The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Came Across As ‘A Total Assh*le’ In The First Debate

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Former Republican operative Stuart Stevens joins Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson for a special episode of The New Abnormal on the night of the utterly chaotic first presidential debate. Trump’s amped up ranting reminded everyone that he’s “a guy that you just would not want in your face for another four years,” Stevens concluded. “Trump just came across as a total asshole.” It was a night when the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, was unable to keep control. Stevens suggested giving the moderators the right to cut off the microphones of unruly candidates. “I think the moderators ought to have the rights to shock collars,” said Rick.   They all agreed that this kind of Trump performance was unlikely to make inroads with the college-educated voters or the white moms he needs for a second term. “Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani did not kill it with the debate prep,” said Molly. “It was not a great debate for women tonight, but I don't think Trump really gives a shit about women quite frankly.” Molly wishes they would just cancel the rest of the debates. “Trump is insane and he is just so destructive. And when you give him a mainstream media venue, it ends up undermining elections and civil society as a whole,” she said. Stevens, who was part of George W. Bush’s debate team, was more upbeat. He said this had been a terrible night for the president. “I think that there's going to be a big movement for Biden after this,” he said. Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi folks, it's Rick Wilson, and welcome to The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, a left-wing pundit and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. I'm also an editor at The Daily Beast, a former Republican political strategist, best-selling author, and full-time troublemaker. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, business, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. I'll try to keep Rick to the minimum number of F-bombs and try to keep our... kids, pets, and other wildlife sounds from invading our respective bunkers. Molly John Fast, as the woman on this show right now, I'm just going to ask you a question, just a hypothesis for you. Do you find men who are shouty and interruptee to be a politically

appealing sort of leader? Yeah, that was not a great debate for women tonight, but I don't think Trump really gives a shit about women, quite frankly. Oh, you think? I think we should introduce our guest before we get going. We have my friend and legend in the political media world and political strategy world, Stuart Stevens. One of my fellow pirates on the Lincoln Project Pirateship, we are delighted to have you with us, Stuart. It's great to be here. You know, you guys are, I'm glad to invite me to the party. I was just feeling left out.

Thanks for having me. Quite a night. Bad to predict, but I think that there's going to be a big movement for Biden after this. I think Trump just came across as a total asshole and a guy that you just would not want in your face for another four years. Trump's people are going to think that was a victory. I know how I felt, but I'm curious, how do you see that as a victory? I mean, you come from Republican politics and you have written extensively about this. I mean, can you give us some insight into how you can be quite so gaslit still?

I think that Trump, I think there's a certain element that he has that obviously will like it. But I think he way overplayed himself. He was more Trump in this than he was in any of the Hillary Clinton debates. Right. And I think his strategy was to try to rat, to extend he had a strategy, you try to rattle Biden so Biden would make some colossal mistake. Or to just wear Biden down. It is exhausting to have to deal with someone who's constantly interrupting it.

But Biden hung tough in it. I think if we go to the premise, which I think most of us have agreed on, that if this race is about Trump, he loses. And this debate was not Trump. And I think that he did nothing to gain voters. You know, he came into this losing. Right. to attract new customers. I don't see that he did that. Probably increased some of the intensity of his support, but that's not really ever been a problem for him. I mean, when you look at these polls,

like I was looking at the mammoth poll, he had 48% very unfavorable. Now, he had 28% very favorable. Biden only had 17% very favorable, but he only had 32% very unfavorable. So it's kind of what you think. Trump's intensity is greater. But when you have 48% very unfavorable when you go in, you just have such narrow margin to a victory. Our producer, Jesse and I were talking before you guys came and we were talking about, he said he had watched a Hillary debate earlier. And I had, and I had two more recently. And I was surprised Trump seemed a lot more amped up tonight. Yeah. Well, I go back to, you know, being older than you guys, and 2000, I worked on the Bush debate prep.

And Bush versus Gore, we were able to, and it wasn't just our spin, where the public saw it, Gore was, if you read the Gore debate, you thought he did well. But if he saw it, he was constantly sighing, condescending, viral. Yeah, Ira, you just didn't like this guy. And later, you know, they confessed that he'd had like 12 Diet Coke like right before. He was just like spun up out of his mind. And look, you compare that performance to Trump's. And Gore was charming in comparison.

