.

00:27:49.620 I completely agree.

00:27:50.540 I think if you-

00:27:50.900 Honestly, I'm angry at him.

00:27:52.140 I'm angry at him that he didn't do better.

00:27:53.800 I'm angry at him that he didn't do better.

00:27:54.800 I'm not angry at him because I want him to lose.

00:27:56.380 I'm angry at him because I want him to win.

00:27:57.820 OK, I'm angry at him the same way I'm angry at my six-year-old and my four-year-old when they're

00:28:00.460 having a fight with each other.

00:28:01.260 I'm like, just don't do this.

00:28:02.600 Just don't do it.

00:28:04.680 The problem is that I go home and I deal with my six-year-old and four-year-old slapping 0.97

00:28:07.000 the crap out of each other every day. 0.68

00:28:08.600 And then I figure, OK, well, you got a couple of people who are 70.

00:28:10.880 They probably won't do that.

00:28:12.160 And then I realized that the most rational part of my day was my six-year-old calling my

00:28:16.400 four-year-old a poophead and my four-year-old smacking her on the grill.

00:28:19.780 You know, if you take-

00:28:20.260 Your six-year-old saying, I think I deserve-

00:28:22.600 He made a statement.

00:28:23.760 I would like to respond to the statement.

00:28:25.200 I think if you take the debate out of context and you just look at it as a debate, it was a wash.

00:28:29.300 But I think if you put it in the context of what the polls are saying, if the polls are right,

00:28:33.440 and Trump is right, it is bad.

00:28:37.040 By the way, you want him to have won.

00:28:39.620 And in the moments, in the moments when he did what you say, in the moments when he punched

00:28:43.240 properly into Biden's talk, then he was winning.

00:28:47.580 I actually disagree with this.

00:28:48.940 Because in the moments where he was doing what he should do,

00:28:52.120 Chris Wallace would interrupt him and stop him from being able to.

00:28:54.140 Well, he did do that.

00:28:55.700 And what the president didn't do a good job with tonight.

00:28:57.940 So I don't think he did a good job debating Biden, but I also don't think he did a good

00:29:01.260 job debating Chris Wallace.

00:29:02.460 I agree.

00:29:02.940 And if he had handled Wallace more like Newt Gingrich handled the press in 2012,

00:29:08.940 or even as Trump handled Anderson Cooper and whoever it was during the debate with Hillary

00:29:17.960 right after the Access Hollywood tape broke, the president did a great job of handling an

00:29:21.760 oppositional debate moderator in that particular debate.

00:29:24.520 Tonight, he didn't.

00:29:25.520 And so you can't really come up with a single time when the president won an exchange.

00:29:31.760 Because he either did a poor job with Biden or he did a poor job with Wallace.

00:29:34.600 I think that the reason for that is what Ben said, though, the reason is that it crept

00:29:38.260 up on him.

00:29:39.140 This is right.

00:29:39.760 That's fair.

00:29:40.180 That Wallace was not bad. 1.00

00:29:40.940 And I also think that part of that is because Wallace, so to people who are watching, you

00:29:45.860 know, closely, I think you can see Wallace change over the course of the debate from a

00:29:49.500 guy who wants to ask the question, then let them talk and let it go.

00:29:51.640 Because at the beginning, he is letting it go a fair bit.

00:29:53.380 Like, they're really talking over each other for the first 15 minutes of the debate.

00:29:56.180 I mean, solid 15 minutes where Wallace really does not interject.

00:29:59.100 And then Wallace starts to realize, I need to actually get in control of this debate.

00:30:02.420 I'm the moderator.

00:30:03.200 It's time for me to moderate.

00:30:04.040 And the problem is that because Trump has talked over Biden so much at that point, that

00:30:07.320 when Wallace steps in and says, Mr. President, you need to show etiquette, then everybody

00:30:11.720 kind of goes, well, somebody needs to reestablish some sort of control here.

00:30:14.900 But the problem is, of course, that Wallace didn't reestablish some level of neutral control.

00:30:19.260 He then proceeded to, instead of saying, listen, the time limit has run.

00:30:22.640 Stop talking.

00:30:23.460 The time limit has run. 0.93

00:30:24.580 Instead of doing that, he went to, I'm now going to badger the crap out of you on a bunch

00:30:28.700 of questions where I would not badger Joe Biden or I'm going to step in to protect Joe Biden.

00:30:32.320 He was 100% running cover for Joe Biden.

00:30:34.880 Of course.

00:30:35.600 Chris Wallace was running cover for Joe Biden.

00:30:36.740 In the last 45 minutes, I totally agree.

