The Final Debate – Trump is Strong, Biden Fades

The final debate of the 2020 Presidential campaign has ended. In a way this is kind of sad for political junkies like me. I love watching debates and have seen every one of them in this election cycle going back to the Democratic primary.

Before we discuss the debate, I want to say a word about the media. While Kristen Welker did a better job than the other moderators, she still clearly sided with Biden in her topics/questions and interrupting Trump (but rarely Biden). But despite all, the leftist media works in Trump’s advantage in two distinct ways.

First it makes Trump stronger because he knows how to handle them. If they would stop for just a minute and think about what Trump did for a living before running for President they might realize this is not the first time he has faced stiff opposition and I think actually enjoys a good fight. But that would take some amount of self analysis on their part and they just aren’t capable of that due to their arrogance and narcissism.

Second, they constantly demonstrate that Trump is correct when he calls them the enemy of the people. The press in this country lives in it’s own reality and has no clue what the average American is like. And it shows with their horrible (and completely untrue) attack on Trump supporters as racist, misogynist, and homophobic. It is the left who has exhibited ALL these qualities through history and the fact that they can’t see that tells you all you need to know. They are either blind or ignorant. Or perhaps they DO know it and are trying to project it away from themselves.

Now onto the debate.

Again I think Trump won. The debate commission no doubt thought they were handcuffing Trump by muting the mic when the candidate’s time was up in order to stop interruptions. What it really did though was allow Trump to pivot and focus in giving sharp, concise answers while Biden stammered his way through many of the questions and was clearly fading in the end. This time he didn’t have Trump to save him (although the moderator did try a couple of times to no avail). And I hope folks were keeping in mind that Trump has just gotten over Covid while Biden has been in hiding in order to debate prep for several days.

If there was one theme Trump hit on during the debate it was Biden’s failure to get things done in his 4+ decade time in Washington:

He was there for 47 years — he didn’t do it. He was now there as Vice President for eight years. And it’s not like it was 25 years ago, it was three and three quarters. It was just a little while ago, right? Less than four years ago. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do it.

He had eight years to do what he said he was going to do.

And again, he’s been in government 47 years. He never did a thing except in 1994, when he did such harm to the Black community.

But why didn’t he do it four years ago? Why didn’t you do that four years ago, even less than that? You were vice president. You keep talking about all these things you’re going to do and you’re going to do this. But you were there just a short time ago and you guys did nothing.

But why didn’t he get it done? See, it’s all talk no action with these politicians. Why didn’t he get it? ‘That’s what I’m gonna do when I become president’. You were vice president, along with Obama as your President, your leader, for eight years. Why didn’t you get it done? You had eight years to get it done? Now, you’re saying you’re gonna get it done because you’re all talk and no action, Joe.

I just ask– I just ask one question: why didn’t you do it in the eight years, a short time ago? Why didn’t you do it? You just said, ‘I’m going to do that. I’m going to do this.’ You put tens of thousands of mostly Black young men in prison. Now you’re saying you’re going to get– you’re going to undo that. Why didn’t you get it done? You had eight years with Obama? You know why, Joe, because you’re all talk and no action.

Here are some of the highlights of the debate:

On COVID, Trump came out of the gates strong:

We can’t lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does. He has the ability to lock himself up. I don’t know, he’s obviously made a lot of money, someplace, but he has this thing about living in a basement. People can’t do that.

I literally laughed out loud on Trump’s comment about Biden making money “someplace” because it was a great but subtle reference to the Biden’s family corruption.

Trump also spoke about the other consequences of COVID that the media ignore (because they are obsessed with reporting the daily death total):

People are losing their jobs, they’re committing suicide. There’s depression, alcohol, drugs at a level that nobody’s ever seen before. There’s abuse, tremendous abuse. We have to open our country. You know I’ve said it often — the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, and that’s what’s happening, and he wants to close down. He’ll close down the country if one person in our, in our massive bureaucracy says we should close it down.

Trump clearly looks at it through an economic prism which I believe most of the voters are now doing as well:

I will say this, if you go and look at what’s happened to New York, it’s a ghost town. It’s a ghost town. And when you talk about plexiglass — these are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money. Putting the plexiglass is unbelievably expensive, and it’s not the answer. I mean, you’re going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic? These are businesses that are dying, Joe, you can’t do that to people, which again, take a look at New York and what’s happened to my wonderful city. For so many years, I loved it. It was vibrant. It’s dying. Everyone’s leaving New York.