Right. I remember walking in the spin room after that and starting to work. And that story you were talking about, the guys in the holding room next door, they thought they won. And I remember, I was walking around with reporters. And it was just like this idea of like, oh, Gore was so intellectual. And W, you know, didn't know what he was, didn't know the deputy prime minister of Krap Lakhistan. But the whole eye rolling and like, it just came across. And so I think tonight, I mean, Trump was sweaty and he was constantly squinting and jittering.

And I'm not going to stop laughing about this. Someone sent me a clip of the Frank Luntz focus group of tonight. And Frank, whatever. But this woman said, oh, I was undecided before, but now I'm going with Biden. Trump acted like a crackhead. I know you guys have had to deal with this before, but like this is the terrible conclusion of anti-intellectualism, Trumpism, right? In some ways. As someone myself who has, you know, pondered the values of anti-intellectualism in my youth,

but I do see this as like the logical conclusion to that, right? Is that we have somebody who's so untethered to intellect. As is COVID. I mean, COVID-19 is the logical conclusion to a party that became anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-truth, and had a fundamental distrust that government could do any good. Yeah. We put that together and you end up with, you know, hundreds of thousands of people who are going to die. Yeah.

It's not high. It's not theoretical. It's also the nihilism of Mitch McConnell and Trumpism. Because like, even when he got up there today, he was like, and I got all those judges. I got you guys all those judges. But he doesn't realize he got Mitch McConnell and Republican donors those judges. The average person doesn't care about a federal judge. No.

And a good test to that is, you know, I think judges is something that conservatives have learned to say, because it's socially acceptable, and it's a justification to vote for guys as a racist. Right. You know, you can't very well say, well, look, I really like the guy who's a racist. And we got these judges, too. You just say, well, conservative judges. But ask somebody next time they say that to you, that's okay, that's good. So what, and the last, say, 10 years, one of the top five Supreme Court decisions you think were really important?

It was the decision of Cuck versus Antifa. They can't tell you, is the Supreme Court the size of a basketball team or a baseball team? You know, Stuart, I mean, I know we were talking about this a few minutes ago, but I think the closing of the debate tonight, where Trump both said, I'm not going to accept results I don't like, and also sent out every opportunity, he had every opportunity of the world to deny and decry white supremacy tonight. And, of course, neither of us were shocked that he punted that ball.

and in fact gave the proud boys a big boost like they've never had before. There's what's right morally and there's what's, you know, right politically, and I think he was wrong on both counts. Yeah. All this industry of why Trump won in 16. On one basic level, he won because he ran in a year in which a Republican could win with 46.1%. Romney lost at 47.2. So why did that happen?

It happened because third party vote doubled from 12 to 16. Well, that's not going to happen this year. But non-white vote, primarily African-American vote, decline for the first time in 20 years. And man, I can't think of a greater get-out-the-vote for African-Americans to vote against Donald Trump than have them up there talking about the proud voice. And white supremacists. And white supremacy. And, you know, when Biden speaks to this stuff about justice, I really, I think as like a white Mississippian, I hear that and it seems, you know, I'm for that. But when I talk to my African-American friends, what it means to them,

is like on another whole level. I mean, I have a presidential candidate up there saying that there's a systematic racism in America. Yeah. Did even Obama ever say that? I'm not sure. You know what's so funny is I interviewed Mike Asby today? Ah, yes. And he's unbelievable.

I mean, the man is unfuck and he was telling me about his growing up with Jim Crow. And I mean, I got chills. Like, it was so, I do think there's, there is a force in this country that wants social justice. you know, that wants equality for everyone. I think Biden taps into it really well. Yeah, and look, just look at the change that's happened in this country. You know, it was a few years ago when Trump was down in Alabama, campaigning for Roy Moore,

and called out the protesters in the NFL for kneeling saying, get these sons of bitches off the field. Right. You know, doing that where you literally could have walked from where he was speaking in Alabama to where, you know, African Americans were lynched. To what happened now. I mean, he's in a country. cultural war with NASCAR because NASCAR is ordered to taking down a confederate with flags and Trump opposes that.

