The Young Turks - Part 3: First Presidential Debate: Donald Trump vs Joe Biden

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

Part 3: Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Michael Shure, and Ana Kasparian breakdown the first 2020 Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. On the Young Turks, coverage of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the folks at shoptyt.com are amazing. They already have a shirt that says, will you shut up, man? That's a line that Joe Biden had in the debate. And if you use the code bu-bye, that's B-U-H-B-Y-E, you actually get 15% off of any activist apparel. So resist, vote, there's a ton of voting shirts, anti-Trump shirts, and we got a lot of

anti-Trump shirts. So go to shopty-t.com. I love that they were that quick with the shirt. So check that out. By the way, too strong coffee.com slash t-y-t. It gives to progressive causes if you buy two or more bags. It helps just Democrats, Rebellion Pack, Wolfpack, and TYT, and it's organic, it's fair trade. So check that out, too strong coffee.com slash tyt.

So now you guys have an awesome number of comments. We've got to get to so many things. A bucket of pearl clutching squirrel said, Jenk, this is about my prediction. So I said in the middle of the debate, even though Trump is the biggest bully I've ever seen in any debate, he makes me look like a wilting flower. If you saw my debate in my congressional race, I was not a wilting flower. I came in very aggressive. But Trump was so over the top, it was ridiculous.

But I said nonetheless, my prediction is the Republicans will come out and go, can you believe Joe Biden said, shut up. He was so rude in this debate, because they have no shame. They have no sense of hypocrisy, they don't care. And a bucket of pearl clutching squirrels are one of our members, says, Jenk, the right is already pearl clutching about Biden telling Trump to shut up. Of course. I can't, I can't emphasize enough how little the Democratic Party should care about what right wing smear merchants have to say, right? Like, just be strong and just, you guys, Trump is a target rich environment. I don't I don't care what his goons have to say about Biden's rhetoric or anything he had

to say about Trump being too mean. Are you kidding? You know what I would? As soon as Trump goons start accusing me of being rude or mean or uncivil, whatever, during the debate, I just start making fun of them. Oh, did I hurt Trump's feelings? Did I hurt your feelings? Oh, do you need a safe space? Oh, make fun of them because they should be made fun of. Period. Laugh at them. The fact that the fact that Biden has allowed right wingers to push him to the right and make

right wing talking points, you know what they agreed on? The one thing they agreed on during that whole debate, how the police should be funded more. What are you doing, Biden? Yeah, it's pathetic. It's pathetic. You're a billion percent right, because everyone in Washington teaches civility almost as a religion. And there's a reason why they do that. Because if you're in favor of the status quo, as they all are, well, civility is perfect.

You'll never get rid of the status quo if everyone is civil and polite and never goes to actually do change. So, it's become a religion for them. So they're like, oh, if Trump yells at you or the Republicans lie about you, just say, that's unfair, and then shrink away. No, you fight back in all the ways that Anna described, I described earlier. I guarantee you that the folks on cable news are tutting Trump now, but probably barely saying anything negative about Biden, who had a thousand opportunities to hit back, and I wish he had.

John, I don't know if you've got updates on that. So I'm curious if you saw the media reactions or panels on cable. Okay, so yeah, oh man, there's a lot to talk about. Also as Marissa, the producer pointed out, kudos to shop TYT for getting that shirt up so fast. TDR has been waiting two years. Anyway. Damn, calling him out live on air. That's what I'd like to see with Biden.

He's only been around for two whole years. Anyway, having gotten one. Anyway, okay, so in terms of reaction, let's see, I've got Sean Hannity, you know, he's a newsman. So he hailed gladiator warrior fighter Trump. All three of those things, he's not one of those things, he's a gladiator warrior fighter, taunted cranky Biden saying maybe it's past his bedtime, he needs his nap. Because all of them have to pretend that what Trump did is totally, no, no, that makes sense. That's what you want in charge. You want that guy to have the nuclear codes. They've had their tongue on the boots so long they can't even taste the leather anymore.

