Front Burner - U.S. President refuses to condemn white supremacists, militias in debate

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

While the interruptions made the debate hard to follow, it’s what U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t say that was most notable. When asked to condemn white supremacists and far-right militias, Trump would not. When asked if he would call on his supporters to remain calm if the vote wasn’t decided on election night, Trump railed against mail-in voting. At times Trump drew insults from his exasperated opponent Joe Biden. Today, CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta walks us through the highlights of the debate, and breaks down what each candidate’s performance tells us about the race.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Well, that was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck. That was the worst debate I have ever seen. In fact, it wasn't even a debate. It was a disgrace.

CNN's Jake Tapper last night, after the first presidential debate. For 90 minutes last night, I tried to put myself in the shoes of an American voter. Someone living amidst a pandemic that continues to storm the country. For 90 minutes last night, I tried to put myself in the shoes of an American voter. Someone living amidst a pandemic that continues to storm the country. Someone desperately waiting for a second round of economic relief. Someone who wants racial justice. Someone who's being told over and over to vote, and also being told, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are a sham.

A person who, amidst all that, has the faith to turn to a televised debate to learn about how Donald Trump or Joe Biden might get them out of this mess. And this is what not true. You're going to have... Gentlemen, I hate to raise my voice, but I think it seems to me, why shouldn't I be different than the two of you? Today, CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta on the first presidential debate. I'm Josh Bloch. This is FrontBurner. Hello, Alex. How's it going? I'm all right. I mean, that was a mess. It was, I think, probably worse than a mess.

It was actually, I think, a train wreck of a debate. Here's the scariest thing about that debate is that that was a contest to decide who gets to control 6,000 nuclear weapons that belong in the American arsenal. It was not the most edifying performance. Well, you know, it descended into chaos pretty quickly. You had Trump claiming that he was debating the moderator. I guess I'm debating you, not him, but that's okay. I'm not surprised. Let me just tell you something. He's constantly interrupting Biden.

At one point, Biden just told him to shut up. Why wouldn't you answer that question? Because the question is, the question is, the question is, will you shut up, man? Listen, who is on your list, Joe? And then Trump started making digs at Joe Biden's son, Hunter. And the people left behind there were heroes. And I resent White Hill. Are you talking about Hunter? I'm talking about my son, Beau Biden. You're talking about Hunter? Are you talking about Hunter? I'm talking about my son,

Beau Biden. You're talking about... I don't know. I don't know Beau. I know Hunter. Hunter got thrown... Hunter got thrown out of the military.

You got the moderator, Chris Wallace, who was barely able to moderate the debate. Mr. President, why don't you observe what your campaign agreed to as a ground rule?

Okay, sir? He never keeps his word. No, no, no. I'm not asking... That was a rhetorical question. I think Joe Biden called him a clown, if I'm not mistaken. That's right. It's hard to get any word in with this clown.

Excuse me. This person. Let me just say. He called him. He told him to shut up. He said a few other things that you would never heard in a presidential debate before. But, you know, to be to be fair, he would have been pretty frustrated because he starts speaking. From the very first exchange, Biden refers to 100 million people having pre-existing conditions.

And it's an important issue because the Supreme Court, after the election, a week after the election, will hear a case on the Affordable Care Act, what many people call Obamacare. And Trump comes right out and interrupts him and says, no. The 100 million people is totally wrong. I don't know where you got that number. I just went on the Department of Health and Human Services website. Trump's Department of Health and Human Services says it's 50 to 129 million. So maybe Biden was on the high end of that, but Biden was accurate. So basically Trump, he came out like one commentator compared Trump to a bucking bronco who just came out there and was determined to dominate the field.

And he did. But all the stuff he said was not totally true. Well, I mean, normally after a debate, even a messy debate, you can kind of sit down afterwards and you start to work through the substance of what each of the candidates talked about. I think it's a bit more difficult in this case, but I do want to try. And I want to start, you know, there were two big moments that stood out to me that I want to talk about first. stood out to me that I want to talk about first. The first one is that Donald Trump was asked, not for the first time, to offer

some kind of condemnation of white supremacists and right-wing militia groups. And to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities. And this is about more than just the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, but

more generally, the groups that have been showing up at protests across the country. Can you tell me, what did Trump say? Well, at first he acted quite resentful of the fact that he was being asked to do this. He hates being asked to call white supremacists to task, and we can get into that in a second. But so he responds to the moderator, shoots back and says, you know, what do you want me to say? So what do you what are you saying? I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace. Do it sir I do it say it. Do you want to call them? What do you want to call them? Give me a name? Give me a white supremacist and I like me to can die out boys and right proud boys

Stand back and stand by but I'll tell you what and Trump goes on I'll tell you what, and Trump goes on, I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the left. Because this is not a right wing problem. This is a left wing problem. This is a left wing problem. We're moving on to the next. We're moving on to the next. That's not an idea. You know, some people reacted to that on social media, including on the right, saying, Some people reacted to that on social media, including on the right, saying, well, he looks like he's giving these guys a license to do stuff like keep an eye on the polls and basically try to intimidate voters at polling stations, which he did later say he wanted his supporters to go out to polling stations and keep an eye on voters. And that's there's a racial element to that. Absolutely. And that was that was a pretty surprising exchange. Absolutely. And that was a pretty surprising exchange. in the event that it takes time to count all the mail-in ballots, which seems like it might be a likely case in this election.