00:30:37.940 In the first 45 minutes, I'm not sure I agree with that.

00:30:39.580 But even beyond that, you know, he keeps attacking the president for his lack of etiquette. 0.85

00:30:44.220 Joe Biden called the president of the United States a clown twice. 0.87

00:30:47.480 Told the president of the United States to shut up two or three times. 0.99

00:30:50.400 Called him a racist. 0.99

00:30:51.920 Directly called him a racist. 0.95

00:30:53.520 Twice.

00:30:54.540 Have we ever had a presidential debate in the last hundred years?

00:30:57.460 Have we had a presidential debate that that contentious?

00:30:59.900 No, but I'm again, like, I don't mean to be I feel like a parent here. 0.99

00:31:03.960 But when my kids are fighting, like, it is rarely one of them who is being a jerk. 0.99

00:31:08.020 Usually both of them are being a jerk. 1.00

00:31:09.260 I mean, the president did say that Joe Biden was was mentally inept. 1.00

00:31:12.320 Right. 1.00

00:31:12.420 He said, you know, you couldn't even spout these sentences or he called them stupid. 1.00

00:31:16.080 Like, forget the truth of whatever these insults are to each other. 0.98

00:31:19.140 And my general view of insult fights is that generally everybody's correct.

00:31:21.480 But the reality is that who is the target audience is the question that we should all have in mind.

00:31:28.800 The target audience is not us.

00:31:30.220 The target audience is really not really supposed to be the base.

00:31:33.540 I mean, the debates are really for the people who are in the middle.

00:31:35.720 Is there anybody in the middle who changed their mind in any significant way on this?

00:31:39.700 If they did, I think it's suburban moms who are like. 1.00

00:31:41.920 If I hadn't thought that Jeremy was going to give me $100 after this debate, I would have tuned out after the first.

00:31:46.460 This is exactly right. 0.85

00:31:47.400 I think for the first 15 minutes, the sucker was over. 0.66

00:31:49.220 After the first 15 minutes, I too doubt. 0.87

00:31:51.560 OK, I was watching it.

00:31:52.660 It's not just a debate, though, about the people right now.

00:31:55.860 It's also a debate to establish what's happening on Election Day and after the election.

00:32:00.120 And this is why I'll push back a little bit on the mail-in answer.

00:32:03.340 I agree.

00:32:03.920 I don't think he handled it great.

00:32:05.780 But I do think he had to address the issue of the widespread mail-in voting.

00:32:09.420 He made this distinction maybe too many times, but he made it importantly, between a solicited mail-in ballot, absentee ballots, ballots for the military.

00:32:16.260 That's right.

00:32:16.600 Which are great.

00:32:17.740 They've worked for a long time.

00:32:19.140 And unsolicited mail-in ballots.

00:32:20.680 Now we are told, by the way, if you criticize, if you suggest there could be fraud with the unsolicited widespread mail-in ballots, even though you can point to it, right?

00:32:28.420 The James O'Keefe story about Ilhan Omar's district or the box found on the side of the road or the box found mislabeled.

00:32:33.700 You can even point to discrete examples.

00:32:35.420 They'll say mail-in ballots have never had any problem in America.

00:32:39.320 And you say, sure, widespread unsolicited mail-in ballots have never occurred.

00:32:43.420 They are totally unprecedented.

00:32:44.880 First, Chris Wallace wouldn't actually let him make that answer about solicited versus unsolicited.

00:32:49.020 Because by that point, Wallace was fully a third debater in the contest.

00:32:53.700 So I think that that's—

00:32:55.540 The bigger problem is this.

00:32:56.720 What is the typical—

00:32:57.660 He's gone south on Fox News as well.

00:33:00.300 I've never liked his technique.

00:33:01.820 I've never liked the technique for repeatedly interrupting people who aren't—

00:33:05.180 If you aren't filibustering, you shouldn't interrupt an answer.

00:33:07.580 And he does it all the time.

00:33:08.600 But now he's got a little bit of Trump derangement syndrome.

00:33:11.660 I think he really thinks there's something about Trump that is specifically offensive to him that he goes after.

00:33:18.260 And after all, listen, we all know Trump has his big flaws and he can be incredibly offensive and all this.

00:33:24.020 But Joe Biden also has his huge flaws and is incredibly offensive.

00:33:28.740 Biden got away with nearly everything tonight.

00:33:30.380 I mean, really nearly everything.

00:33:31.460 To me, the one that stuck out when it came to Wallace is Wallace specifically, I believe, said before the debate that he was really going to follow up with Biden on the packing the court thing.

