First presidential debate (2 Viewers)

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    Optimus Prime

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    Since we usually have a separate thread for these
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    NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden begins an intense period of private preparations Friday at Camp David for what may be the most consequential presidential debate in decades.

    The 81-year-old Democrat’s team is aware that he cannot afford an underwhelming performance when he faces Republican rival Donald Trump for 90 minutes on live television Thursday night. Biden’s team is expecting aggressive attacks on his physical and mental strength, his record on the economy and immigration and even his family.

    Trump, 78 and ever confident, will stay on the campaign trail before going to his Florida estate next week for two days of private meetings as part of an informal prep process.

    The former president’s allies are pushing him to stay focused on his governing plans, but they’re expecting him to be tested by pointed questions about his unrelenting focus on election fraud, his role in the erosion of abortion rights and his unprecedented legal baggage.

    Thursday’s debate on CNN will be full of firsts, with the potential to reshape the presidential race. Never before in the modern era have two presumptive nominees met on the debate stage so early in the general election season. Never before have two White House contenders faced off at such advanced ages, with widespread questions about their readiness.

    And never before has a general election debate participant been saddled with a felony conviction. The debate-stage meeting comes just two weeks before Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money trial.

    “You can argue this will be the most important debate, at least in my lifetime,” said Democratic strategist Jim Messina, 54, who managed former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.

    PRESSURE ON BIDEN


    The ground rules for Thursday’s debate, the first of two scheduled meetings, are unusual.

    The candidates agreed to meet at a CNN studio in Atlanta with no audience. Each candidate’s microphone will be muted, except when it’s his turn to speak. No props or prewritten notes will be allowed onstage. The candidates will be given only a pen, a pad of paper and a bottle of water.

    There will be no opening statements. A coin flip determined that Biden would stand at the podium to the viewer’s right, while Trump would deliver the final closing statement.


    The next debate won’t be until September. Any stumbles Thursday will be hard to erase or replace quickly.………..

     
    The baseline for Trump is so low anyway that as long as he can just keep putting words together like he does a decline from him is more difficult to discern as he's been unhinged and doing the word salad thing from the start.

    Which is the problem and why Biden is being singled out. It’s an illusion that Trump was better in the debate, he just took a different approach. You don’t have to be sharp to spew lies and vitriol.

    It’s ****** that Biden is the one who has to prove he’s up to the job when everything we know about Trump is that he’s not.
     
    It depends on the rules of the debate. It's not a moderators job to address lies if that's part of the agreement to have the debate.
    Just going off of Biden's reaction, I don't think that was something his campaign new about or agreed to ahead of time. I also don't think Biden's campaign would agree to that. I know I sure as hell wouldn't. Trump is such a massive and prolific liar that it takes more than one persons to clean up all that BS.

    I get that it's hard to deal with, but Biden, who's had decades of experience debating in Congress has to address those lies.
    When Biden was in Congress he had a lot more speaking time to address the lies that were told in Congress.
     
    Which is the problem and why Biden is being singled out. It’s an illusion that Trump was better in the debate, he just took a different approach. You don’t have to be sharp to spew lies and vitriol.

    It’s ****** that Biden is the one who has to prove he’s up to the job when everything we know about Trump is that he’s not.
    I agree that it's forked up in that sense but it also largely just is what it is there in my view.. if you're not hardcore against Trump and don't follow things closely enough to know better when he's obviously lying, Biden came off much worse by confirming the fears about his age and mental state.
     
    Just going off of Biden's reaction, I don't think that was something his campaign new about or agreed to ahead of time. I also don't think Biden's campaign would agree to that. I know I sure as hell wouldn't. Trump is such a massive and prolific liar that it takes more than one persons to clean up all that BS.
    If they weren't aware of the format and execution of the debate that's malpractice on the part of the campaign.. if they were deceived or misled then that's one thing, but they should be claiming that now if that's the case.
     
    I think it was agreed in advance that the moderators were not going to fact check. It wasn’t the moderators’ job to fact check. Biden had to do it.
    I've said it before and I'll say it again, I highly doubt Biden knew about the lack of fact checking or agreed to it ahead of time.

    CNN proudly touted and posted their debate rules leading up to the debate. I don't remember hearing anything about no fact checking or push back from moderators.

