Blogging the second debate

 

Well, here we go. How crazy will our Toddler President be tonight? And will Biden be able to keep his cool while the Orange One beats up on Hunter?

It will be interesting to see whether the moderator being able to shut off microphones can tame the Great Interrupter.

First question: COVID. Trump incoherently promises the moon and makes wild accusations. Biden answers substantively and holds Trump accountable for his bungling of the pandemic. 

Trump criticizes Biden for "living in a basement." Not a good argument from the guy who hid in a bunker when the demonstrators were at his front door. The Trump narrative to the contrary, of the two, Biden is the coherent one.

Biden offers a sensible, event-driven attitude toward possible future shutdowns. Trump raves about shutdowns being bad and how harmless COVID is to young people. Trump talks about the dark side of shutting down and tries to paint Biden as the great shutter-downer. Biden ticks off things that need to happen to reopen safely.

Trump says that New York is a "ghost town" and "dying." Biden points out that the "red" states in the Midwest are suffering and that we need to help. Trump is incoherent, but he does say that we have more cases of COVID than other countries because we're so great at testing, which we definitely are not.

Now he's blaming Fauci for saying "don't wear masks" back when we didn't know as much about transmission as we do now and didn't think that healthy people needed them. Biden points out that Trump knew how serious COVID was back when he was lying about it, but lied about it anyway.

Trump says that Biden takes money from Wall Street but he doesn't. Biden replies that his average contribution is $43.

Biden promises that foreign countries that interfere in our elections will "pay a price." Biden pre-emptively calls Giuliani a "Russian pawn" passing on disinformation at the behest of Putin. Trump brings up that "three and a half million dollars" he claims the Biden family got from Russia (something about the mayor of Moscow; he was incoherent about it in the first debate, too) and denies that he's gotten anything from Russia and claims that he's been really, really rough on Russia. He makes incoherent accusations about "damning information" of some kind. Biden replies that he's never taken a dime in foreign money and raises the taxes Trump has paid in China and his investments over there and calls on him to release his returns. Trump babbles incoherently about the huge amount of money he's "pre-paid" in taxes. He denies making money from China. Now he's raising the "Big Man" money Hunter refers to in his alleged emails, apparently wanting to tie Joe into some corrupt involvement in Hunter's business deals but somehow not able to articulate the point. 

"Show us," says Joe, challenging the President to release his income tax returns so that we can see how much he's paid in taxes. He quotes Trump's statements in the past about paying very little in taxes because he's "smart."

Trump raises the paranoid nonsense about the Obama administration "spying on his campaign" in 2016. Makes general and rather wild charges about Biden not being a good person. Now moderator Kristin Welker raises the Ukraine and Hunter business. Joe defends his integrity against the President's vague and badly-articulated attacks and raises Trump's attempt to bribe Ukraine to investigate Hunter.

Trump talks about Burisma without really making clear the false narrative about Biden pressuring Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who in fact was fired for refusing to investigate Burisma because the prosecutor supposedly was going to investigate Burisma and get Hunter into trouble. Biden points out that the accusations have been investigated and discredited, which of course they have been.

Trump responds to a question about his Chinese bank account by saying that says that he closed it before running for President. Biden points out that Trump loves and favors dictators and that the Obama administration favored our friends. Trump claims that China is paying $28 billion in money given to American farmers. Biden responds that the money is in fact coming from the American taxpayer.

Biden stutters noticeably, saying that the families that matter aren't the Bidens, but the American family. Trump claims that he's trying to avoid discussing China. He doesn't even touch on the money the Trump kids are making off their dad's name.

Trump claims that Obama privately predicted nuclear war with North Korea in a conversation with Trump in the Oval Office. Biden points out that the Obama administration pushed back against North Korea while Trump has legitimized Kim. Biden says that he would meet with Kim only if Kim stood down his nuclear capability. Trump points out that Kim didn't like Obama and Biden and so they got nowhere with him, but that he has a good relationship with him and can. Biden responds that that's like saying that somebody had a good relationship with Hitler before World War II broke out and could influence him to be good.

Moderator Welker challenges Trump on what he'd to if millions of Americans lost their insurance because the Affordable Care Act was repealed. Trump brags that he ran what was left of Obamacare after the individual mandate was eliminated as well as possible. He repeats his long-standing promise of a "beautiful" and better healthcare plan and claims that Biden's policy will terminate 180 million Americans' insurance plans. Biden responds by explaining his plan: automatic enrollment in a public option if you qualify for Medicaid handled by private, competing carriers and he denies that a single person would lose their coverage.

Biden says that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Trump replies that Biden has been in public life for a long time and hasn't created guaranteed everyone healthcare yet. He insists that Biden will institute socialized medicine. Biden says that people deserve affordable healthcare and that his plan will offer it to everyone. "He keeps talking about it; he hasn't done a thing," he says. Trump making wild accusations about how Biden will destroy Social Security and Medicare. Biden points out that he ran against and beat the people who wanted to do all the things he's accusing him of wanting to do in the Democratic primaries because he disagreed with them.

Trump boasts that the stockmarket would boom if he won and crash if Biden wins. Biden says that there are better measurements of how people are doing than the stock market.