Trump hit Biden hard on the China scandal:

Trump: All of the emails, the emails are horrible. The emails of the kind of money that you were raking in, you and your family. And Joe, you were vice president when some of this was happening. And it should have never happened. And I think you owe an explanation to the American people. Why is it, somebody just had a news conference a little while ago, who was essentially supposed to work with you and your family, but what he said was damning. And regardless of me, I think you have to clean it up and talk to the American people. Maybe you can do it right now.

Biden: I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life. I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever, ever.

This is a very interesting answer. First, notice he doesn’t deny the content of the emails. Second, his denial of taking any money from a foreign source could be “technically” true. But if you’ve followed this scandal at all, you know that Joe did not take money directly from China. It came through his family who then paid Joe. Joe also tried to deflect saying that Trump had accounts in China which Trump quickly dispelled by pointing out they were all closed prior to him running for President.

A little later in the debate there was this exchange between Trump and Welker:

Welker: As of tonight, more than 12 million people are out of work. And as of tonight, 8 million more homes have fallen into poverty, and more families are going hungry every day. Those hit hardest are women and people of color. They see Washington fighting over a relief bill. Mr. President, why haven’t you been able to get them the help they need?

Trump: Because Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to approve it. I do.

Welker: But you’re the president.

Wait, what? Did Welker just suggest that Trump should take, ahem, DICTATORIAL type action to fix the economy? This is hilarious! Why, I thought Trump was ALREADY Hitler-like. And her question was just the latest regurgitation of one of the classic leftist talking points.

On immigration Trump exposed many of the lies that the left has perpetrated on the country for a longtime on this issue.

Welker: We’re going to talk about immigration. We’re going to talk about immigration, now, gentlemen, and we’re going to talk about families within this context. Mr. President, your administration separated children from their parents at the border, at least 4000 kids, You’ve since reversed your zero tolerance policy, but the United States can’t locate the parents of more than 500 children. So how will these families ever be reunited?

Trump: Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and it’s easy to use them to get into our country. We now have a stronger border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall, you see the numbers, and we let people in, but they have to come in legally.

Welker: But how will you reunite these kids with their families?

Trump: Let me just say. They built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages. And then they had a picture in the newspaper. There was a picture of these horrible cages and they said, ‘Look at these cages, President Trump built them.’ And then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.

Somewhere Alyssa Milano is having a conniption fit!

Welker: Let me ask about your immigration policy, Mr. Vice President. The Obama administration did fail to deliver immigration reform, which had been a key promise during the administration. It also presided over record deportations as well as family detentions at the border before changing course. So why should voters trust you with an immigration overhaul now?

Biden: Because we made a mistake. It took too long to get it right. Too long to get it right. I’ll be President of the United States, not Vice President of the United States. And the fact is, and I’ve made it very clear, within 100 days, I’m going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all those so called Dreamers, those DACA kids, they’re going to be legally certified again, to be able to stay in this country, and put on a path to citizenship.

Hoo-boy. Biden just threw Obama under the bus. After he had just campaigned for him to all of a dozen people in Pennsylvania. What a nice guy ol’ Joe is!

It got even better on the race issue:

Trump: Well you have to understand the first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter they were chanting ‘Pigs in a blanket’, talking about police, ‘Pigs, Pigs’, talking about our police, ‘Pigs in a blanket, fry’ em like bacon’. I said, ‘That’s a horrible thing’. And they were marching down the street. And that was my first glimpse of Black Lives Matter.

Oh this is SO true and I had forgotten about it.

Trump: I got criminal justice reform done, and prison reform, and opportunity zones. I took care of Black colleges and universities. I don’t know what to say. They can say anything. I mean, they can say anything. It’s a very– it makes me sad because I am the least racist person. I can’t even see the audience because it’s so dark, but I don’t care who’s in the audience. I’m the least racist person in this room.

This is true also. And saying he is the least racist person will have the double effect of making the Hollywood Left shriek in horror. Great job Mr. President!