00:33:40.680 He really didn't.

00:33:41.460 He asked Biden about it and Biden elided it again.

00:33:43.880 And instead of him just terriering him the way he did with Trump on global warming, instead he just sort of let it go.

00:33:50.360 And that was the first, I thought, indicator of the night.

00:33:51.860 Because that happened about 20 minutes in.

00:33:53.280 That was the first indicator of the night where I was like, oh, this is going to go south on Wallace real fast here.

00:33:58.680 But as far as the mail-in ballot thing, here's the problem.

00:34:01.540 Again, this runs to the exhaustion syndrome.

00:34:03.960 Yep.

00:34:04.340 Biden was saying, listen, I mean, his answer at the end was, whatever the answer is, all the ballots will be counted and then you'll have a president.

00:34:11.260 And Trump's answer was, well, there could be widespread mail-in voting.

00:34:15.100 They could be corrupt ballots.

00:34:16.520 They could be fraudulent ballots.

00:34:17.760 And so people go, wait a second, there may not be an end to this ever.

00:34:20.540 That's right.

00:34:21.060 Ever.

00:34:21.320 It's actually Trump's worst answer.

00:34:22.580 Because even if he plans on contesting it, the right answer tonight was, I'm going to make sure that we have a fair election.

00:34:29.900 But if I lose a fair election, I will, of course, concede the election.

00:34:34.260 What's so funny about this is we know Biden plans on contesting it.

00:34:37.520 Exactly.

00:34:37.780 Of course we know that.

00:34:38.300 He's already hired 600 lawyers.

00:34:39.680 He's already bragged about this.

00:34:41.140 And this is part of the issue, though, on the mail-in, encouraging mail-in versus in person, is I think I'd be willing to put money down right now that Trump wins on election night.

00:34:49.520 If they even count the votes on election night, they might not even do that.

00:34:52.580 But the votes counted on election night, I suspect he wins.

00:34:55.640 The Democrats are already admitting this.

00:34:57.120 They're saying he'll win, but it'll be a red mirage.

00:35:00.100 And then they're going to find some boxes of ballots on a truck somewhere in Jersey or whatever.

00:35:03.760 And then somehow Biden will win.

00:35:05.000 By the way, to be fair, that did happen in 2018.

00:35:07.000 I mean, we were here and we said this is not a blue wave.

00:35:08.680 And then over the course of the next three weeks, it became a blue wave.

00:35:11.020 There were a bunch of seats that we thought were going to go red that ended up going purple, particularly in Orange County.

00:35:15.240 Yeah, I love those mail-ins.

00:35:16.240 Yeah.

00:35:16.980 Love them.

00:35:18.060 Yeah.

00:35:18.280 For the first time Orange County has these mail-in ballots, it's the first time that they've gone Democratic.

00:35:23.940 The ballot harvesting.

00:35:24.980 The ballot harvesting.

00:35:25.760 The ballot harvesting is a real problem.

00:35:26.920 It's a real problem.

00:35:27.600 And he's not wrong to point that out.

00:35:29.200 But he is wrong to go on for five minutes about how the election might be fraudulent.

00:35:33.520 Yeah, no, that was, you're absolutely right.

00:35:35.260 It's exhausting.

00:35:35.500 Are you tired?

00:35:36.220 And it is Democrats who still elected.

00:35:37.940 Like, really, I'm tired.

00:35:39.180 And I'm not just tired because I got up at 5.30 this morning, right?

00:35:41.240 I'm tired because this was exhausting.

00:35:44.460 And who was more exhausting?

00:35:45.560 I mean, let's just be raw about this.

00:35:47.140 Who was more exhausting on the stage, Trump or Biden?

00:35:50.200 You know, I got it.

00:35:51.960 That's where I challenge you.

00:35:53.020 I thought the whole thing was exhausting.

00:35:54.420 I thought that they were, it was, I think it was Jonah Goldberg who tweeted,

00:35:57.000 it was like a remake of Grumpy Old Men.

00:35:59.160 And that's what I really thought it was.

00:36:00.840 I did not think that Trump was more exhausting than Biden. 0.86

00:36:04.360 I thought Biden was really awful.

00:36:06.480 I didn't think, I thought it was a wash.

00:36:08.340 I think both.

00:36:09.000 Again, taking the debate out of context, out of the polls, out of everything.

00:36:12.720 If I just, if you just showed me that debate and I didn't know the context,

00:36:15.700 I would just think this was a disaster.

00:36:17.400 It was chaos.

00:36:18.140 I don't know who won.