Biden said that he would respect the election results, but how did Trump respond? He said, basically, we'll see. President Trump, you go first. I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that's what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. And then he said the

election is being rigged with mail-in ballots. You said they got 80 million ballots. They're not equipped. These people aren't equipped to handle it, number one. Number two, they cheat. They cheat. Hey, they found ballots in a waste paper basket three days ago. And whether there is any mail-in ballot fraud in the entire United States is, you know, it's impossible to say with certainty that there's not one or two or 50 ballots that are fraudulent. But a number of studies on this have happened over the years, including from people who want to find fraudulent ballots. Chris Kobach, former Attorney General of Kansas, they find almost nothing almost nothing and this canard about fraudulent balloting has been used to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters over the years in the united states it's been the impetus for voter id laws that hurt a lot more people than the number

of mail-in ballots that ever were found in any attempt to research this phenomenon. So yeah, so that's where we're at. And it struck me that Trump would not discourage civil unrest amongst his supporters. I hope it's going to be a fair election. If it's a fair election, I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can't go along with that. And I'll tell you what, from a common sense, I'll tell you what it means. It means you have a fraudulent election. So the common thread between those two things that we just discussed, the white supremacist thing and then the accepting the results of the election thing. I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with the president's psychology.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the president's psychology. And without playing armchair psychologist myself, I'll just point to a book that a psychologist wrote. His niece talked about him being fragile, that he is tormented by the thought of losing. And so the common thread there is accepting an election defeat would be hard for anybody, but for someone whose ego is that, you could say, healthy or fragile, depending on your perspective, makes it even harder. And then this idea of condemning white supremacists, there are two possible explanations for why he kind of seems so reluctant when asked to do this kind of stuff. The first is that he resents being asked to do things that his opponents are not asked to do this kind of stuff. The first is that he resents being asked to do things that, you know, his opponents are not asked to do. Second is that he sees it as in his interest to have some of these groups fired up and ready to turn out and vote for him and

maybe even show up at polling stations. And he maybe sees an electoral interest. The third possible explanation is he just loves people who love him. And I mean, the same thing goes with QAnon, right? This insane, absolutely moronic constellation of conspiracy theories that any normal person should be able to repudiate. The president can't do it because he's, well, you know,

they're kind of like me. And I think that that speaks to psychology. Hmm. The candidates did have a chance amidst all the yelling and interrupting each other. candidates did have a chance, amidst all the yelling and interrupting each other, they did have a chance to, I think, talk about some substance and some of their policies. Trump had a chance to talk about the better than anticipated COVID job rebound. We closed it down and now we're reopening and we're doing record business. We had 10.4 million people in

a four month period that we've put back into the workforce. That's a record the likes of which nobody's ever seen before. Biden laid out a plan to tackle climate change, which also included some specifics. But what else of substance did you hear tonight? Was it a whole lot? So, I mean, Biden flicked at a few of these ideas and they didn't really get into get? So, I mean, Biden flicked at a few of these ideas. And they didn't really get very far. I mean, Biden referred to his public option on health care. He wants people to be able to buy into public health insurance. He talked about his climate plan,

which the main crux of the plan would be to basically rejoin the Paris Accord, then name and shame countries that miss their targets. He wants to do an annual report showing how countries are doing on greenhouse gas emissions. And then finally, Biden's talking about spending $2 trillion on green infrastructure. We're going to make sure that we are able to take the federal fleet and turn it into a fleet that's run on their electric vehicles. Making sure that we can do that, we're going to put 500,000 charging stations. And basically also use buy American policies, which I think some Canadians would be unhappy with that. But he wants American companies to get all the contracts from this plant.

We can get to net zero in terms of energy production by 2035. Not only not costing people jobs, creating jobs. So, you know, there was a bit of policy, but frankly, and how do you, how do you, you know, how do you remember any of those things when they're, you know, some of this other stuff, when people are calling each other clowns and idiots? In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

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create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. All right, I want to step back for a moment. You know, as these two presidential candidates headed into the debate tonight, where were they at in the polls? So Biden's got a national lead. If you average out all his polls, different polling aggregators say different things, but somewhere between 6% and 8% lead, which is a very strong lead at this stage in the game. And it's been durable. It's been durable for many months. That kind of belies some closer races at the state level.

The polls in Pennsylvania have been noisy. Some show him a couple points ahead. Some show him nine points ahead. If the ones showing him a couple points ahead are correct and he loses a bit of ground, he could be in trouble. If he loses Pennsylvania, he's in deep trouble, Joe Biden, because then he would absolutely need to win Florida. He'd need to win a couple other states as well. So my basic takeaway on this is Biden is definitely the frontrunner. He's the favorite, but it's a fragile lead that he has. And when I say fragile, not in that there's been a lot of movement, but he can't afford too much of a dip. Right. And so given their respective spots in the polls, what did they each have to do tonight in this debate? That's a very good question.