Then the question on climate change, an issue absolutely no one besides the radical left considers a major issue in this campaign:

So we have the trillion trees program, we have so many different programs. I do love the environment, but what I want the cleanest, crystal clear water, the cleanest air. We have the best, lowest number in carbon emissions, which is a big standard that I noticed Obama goes with all the time. Under this administration, we are working so well with industry, but what we can’t do– Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India. It’s filthy. The air is filthy. The Paris Accord, I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly. When they put us in there, they did us a great disservice. They were going to take away our businesses. I will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies because of the Paris Accord. It was so unfair. China doesn’t kick in until 2030. Russia goes back to a low standard and we kicked in right away. It would– It would have been– It would have destroyed our businesses. So, you ready? We have done an incredible job environmentally. We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water and the best carbon emission standards that we’ve seen in many, many years.

This was a great answer. He could have said how the facts don’t support the global warming hysteria. Instead he tied the issue to the economy and other countries who were not abiding by the Paris Climate Accord. Brilliant answer.

Biden stuck with the decades old alarm-ism:

Climate change, climate warming, global warming is an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it. And we’re told by all the leading scientists in the world that we don’t have much time. We’re going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to 10 years.

They’ve been saying this for the last 30+ years. They know people’s memories are short so they are able to scare them with this rhetoric every election cycle. And they know the media won’t point out that they have been crying wolf for a generation now. And we’re still here.

Now, towards the very end of the debate there was a point where the wheels came off the Biden campaign. In talking about energy, these exchanges occurred:

Biden: I have never said I oppose fracking.

Trump: You said it on tape.

Biden: I did? Show the tape. Put it on your website.

Trump: I’ll put it on.

Biden: Put it on the website. The fact of the matter is he’s flat lying.

Welker: Would you rule out banning fracking?

Biden: I do rule out banning fracking because the answer we need– We need other industries to transition to get to, ultimately, a complete zero emissions by 2025. What I will do with fracking over time is make sure that we can capture the emissions from the fracking. Capture the emissions from gas. We can do that and we can do that by investing money into– It’s a transition to that.

Wow. First of all, Trump used the tape of Biden saying he opposes fracking at a rally in Pennsylvania this past week. And within minutes of Biden saying this, the tape was all over twitter and Facebook.

It got even worse for Biden as Trump realized he had him on the ropes and went in for the political kill:

Trump: Would you close down the– Would you close down the oil industry?

Biden: I would transition from the oil industry. Yes.

Trump: Oh, transition. That’s a big statement.

Biden: It is a big statement because I would stop–

Welker: Why would you do that?

Biden: Because it has to be replaced by renewable energy over time. Over time. And I’d stop giving to the oil industry– I’d stop giving them federal subsidies. You won’t give federal subsidies to the gas and, excuse me, to solar and wind. Why are we giving it to the oil industry?

Trump: We actually do give it to solar and wind–

Welker: All right, we have one final question–

Trump: That’s the biggest statement. In terms of business. that’s the biggest statement. Because basically what he’s saying is he’s going to destroy the oil industry. Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania? Oklahoma? Ohio?

Biden: He takes everything out of context, but the point is, look, we have to move toward a net zero emissions. The first place to do that by the year 2025 is in energy production. By 2050, totally.

Trump: Is he gonna get China to do it? Is he going to get China to do it?

Welker: No, we’re finished with this. We have to move on to our final question.

Biden: No, I’m going to rejoin the Paris Accord and get China to abide by what they agreed to

Trump: But that’ll cost you $1 trillion.

This was a colossal mistake by Biden. Once of the worst I have seen in all the years I have been watching debates. I will go so far as to say that this moment may be the when Biden lost the election. Biden has to win Pennsylvania to win the election and he just threw all the workers in fracking and the energy section in that state under the bus. Even the moderator saw the train wreck that this was and tried to move on. But Trump finished it off in grand style (and Biden kept responding when he should have just shut it down). It will be interesting to see if this even hurts the Democrats as a whole down ballot. It very well could.

Trump has to be totally satisfied with the debate as a whole and especially with the final moments. I am constantly impressed by what appears to be his boundless energy. Remember that Trump has been doing multiple rallies EVERY DAY (two weeks after having COVID) while Biden is hiding in his basement. Trump was able to frame himself as the outsider and Biden as the long term insider. And his ability to constantly rattle off facts is amazing. It was definitely Trump’s best debate ever. It was brilliant. I believe we will see his momentum continue as we head into the final stretch of this election cycle.