    Last night was the first time in the history of all televised presidential debates that it "wasn't the moderators' job to fact check" a presidential candidate. If they are going to call themselves news and journalists, it absolutely is their job to correct false information.

    Blame Biden for what Biden did, but also equally blame CNN for what CNN did and Trump for what Trump did.

    What's happening to Biden is what happens to super hero's in comic books when they fail to stop a villain. Every gets mad at the superhero instead of the villain.
     
    I agree that it's forked up in that sense but it also largely just is what it is there in my view.. if you're not hardcore against Trump and don't follow things closely enough to know better when he's obviously lying, Biden came off much worse by confirming the fears about his age and mental state.

    Agree that’s the perception for some people. I think at this point, people who aren’t avid Trump supporters AND don’t know how dishonest he is probably aren’t reliable voters.

    I do think it’s interesting that Biden reportedly outraised Trump by six million dollars following the debate, $14m to $8m, a figure that is now up to $27 million.

     
    ...if they were deceived or misled then that's one thing, but they should be claiming that now if that's the case.
    Why? They'd be basically whining about things being unfair just like Trump does.

    I think the best course of action is to live and learn from it, and then move on. Actions speak louder than words, so the best way for Biden to make a better impression is to prepare for it now that he knows what's what and make a better through his actions in the next debate, instead of whining about how unfair it was for CNN to mislead him.
     
    If you're running for U.S. President, you should be able to perform a modicum of fact checking, have the ability to pivot your answer from the question to a subject you want to talk about, and put together coherent thoughts in a persuasive manner.
    Biden did do some of that some of the time during the debate, so he is capable of it. Maybe he's not capable of keeping up with the pace of Trump's lies for a full 90 minutes, but he does have and did demonstrate he has that capability to some degree.

    Let's see how he does in the second CNN debate after learning from this one. It's impossible for anyone to get through life without making mistakes, because no one's perfect. So the most important trait to have is the ability to learn from one's mistakes without repeating them over and over.

    The same is true of a president. There's never been a president and never will be a president that doesn't make mistakes. That's an impossible expectation. So what's important is that a president be able to recognize when they make mistakes, learn from it and then not repeat them.

    We've all heard Biden admit to making mistakes and learning from them. All we've ever heard from Trump is that he never makes mistakes and he's always right. That's one of countless reasons Biden is a better fit to be president than Trump ever will be.
     
    Many are calling for Biden to step down because we don’t think he can beat Trump. These are Democrats and anti-Trumpers. Trump won’t listen to their calls for him to step down.
    Trump thinks Biden can beat him. In fact, Trump's worried that Biden will beat him again. That's why he started the pressure campaign for Biden to step down and he continues to fuel it. He did the exact same thing in 2020. Don't you remember?
     
    Biden is owning what happened in his speech today.



    This raises an important point

    Biden had a very bad night, but yes to his credit he owned it

    Trump thought he was going to have a bad night, and spent the days and weeks beforehand spraying ready made pre excuses for the expected bad night

    “The format is rigged!”

    “CNN is biased!”*****

    “Biden will be doped up on everything from Adderall, caffeine pills to Mountain Dew!”

    “Maybe I’ll lose the debate on purpose”

    Can you imagine any universe where if Trump was the one who had a terrible showing he would have taken even the tiniest bit of responsibility?

    To me that just further illustrates the difference between the moral character of the two men

    *****CNN is certainly getting raked over the coals as well for this debate and as has been pointed out here could very well have been a factor in Biden’s poor showing.

    But as far as I know Biden hasn’t said anything publicly blaming the network or the moderators
     
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    To me the subtext is that those 70% really don't want Trump to be president and will likely vote for Biden if the only choice is between Biden and Trump.
    I think that's true. I do think most Democrats saying Biden should should step aside are saying it with good intentions. I don't think they have ill will, but rather they want the best outcome, which is Trump not winning the Presidency.
     
    When the opponent throw 20 lies at you every time he gets to talk then that can totally break even an experienced and trained debator. I did a lot of debating in college and Gish Gallop was instant disqualification at more than one tournament.
    If your college debating was in Europe, that's consistent with fundamental value differences between general American values and general European values.