That's just what reality tastes like. And so that's what they're saying. Now, a more interesting and perhaps more important response was from some of the undecided voters in Frank Luntz's focus group. So he asked them to give positive and negative reactions to the two candidates. For Trump, some of the words that were provided were arrogant, un-American, and I swear to God, crackhead. So for Biden, they list better than expected, which, yeah, they've been spending six months implying that Joe Biden's brains are cheese. No, Biden's old, he's a bit slow. It's really frustrating, but he hasn't lost his mind like the crackhead as. Anyway, more professional,

restraint and compassion, predictable, coherent leader. The negative ones for Biden were things like predictable politician evasive, things like that. But for Trump, they were literally things like a whole crackhead and things like that. And someone said, there was a follow of question. So one of them, it was, you know, aren't those, aren't those serious accusations? And the undecided voters said, well, if the shoe fits, the clown shoe. Yeah, no, no, John, that's really important. Because look, we can't lose sight like the mainstream media does of the fact that we all have our own perspective and we're all in our own bubbles.

So from a progressive perspective, we always want Democrats to fight harder and we always want them to make their point aggressively about why the Republicans are wrong, because we're so frustrated for 40 years, Democrats have sat on their hands. But that focus group confirms what we said at the beginning of the coverage, which is, no, for real Americans, they're not used to this level of nuclear clown show that Donald Trump puts on. And we covered exhaustively every day. So we knew what Trump was going to do. We knew what Trump was going to do apparently way better than Biden did. But remember, a lot of people watching a presidential debate do not see everything that Trump does. They might see the big ones, the huge gaps like injecting bleach into you,

and they might see the taxes story. But they're really not, they probably don't even know the details of the taxes story. So I'll tell you who lost the debate. The guy who was considered a crackhead by enough people for that word to stand out in a focus group. Holy cow, I've never seen that. So Biden, I think had a super low bar. You just got to prove that your brain, as John put it, your brain is not cheese, and then let the maniac be the crackhead that he is. So hence, there's no question. Frank Luntz's top Republican pollster. Given that, given the CBS poll, given our reaction, there's no question Biden won. But it was almost a win by default, which is, by the way, Democratic Party 101. Let the Republicans be monsters and cross

your fingers and hope that the American people can see it without us making our case. So we do have one other poll result. It's from the CBS news, but it's a different sort of response to give us a little bit more of an idea potentially of how people are in interpreting what we just saw. This is apparently from battleground states. That's what they're saying at least. They don't define that any better than that. But asked based on this debate what it made you think of the different candidates. The percentage that it made them think better of the candidate for Joe Biden, it was 38%. For Donald Trump, it was 24%. Worse of him was 32% for Joe Biden, 42 for Donald Trump, and no change was 30 for Biden, 34 for Trump.

So in terms of affecting their overall impression of the candidates, it's swinging in a bad direction for Donald Trump there, obviously. Yes. So look, another mistake by Biden, which goes along the lines of what we were just talking about in him not being aggressive in office, New York Times drops this nuclear level report on how Trump did tax evasion and is broke. They spent one minute on it. Now, if you're Biden, it doesn't matter if the Trump played so much offense that he tried to overwhelm me. It doesn't matter what the moderator has. You keep coming back to it if you think that's a winning issue for you. So how could you corner Trump on that and make him be defensive?

Easy. You go, look, New York Times says that you deducted gigantic losses. So there's one of two possibilities. One is that you did tax evasion. You really are a billionaire, as you claim, but you choose not to pay taxes because you're doing tax evasion. Or you're actually broke. So which one is it? And he, oh, no, no, I'm a billionaire, but I don't pay taxes because I'm smart, right? No, no, there is no billionaire that doesn't get to pay taxes because they're smart. That's called tax evasion. So are you admitting the tax evasion? No, I'm not going to do that. Okay, then so you're saying you did lose all that money. My God, how did you lose $400 million twice, two different times? Are you the worst businessman in American history?

You changed the framing completely from smart. Trump's only advantage, the only thing that he scores better in polling than Biden on is the economy, partly based on his image from back in the apprentice days when the head of CNN, who at the time was the head of NBC, Jeff Zucker, built him up to something he wasn't. They, NBC knew he was dead broke, and he played a rich man on TV. So hit him with that, nothing, zero on that from Biden tonight. So it's hard not to get frustrated with that. So at the end of the day, Biden winds up with a, the default victory, but we're taking chances with the Republic. The next time we go up against the Republican, we've got to have someone who can actually fight back.