Right. And look, you have whole baseball teams that are kneeling. I mean, the Ole Miss Florida game, both sides kneeled. That was the Stalingrad of cultural wars. And you never seen a guy. I mean, it's just amazing. So I just think it's a total miscalculation of where the country wants to be. And Mike Espy, you probably had the Mississippi to get this, but the SB's are really an extraordinary family in Mississippi. They've played such a positive role, not to mention that his son was a great football player for Ole Miss, but they really are. And, you know, I worked for Republican governors, senators, congressmen in Mississippi, but I'm from Mike Espy. I'm going to send the guys some money. I hope he win. We're going in there. We're going to help the guy because it is

also a state that does not have a lot of expensive media running in a way. So we think we think we can do it. We did in Alaska, which is to start and catalyze a boost for Mike Espy down there. And it's the right, it's the right thing to do. And he's only down one point against Cindy Hyde Smith. So Mike Espy also wins the vital, I don't want to be embarrassed by a lunatic demo. Now, I have a question for both of you, which I think is ultimately the question that media is going to have to ponder for the next week and a half or two weeks before the next debate, which is.

And I sort of knew this was going to happen, even though Chris Wallace is very respected. What happened tonight, what Chris Wallace did was he let Trump just do that insane stuff where he says all the lies and cites his base. And it was like just free mainstream media advertising for his craziness. How do you, what do you do? How do you stop that? Well, I think we ought to be on a move to try to give the moderator's rights to cut off microphones. I think we ought to have the moderators who have the rights to shock collars. Taze, tasing.

We'll see with the numbers show, and I've always been bad at predicting about Trump. But I don't think people like that guy. You know, remember when Hillary Clinton was running for Senate, and who was the Republican candidate? What was his name? Rick Lazio. Rick Lazio came over to her and had this pledge that he wanted her to sign and was like, with her face.

And I remember watching that as like a Republican guy and thinking, wow, Rick's really taking a tour. And then, you know, it basically won the race to Hillary Clinton if it was ever in doubt because it was like, who is this asshole? It was just sort of a shame because Rick Lazio is not an asshole. But it was just an overplaying. And I just, you know, I think people are people. And I just, I don't think people liked the majority of people just, like I said, they wouldn't want to sit next to that guy on a plane. I kept looking at it tonight. And I noticed one important thing for the very beginning.

that was the tell on Trump. He stared at Biden like a mongoose watching a snake. He could not take his eyes off Joe Biden. He rarely looked up. He rarely looked at Wallace. He rarely looked at the camera. He sees the man who is beating him right now. That's what he was looking at across the stage.

I think that they expected Biden to, what did they say? They said he was senile. If anybody seemed senile, I don't know. I mean, is there a difference? You can debate the merits of being a crackhead or senile. I'm not sure. You can probably be...

What about a steyle crackhead? Yeah, I think he could be both. But fundamentally, I mean, Trump did say that Biden said super predators, and that was Hillary. Right. I mean, Trump got a lot wrong. Wait, wait, wait, Molly, what are you saying? But I know... Donald Trump is untethered from facts, truth, and reality?

Right. But I don't think there were times when he intentionally lied, which is most of the time. But the super predator thing, we know. No Trump thought that Biden said super predators when it was really Hillary. Like, there were certain moments where you could tell he was a little off, like, just confused. And so, I mean, I have to wonder, like, Chris Christie did not kill it. Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani did not kill it with the debate prep. That dream team.

You know, to kind of analyze that supercreditor moment, I think it's very interesting because let's, let's believe that Trump did it on purpose knowing it was Hillary Clinton. You know, there's a classic debate trap, we call it, where you accuse the other person of raising taxes by 10% knowing that they only raised them by 9 and a half. So they'll come back and correct it and say, no, it wasn't 10%. It was 9.5%. And you go, okay, great. So, I mean, there was a trap there for Biden to step into. He goes, you know, I didn't say that Hillary Clinton said. Right. Which would have been a bad moment. Right. It's true. But I don't think that, I think Trump thought that Biden said super predator. I don't think Trump is ever playing three-dimensional chess. But I could be wrong. I don't know.