The answer for Biden is a lot easier. And I wrote a story about this saying, basically, Donald Trump was going to confront a man he's referred to 120 times on Twitter, a sleepy Joe, referred to him as being mentally feeble. All Joe Biden needed to do, in my opinion, to solidify the lead he already had,

was just show that it's not true, that he's lost a step, that he's mentally capable of doing the job. Our suburbs would be gone. By the way, our suburbs would be gone, and you would see problems like you've never seen before. He would know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn. Oh, I know suburbs. He would not. I was raised in the suburbs. This is not 1950. All these dog whistles and racism don't work anymore. And if he can rebut the main argument against him with a lead he's got, he's OK. Trump needs not only to hold on to what he's got, he's actually got to convert a few voters and possibly suppress a few of Biden's.

And that's where you're getting into, you know, voter ID stuff and, you know, telling people to show up at polling stations. I think Trump did very well on the suppressing front. You know, I think he was actually quite clever in throwing out at Biden some of the more extreme left-wing accusations against him, saying, do you support the Green New Deal? Do you support defunding the police? And Biden a couple of times said, no, that's not me. I'm the leader of the Democratic Party, not Bernie Sanders. What I support is the police having the opportunity to deal with the problems they face. And I'm not totally opposed to defunding the police officers. As a matter of fact, police, local police, they need more assistance. Well, that's not going to make a lot

of progressive Democrats happy to hear. And then Trump twisted in the knife. He then later said, oh, you see that? Oh, you're going to lose the progressive left with that. I've never I've never heard a candidate in a debate do like punditry during the debate. You support. No, I don't support the Green. Oh, you don't. Oh, well, that's a big statement. I support the radical left. I support the Biden plan. But he was he was basically saying you're going to lose progressive votes for what you just said. And Trump said that twice. Right. So what that tells me is Trump came in with a strategy to just not to not win too many of Joe Biden's voters,

but just to knock him down a little bit with the ones he's already got and keep a few of them home. And he may have succeeded a little bit in that regard. And how do you think Biden did it with regards to what he had to achieve in the debate? I'd say he kind of met that bar. I don't know if he crossed it. I don't know if he like I'm looking at some of the transcripts for certain exchanges. I mean, I'm looking at some of the transcripts for certain exchanges, and no one's ever going to suggest that the former vice president is a great off-the-cuff order, at least not anymore. All right. There's there are sentences that move in three different directions. You know, he kind of loses his train of thought a couple of times.

Mr. Vice President answered his his final question. The final question is, I can't remember which of all is ranty. His final question. The final question is, I can't remember which of all his rantings. That being said, it didn't sound like someone who's lost his faculties. Like I said, I think he kind of met that bar. And so in which case, look, with a six or seven point lead, you meet the bar. You're doing OK.

It may be sufficient. You know, a lot of political scientists say that these debates historically have not really mattered. They don't really shift the needle all that much. But I think we agree this debate was kind of unprecedented. Do you think it could actually change anyone's mind? Like, that performance tonight? I mean, whose mind would that change and how? Well, so the first survey out after the debate was completed was produced by CBS. And I haven't seen the actual poll. I just saw a tweet from cbs news but so with that caveat i'll just say that that first poll um gave biden a seven point lead in terms of people who saw the debate preferring biden's performance by a margin of seven points

i don't know if that's going to hold up i don't know if people will feel that way in a day or two or five but if that is true and if that holds up, you know, the tie goes to the person or the slight lead goes to the person who's already winning, right? You know, but Donald Trump does not need to do almost as well as Joe Biden in these debates. If you're losing an election, you got to do better. And according to that, he hasn't done he didn't do better in this debate. But we'll see. What do you think this debate tonight says about where this election is at? Where U.S. politics is at right now? Uh, man, it's tough. You know, um, you know, like, like I'm Canadian. Uh, I, Canada's home. I don't have another citizenship, but I care about this country too, the United States. I've been living here for quite a few years.

I have a child who's American, and it doesn't feel good to see some of the things I'm seeing in this country and the direction that it appears to be heading. I was walking today just listening to a couple of podcasts, one hosted by Steve Bannon and his allies. Bannon was not hosting it today because I don't think he's been hosting too many podcasts lately. And then another one hosted by a former campaign manager to Barack Obama. Both of those podcasts were talking about the other side trying to steal the election and what happens after the election, after November 3rd. And there's just this very, very common fear of unrest after the November 3rd vote. And I mean, and that debate topic,

that closing topic on will you accept the results of the election, it just speaks to a democracy that's not at its healthiest. You know the way the Roman Empire fell. It took 30, 40 years of a constant erosion of norms and people breaking rules and twisting standards to fit their own factions' immediate needs. And after a while, people started to fear for their own safety if their faction would lose. You know, I guess it's kind of a lock-them-up theory of politics

where basically opponents start to worry about what happens if they lose an election. And, you know, you're just seeing these patterns happening, and people who study the decline of democracies are very worried. And so I'm worried too. Well, Alex, thank you so much for speaking with me today. My pleasure. That's all for today. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.