00:36:18.960 The problem is that Biden didn't contribute to the chaos.

00:36:22.060 This is right.

00:36:22.500 Biden gave a bad performance, but he did not contribute to the chaos. 1.00

00:36:25.640 Clown, shut up. 0.99

00:36:26.380 No, but that's not the, the chaos is Donald Trump didn't allow Joe Biden to get a word 1.00

00:36:32.780 in edgewise and Chris Wallace didn't let Donald Trump get a word in edgewise in the second

00:36:36.640 half.

00:36:37.080 That's fair.

00:36:37.460 That's the chaos.

00:36:38.260 In fact, that is the one thing that Biden has been very consistent about throughout these

00:36:41.540 debates, right?

00:36:42.420 He strategically withdraws from the debates, right?

00:36:44.620 In the primaries, he would withdraw for 20 minutes in the debates.

00:36:46.940 He would just disappear.

00:36:48.120 And then he would duck back in and say, my time has elapsed.

00:36:50.860 It is another word, elapsed.

00:36:51.620 My time has expired, right?

00:36:53.060 And then he would, and then he would stop himself literally dead in the middle of the answer.

00:36:55.880 We'd all be like, what was that?

00:36:57.160 Like, why didn't he just continue his answer?

00:36:58.900 Like, it was the difference between somebody saying jerky things, which he did.

00:37:03.060 He said a bunch of terrible jerky things tonight, horrible things.

00:37:05.640 Like, in fact, I think he said a couple of things that are actually outright evil, including

00:37:08.480 the idea that America is racist in all of its iterations.

00:37:11.840 I thought that was an evil thing to say.

00:37:13.080 I think it's an evil thing to say.

00:37:14.040 But he, but it is the difference between a person occasionally saying nasty things you

00:37:19.420 don't like and a person in your ear going, and that's, and that's, that's what it was.

00:37:27.060 I have children.

00:37:27.900 I'm in the car with them.

00:37:28.840 Jeremy can attest that when we are on the phone and children are screaming in the car,

00:37:32.040 their first reaction is to hang up the phone.

00:37:33.740 Right.

00:37:34.080 I doubt, I doubt five, five, there are four of us in this room.

00:37:37.200 I doubt five people made it all the way through the end of that debate.

00:37:39.800 Oh, I agree.

00:37:40.460 I agree.

00:37:41.300 But again, but again, I just think that they were both awful in different ways.

00:37:44.960 And I, and you're.

00:37:45.680 What a referendum on America. 0.96

00:37:48.100 Everybody's awful.

00:37:48.640 Are you kidding me?

00:37:49.560 Everyone in his or her own way.

00:37:51.780 I think when you're, I think when you're watching a debate like this and you think back to what

00:37:55.100 debates used to be, even at their most zingy, you know, even like your most like a captured

00:38:00.980 moment, I, I, I zinged you and now I'm on TV.

00:38:04.120 Even then, this was a disaster.

00:38:06.120 Remember, okay.

00:38:06.700 So the zingers used to be, you're not, you're no John F.

00:38:08.820 Kennedy.

00:38:09.100 You're no, exactly.

00:38:09.920 Right.

00:38:10.220 And he had to set it up.

00:38:11.380 He had moments to set that, that joke up.

00:38:13.100 Right.

00:38:13.340 Or, you know, agent and experience.

00:38:15.180 Right.

00:38:15.440 Agent and experience one.

00:38:16.480 I mean, when Reagan says, I will not make age an issue of the campaign and Mondale laughed.

00:38:22.000 Right.

00:38:22.220 It was that respectful that Mondale laughed at the joke.

00:38:25.100 Honestly, it just shows that the degree, the degradation of the American intellect.

00:38:28.800 I got to say, because like our insults used to be good insults.

00:38:31.600 Yeah. 0.99

00:38:31.720 Like these were crap third grade level insults. 1.00

00:38:33.660 You're a racist. 1.00

00:38:34.500 You're a moron. 1.00

00:38:35.140 You're stupid. 1.00

00:38:35.780 You're, your son's a drug addict. 1.00

00:38:36.960 You're like, we get what we deserve good and hard in this country. 0.93

00:38:39.780 That's the thing that has hurt me about Trump from the very beginning.

00:38:43.440 The very beginning is that I think that Trump is necessary to do what he has done, which

00:38:48.640 has been great.

00:38:49.620 Some of the stuff he's done has been great.

00:38:51.180 I think he's necessary.

00:38:51.940 But I think it's tragic that it's necessary.