Yeah, I have no idea. I think there's some of these moments in there for Biden that are going to really stand out. I thought his response on the suburbs. Yeah. And when this race is arguably, it's about two things. It's about the suburbs and it's about the totality of non-white vote being what percentage of that it'll be in the elector. I mean, if we knew what percentage non-white vote was going to be of the elector today, I think we'd know what the race is going to be. I thought that was a very powerful response. And I thought this stuff on social justice and law enforcement, was very powerful. I don't think he alienated voters by saying it. I think it's something that really meant a lot to those that care about that issue. I mean, one of the things I think Biden did very, very well on tonight was indicting Trump on the COVID deaths. He went right at it. He named it. He went chapter and verse on it. And I think, you know, Trump's reaction was, I got the bass. Yeah, I got the respirators. You'd never get a respirator. It just was such a, it was such a pathetic and sloppy of his mishandling of this.

And I think it was important for Biden to really hit that and hammer it home. I also thought, I mean, I hate to it. I think that misogyny plays a huge role in why Hillary Clinton lost. And you see it with Biden. People like Biden because he reads tough. You just see that he's tough with him.

And people didn't, voters didn't like that with Hillary and they like that with him. And I know this is for a guy from Delaware, it doesn't really stay in the same way. But Biden's a little bit of that like, quieter cowboy who rides into town. I mean, Trump is a 400-pound sack of bluster. And Biden came across. There were a couple moments where Biden and our friend Sarah Linty mentioned this to me. She said, that look that Biden got a couple times and he sort of looked down and close his eyes

was when that's a parent look. When your child is like out of control and you look down and count to 10 before you look up again. And I thought Biden just, he handled, he showed enough spite and enough like, shut up, you're a clown stuff, without getting into the ditch with Trump and turning it into an interrupting contest. I also thought he just, he was able to sort of laugh, and he didn't seem angry,

and he wasn't reactive. And I think that helped him. The problem is you couldn't hear what he was saying a lot of the time. And I don't, you know, you're going to have to cut, I don't know how you would ever transcribe that mess. Well, could I interrupt with a counter argument to what you guys just analyzed?

Sure, Jesse. Bon Gino is on Fox News and he said that Trump is the apex predator and the lion kick. I think the line of the night was, will you shut up, man? Like, that was the best line of the night to me, because we all felt it. I thought the best line that was wrong night, wrong guy. I mean, I felt like Biden had some heat there. I think the articulation of a president who would actually bring people together to handle COVID was vital. Stuart, what did you think was the line of the night?

I tell you what I think is really going to resonate with people, way Biden defended his son. Yeah. There's a decency to that and the way that he spoke about both of his son. I think that really, that's the anti-Michael Dukakis moment when Michael Dukakis was asked, what would you do when Kitty was raped? When Bernie Shaw asked him, what would you do if your wife was raped? Would you want the death penalty then?

And Dukakis went into this, went into the weeds on a policy answer. Yeah, an analytical response on the merits of the death penalty. Yeah, where the correct answer was, fuck yeah. I know Biden avoided that. I thought he showed a lot of passion with it. is something I think will resonate with people. Look, I mean, what is this, why is Trump losing? He's losing because of college-educated white voters.

Did he do anything to make a college-educated white voter more like to vote for him? I don't think so. And the danger for Biden, I think, is that there'll be less intensity among African-Americans, and I think Trump did nothing but help Biden on that front. And I think really, look, when incumbent presidents lose, they always tend to lose to someone who's a man. mirror opposite of that person. Yes. And I think Biden came across is very different than Trump tonight. I think that the, the kind of, like Biden has these two, has had two dead children

and a dead wife. And Trump is obsessed with attacking Hunter. The day after, it was revealed that his daughter took a $700,000 deduction for money he had given her, paid her as a consultant. And then they deducted the payment from his taxes. So he cheated two different ways, right, on this, because he failed to pay a gift tax. And then he also deducted the thing that he should have been paying taxes on in the first place. And then he goes and attacks. I mean, this sort of audacity of it is, I know it's Trump, but it still seems just so shocking. One thing I think we haven't talked about is Trump categorically said did he pay millions in taxes. Yeah. Yes. And if I'm sitting in the New York Times and I've got those documents. That's like, man, I'm going to have to like release this

stuff. Yeah. Let's get the first pay. Let's release just the clip of the payment box on the line 47 whatever. Yeah. I mean, that, that is a high risk gamble because you either did or you didn't. And he didn't. And we know he didn't. And I suspect that those papers will see the light of day. And Trump will probably say they're forwards or something. I don't know what the hell. Right. But it won't matter. Fake taxes, man. They're fake. How much do you think the New York Times has? Because it seems like there are many more keyed up stories there.