    Here in the states during the 1980's, that spread/gish gallop tactic was accepted and emulated. It was the bane of my existence when on the affirmative, but was my boon when on the negative putting the burden of proof on the opposing team. I could ignore all the noise and keep the judge focused on the arguments that proved the affirmative team's case hadn't met it's prima facie burden of proof.

    Out of respect for the rest of the board, that's as debate geeky as I'm going to get.
     
    Which is the problem and why Biden is being singled out. It’s an illusion that Trump was better in the debate, he just took a different approach. You don’t have to be sharp to spew lies and vitriol.

    It’s ****** that Biden is the one who has to prove he’s up to the job when everything we know about Trump is that he’s not.

    Biden looked terrible, but Trump was bad. You don't see any conservatives coming in this thread to croon. He talked about the freaking border on his Ukraine answer. I seriously thought he was going to say let's nuke mexico and be done with it. He clearly could only remember one real talking point.
     
    Biden looked terrible, but Trump was bad. You don't see any conservatives coming in this thread to croon. He talked about the freaking border on his Ukraine answer. I seriously thought he was going to say let's nuke mexico and be done with it. He clearly could only remember one real talking point.

    Traffic on this board is too light to base much on when making observations. My thoughts on this are largely shaped by what I’m seeing in other spaces, and from the media. There’s a one-sidedness to the debate fallout that I don’t think is justified.
     
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    I think that's true. I do think most Democrats saying Biden should should step aside are saying it with good intentions. I don't think they have ill will, but rather they want the best outcome, which is Trump not winning the Presidency.

    The undecided and vote swappers are not on a political message board. Pretty much everyone talking in this board is going to vote for whoever the Democrats put forward for president. This entire discussion is around can Biden grap that other group better, or someone on the short list: Newsom, Whitmer, Harris.
     
    Exactly and I'm completely baffled that so many people don't understand that Trump and his campaign are desperate to get Biden to drop out, because they're data is telling them Trump will have a hard time beating Biden.
    I don't know that that's true. I've seen all kinds of data showing that other candidates have a better chance of beating Trump than Biden does. They should want Biden to run against Trump strictly based on data. But they're stupid. They'd rather Biden step out because they want chaos, not necessarily because they think it improves Trump's odds.
    If the cult of Trump's data was telling them that Trump was likely going to beat Biden, then they don't say jack squat about Biden needing to drop out.
    I'm curious where they're getting their data from because I've seen numerous polls that show other candidates would get more votes vs Trump than Biden. It's probably even worse now post-debate.
    Everyone knows that Trump wants what's best for him and Trump desperately wants Biden to be forced out of the race, so that means what's best for Trump is for Biden to drop out. Conversely, that also means that what's worse for Trump is Biden to stay in.
    If Trump goes by the data, he should want Biden to stay put. But I'm curious, has Trump said he wants Biden to step down? I don't recall seeing him state that in so many words.
    Has everyone forgotten that Trump applied this same exact pressure campaign of "Biden's senile and too low energy" as he's doing now. He did it then, because Trump and his people were worried he would lose to Biden, rightfully so as history shows.
    He's always called Biden low energy, boring, what have you. He does that with everyone he goes up against.
    They are just as worried now as they were then and they know everything that we do, which is that Biden is four years older and a little more slowed down. Even know that which we know, Trump and his cult are still trying to pressure Biden to drop out of the race.
    No one ever accused them of being smart.
    It just baffles me that so many people don't see the obvious, especially when it's a rinse and repeat of 2020.
    It is a rinse and repeat, only that Biden doesn't look any better than he did 4 years ago. Same can be said of Trump. We'll just have to wait and see, but I think it's going to be a lot closer than we all think.
     
    Only according to polls that constantly prove to be unreliable and inaccurately skewed in favor of Trump.

    Based on the constant and consistent polling inaccuracies of the past few election cycles, the polls showing 50% don't care about Trump being a liar and a crook most likely means the actual percentage of people who don't care is 40% or below.

    Trump's cult has their own secret polling data that they rely on the most, just like all campaigns do. In reaction to their secret data that they rely on the most, they are desperately trying to get the Democratic party to force Biden to drop out, just like they did in 2020. They wouldn't be doing that if they thought Trump was more likely to lose if Biden dropped out. They are doing that because their own data is telling them they are most likely to lose if Biden doesn't drop out, just like in 2020.
    Can you source this because I'm interested in knowing about this "secret" polling data.
     

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