00:38:53.640 I think it is tragic that in order to do the kinds of things that Trump has done, you have 0.98

00:38:57.820 to be a bull and you have to be a bully. 0.96

00:39:00.320 And I think that that's, that's too bad. 0.63

00:39:02.140 Again, I would be okay with all of those things.

00:39:04.540 If the, on a, on a pure Machiavellian political level, I'd be okay with all of those things

00:39:08.440 if I thought that they were drawing him closer to victory.

00:39:09.980 I just don't think that drew him closer to victory.

00:39:11.280 Because I wouldn't even be, I mean, I would be happier.

00:39:13.560 I said on a Machiavellian level, on a virtuous level, I wouldn't, right?

00:39:15.700 On a virtuous level, I prefer this is Lincoln Douglas.

00:39:17.440 But it ain't Lincoln Douglas.

00:39:18.400 This is the world we live in.

00:39:19.340 I get it, right?

00:39:20.060 I get it.

00:39:20.700 As I've said before, I don't think that Trump is the murderer.

00:39:22.380 I think he's the coroner.

00:39:23.360 I think he came across the body of American politics.

00:39:25.220 That's right.

00:39:25.560 And he said, okay, this body is cold.

00:39:27.740 And then people are like, oh, you're standing above it with a knife.

00:39:29.360 It's like, no, I took the knife out of the body.

00:39:30.660 I didn't murder the body.

00:39:31.360 Right.

00:39:31.760 I've been saying that for a long time.

00:39:32.980 No, I think that's absolutely right.

00:39:34.120 That's a perfect description.

00:39:35.280 With that said, like, on a pure just Machiavellian, you want to see, you like the guy's policies.

00:39:40.620 What you want the tragedy to be is not a tragic flaw, right?

00:39:43.760 I mean, normally the tragedy ends with like an actual tragedy where he does all the good things.

00:39:47.220 And then it turns out that his tragic flaw eats him alive.

00:39:49.380 Yeah.

00:39:49.660 I mean, then that's the narrative that's being drawn right here.

00:39:51.700 That's what I think it is.

00:39:52.860 I think that's right, too.

00:39:53.960 Because Donald Trump, the one thing we know about Trump, more than any other human being, living or dead,

00:39:58.760 is that the man loves the spotlight.

00:39:59.800 He cannot evade the spotlight.

00:40:02.620 He's like a moth to it.

00:40:03.960 And in a time when people do not like you, the best move you have is to leave the spotlight.

00:40:10.000 The best thing that happened to him in 2016, I heard Chris Steyerwald, I thought, had an excellent analysis of this.

00:40:15.100 He does a good podcast with Dana Perino.

00:40:16.580 And they were talking about 2016.

00:40:18.080 He said the best thing that happened to Trump was the Access Hollywood tape.

00:40:20.560 Why?

00:40:21.120 Not because of the Access Hollywood tape, but because of two factors.

00:40:23.240 One, Democrats thought he'd lost the election and they stayed home.

00:40:25.640 And two, Donald Trump was so put off by the Access Hollywood tape, he went into hiding for three weeks.

00:40:31.140 And because he went into hiding for three weeks, the center of the election went, and it suddenly focused on Hillary.

00:40:35.400 And when Comey hit her with that letter near the end of the election cycle, the only thing people were talking about in the week leading up to the election was Hillary Clinton.

00:40:41.540 Do you think anyone is coming away from this debate talking about Joe Biden?

00:40:43.900 No.

00:40:44.020 Yeah, no, I think that's why it was a strategic error, leaving everything else aside. 0.98

00:40:49.520 It was a strategic error to keep interrupting him, because if you let Biden talk, he makes a fool of himself. 0.84

00:40:54.660 He should have done that. 0.93

00:40:55.760 He should have rope-a-doped him a little bit more.

00:40:57.820 Yeah, I agree.

00:40:58.680 We want to thank you guys for joining us.

00:41:00.460 We're going to be back for whatever debates might ensue.

00:41:04.700 I'm not going to make any bets about whether or not they will or will not.

00:41:07.560 But if they do, we will be here.

00:41:09.200 Until then, you can hear from these guys on the morrow as they bring you their normal podcast, and you can hear from me hopefully never again.

00:41:18.760 We'll see you guys next time.

00:41:39.200 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina, and our audio assistant is Robin Fenderson.

00:41:43.300 Playback is operated by Nick Sheehan, and hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.

00:41:47.480 Daily Wire Backstage is a Daily Wire production.

00:41:49.980 Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

The Michael Knowles Show - September 30, 2020

Daily Wire Backstage： Jeremy Said This Debate Wouldn’t Happen Edition

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