Trump blames Pelosi rather incoherently for the absence of a new stimulus bill. Biden replies that Mitch McConnell won't go along with a stimulus bill and that the Heroes Act, involving a new $2.2 million stiumuls package, was passed by the House long ago. Trump replies that the Heroes Act would help badly-run Democratic-led cities and illegal immigrants. so it doesn't count. Biden says that he's going to be president of the whole country and not just the parts that support his party.

Biden comes out in favor of support for small businesses and a higher minimum wage. Trump wants every state to decide about how high the minimum wage is and that raising the minimum age would hurt small businesses. When confronted by Kristin Welker with his previous statement that he would consider the idea of raising the minimum wage, he responds in essence that he would consider the states raising the minimum wage, apparently not realizing that he's speaking gibberish again.

Trump blames "coyotes" and cartels and (somehow) legal immigration itself for all the undocumented immigrant kids whose parents he had deported to Central America without them  and whom he now can't locate to reunite them with their children. Biden points out that their parents brought them over, not "coyotes" and cartels. Trump blames the Obama administration for "building the cages" in which the children are housed. Biden responds that the Trump administration separated the kids from their parents and put them in those cages. Trump repeats that the Obama administration "built the cages."

Biden promises that the DACA kids will be recertified under his administration and their presence legalized.
Trump talks some more about who built the cages. Biden points out that the Obama administration's "catch and release" policy for illegal immigrants resulted in the immigrants who had been caught and then released pending a hearing generally coming back for that hearing. Trump claims that Biden "doesn't know the law" about immigration and that "caught and released" immigrants do not, in fact, show up. Biden says that nothing Trump says is true.

Biden says that he understands why minority kids fear being targeted because of the color of their skin and why their parents have to coach their kids about how to act when challenged by the police lest they be shot. He promises to address systemic racism. Trump says that he also understands except that Biden hasn't done anything to address the problem despite all his years in government. He blames Biden for calling Black people "super-predators" roaming the streets and claims to have done more for African-Americans than any president except maybe Lincoln. He brags about his long-term funding of African-American colleges and universities.

Biden denies ever used the term "super-predators" and reels off a list of things Trump has said about putting more people in jail. Trump keeps asking Biden why he hasn't done all the things he says he wants to do as president when he was as a senator and vice-president. Biden invites Americans to compare the characters of the two candidates. Trump responds by babbling about Biden being corrupt, apparently (but not clearly) alluding to Hunter's laptop. Biden points out the experts who say that Hunter Biden's laptop is likely a Russian plant. Trump makes with the "Russia, Russia, Russia," business and says that Biden's statement is "another Russian hoax."

Trump brags about how non-racist he is. "Abraham Lincoln here," says Biden, "is the most racist president we've had in our history." He points out that Trump has done nothing but pour gasoline on the fire of race conflict. Trump denies being Abraham Lincoln or even claiming to be Abraham Lincoln. Biden points out that he was being sarcastic in calling Trump Lincoln.

Biden admits that his support of a draconian drug bill in the 80s was a mistake and says that drug offenders should get treatment rather than incarceration. Trump asks why he didn't get fix his mistake when he was vice-president. Biden reels off statistics of what in fact was done about reforming policy toward people convicted of drug offenses under the Obama administration. Trump asks why more wasn't done. Biden responds that there was a Republican Congress at the time. Trump says that "ya gotta talk 'em into it, Joe."

Trump demeans Biden's knowledge of what "carbon emissions" means and complains about air quality in China and India. He brags about pulling out of the Paris accords because they hurt our economy. Biden responds that we have a responsibility to deal with the existential threat of climate change. He lays out his environmental plan. He says that his plan would create seven million more jobs than Trump's. Trump claims that AOC created Biden's environmental plan and confuses Biden's plan with the Green New Deal.  

Statement of the night by Trump: "I know more about wind than anybody." Talks about the pollution caused by building windmills and how windmills kill birds. Biden denies saying that he opposes fracking. Trump says that he has him on tape saying it. Biden says that he has only ever opposed fracking on Federal land. 

Trump says that minority families living near energy plants have good jobs because of it. Biden responds that people die and get cancer because they live there and that they need to be kept safe by emissions from the plants being regulated. Biden says that he wants to gradually transition from the oil industry to cleaner forms of energy because oil pollutes. Trump says that Texas and Pennsylvania and Oklahoma need to remember that Biden wants to destroy the oil industry.

Trump says that in his second inaugural he will say to those who voted against him that we need to make America "totally successful" and that "success will bring us together" and predicts a depression if Biden wins. Biden says that he'll say that he'll tell Trump supporters that he'll be an American president who will represent all Americans and "choose science over fiction." He says that he can create millions of new jobs and create a cleaner environment while doing it.

Summary: Biden wins-big- a second time, even though Trump behaved himself reasonably well. At least for Trump.

Bottom line: Whatever Trump needed to accomplish tonight, he didn't accomplish it. Biden came out pretty much smelling like a rose, and likely closed off Mr. Trump's last chance to close the gap.

The second of the two most one-sided Presidential debates of my lifetime, both won by Joe Biden.