I think they have a lot. I think somebody dumped the taxes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think the volume of this is significant enough that they've got the receipts. So, Stuart, was there anything that Biden didn't say tonight you would hope he would get to? Look, I would have liked Biden to repeat. To say more, he mentioned this once almost in passing, that you're the worst president in the history of the country. I'm standing here on stage with the worst president in the history of the United States. And I think the are you better often four years ago argument, he may, but I think you could have made it a little more clearly.

I mean, what I would say is look, I mean, four years ago, you and I, Rick, well, we were against Trump. But, I mean, did we ever? If we had said then, look, by the first presidential debate for his reelection, more Americans are going to die from a disease that was largely preventable than any disease, at least, in 100 years. The economy is going to be in Chambles, the highest unemployment of any September that we've had a presidential debate in American history. And by the way, you can't leave the country. You can go to Serbia. You can go to Europe as Serbia. You can't drive to Canada. And Canadians can't come to Florida, which is what, a $7 billion hole in the tourists? So, I mean, and we said that, people would have said that we were crackets. Right. So it turns out like we are optimistic

about Trump. It's much worse than we could have imagined. And I hope in the next debate, it'll hit that more. Yeah. No, I hope so too. I hope there aren't any more debates, but I think I'm alone in that. We should stop having debates. They're terrible.

And Trump is insane. And he is just so destructive. And when you give him a mainstream media venue, it ends up undermining elections and civil society as a whole. Not to be a downer. You are always the optimist. I think Biden ought to take one of those folding camp chairs, come out with a little six-pack of whatever his beer of choices, pop that camchair on the stage, cross his legs, put his sunglasses on, start the first beer. Go ahead, Donald, you talk. This is nothing but up for me. Yeah, you know, I think it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with the numbers. I think this thing is going to shift toward Biden and start to solidify. Yeah, I think this may be a cascade.

If that happens, do you guys think Trump decides he doesn't want to do any more debates? Like, do you see that as a possibility? Oh, Molly, I think if you invited Trump to your kid's birthday party, he would come if a clown canceled. Do you remember when he used to go? Do you remember in the middle of this presidency when he used to go to random weddings? Yes. I'm telling you, the guy, you know, I mean, he said the ultimate. attention whore. I mean, he'll show up. He'll show up. And, you know, he's surrounded by people who

are going to tell him that he won. And because they won a race that people said they couldn't win, they're never going to believe they're going to lose this race. They think they're bulletproof. And that, you know, as a consultant, I always liked working for a client who had lost because they understood they could lose. Right. You learn more from losing than winning. Well, to interject on that note, the CNN instant poll just said that 60% Biden won, 28% Trump won. Well, there you go. 60% Biden won 28% Trump. Ouch.

I got 425 on the math SATs, but I think that's three to one. Yeah, we're a bunch of humanities guys, but that's a pretty good number. Yeah. Two and a half to one. Yeah, I just, and you know, Trump will say that's fake news. Then you're going to start seeing these polls and it's going to be reflected in the polls. The one, I mean, the move that Trump needs to make, I think, to win is the move that he's incapable of, which is to say, give me a second chance.

There are things I've done that I think are good for the country, but I have let you down in certain areas. I've learned a lot. And, you know, Americans are incredibly forgiving. They love to give people second chances. But you can't stay at the bar ordering another round and saying that, you know, forgive me for drinking. You've got to at least pretend to go to Betty Ford. And Trump's just incapable. He's absolutely incapable. And so he's trapped in this own little box of his own personality. On that note, we'll wrap up this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking with smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science, who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. We're just getting started and don't want you to miss an episode. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, I'm Molly JongFest, and he's the Rick Wilson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again. on the next episode.