I just want to know, look, debating, yes, part of it is about substance, but a lot of it is about strategy and really figuring out what your opponent's Achilles heel is. If you guys roll the tape and look at the expression on Donald Trump's face every time Biden meekly mentions the economy, you'll see where his Achilles heel is. If Biden just focus on that one issue and like really hit hard, I think that, first of all, like, Trump doesn't know how to respond to it. Like, I don't know if you guys notice that. Like, every time Biden would even, like, in a very minor way mentioned the state of the economy. I wouldn't look at his face. I would look at Trump's face because I wanted to see how he was reacting to it. He gets super uncomfortable,

man, because that's the thing that he's been hinging on, like focusing on in order to make his case for reelection. But we all know that the stock market is not representative of the real economy. We know that the vast majority of ordinary Americans right now are struggling. They were struggling before the pandemic. Again, nearly 50% of Americans can't afford a $400 emergency. That's before the pandemic. And now, after the pandemic, the number is much higher. Like, just go after him on that over and over and over again. Watch him squirm, right? And let us enjoy it. But I don't I just, look, I'm just gonna keep it real. We're dealing with two insanely old white men, okay? And they don't have energy, neither one of them do. Trump is like hopped up on something.

He's like sweaty all over. He's got like sweat dripping down his upper lip. Biden is like falling asleep while he should be like going for the jugular. It's just incredibly disappointing because the future of this country lays in the hands of these two. individuals depending on who wins. And it's terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. And you're right, Jank, the more I think about it, obviously I've been furious and angry with how the primaries went down. But like the more I think about it, the more frustrating it is that everything was manufactured in the primaries in a way to promote Joe Biden, who in my opinion out of that entire field of people running for the Democratic ticket, Biden was the weakest. I mean, we saw it on

that stage today. Yeah. We do have another poll if you want an overall one. Let's go to you guys and then we've got to get to some important topics, including some of the things I promise you like Biden actually did have one or two good lines. And we've got to talk about the consequences of Biden disowning the left. So but John, go ahead, what's the point? Yeah, and we also have to talk about one other person who was in large part responsible

for the mess that we just saw. John Harwood tweeted, CNN instant poll of debate watchers on who won, they had 60% Biden, 28% Trump. I don't know if that's, I don't know exactly what the methodology on that is, but that was a more dominant win for him than the CBS poll had been. Okay, so I'm tied with Michael. He's got one that was around five points, and I've got one that was much, much bigger for a Biden win as I thought.

All right, so first let me give shout outs to our awesome. Twitch subscribers and viewers. So people who gifted subs, I love the community on Twitch that you guys look out for each other. Deep Space Monk, Bandito Radio, Cote Omega, John Moxley's Fringe, they all did it. A. Trumpy with a great line, and thank you for saying. He said, God, I believe in you guys so much. We believe in you too, brother. That's why we do this show together. Jeff Waldorf was a good show of his own around the nation with Jeff Waldorf, He gave 300 bits and said here for the commentary and great chat. And Adam the Mek-E resubbed for the fourth month with Prime.

If you have Amazon Prime and you watch us on Twitch, it's free for you guys, but we get the revenue for it. So it's perfect. So please do that and resub every month if you can. He said, I just want to see if Jake knows what a hype train is. I kind of don't want to find out because it's kind of fun not knowing, but I definitely sight unseen would hop on a hype train. And I hope we're on one on Twitch right now.

Okay, so I got to give a shout out to Vince Rogers on YouTube super chat, who is so generous and just said great job. Vince, you too, brother, we do this show together. I mean, look, at tyt.com slash go, you guys have powered us for the whole year. And let's finish strong on that. We've got to get the strong progressive message out. TYT.com slash go. And one last one from a member on our website, cousin Vinnie said, jank the optimist, Anna, the pessimist and John the realist. These three are literally the perfect trio. Thank you. But yes, P.S., I'm not saying that Anna being a pessimist is bad. In fact, listening to her takes is often incredibly cathartic when 98% of what we hear everywhere else is just constant gas lighting. By the way, on that, I agree, a thousand percent. And so thank you for saying that. That's wonderful of you. And like I always say, our members power us. You could do that on the website at t yt.com slash join or if you're watching on youtube you just hit the join button below and we got a giant post game coming up for you in that post game one of the things i want to talk

about is what does the future look like what can progressives do in 2024 because i got news for you our candidate in 2024 ain't going to be joe biden so will and even establishment folks believe that michael sure believes that by the way michael sure's coming back and giving us more reaction from the debate stage in Cleveland when we come back for the post game that's just members only. But we've got a couple of minutes here. One of the things I wanted it is, so first let me give you some of the stuff I promised you. I think Biden's line of get out of the bunker and the sand trap that you're in and go pass a bill on coronavirus so you can help people. Clearly the best line of the night by either candidate. And when I heard it, that was at a

moment when Trump was pummeling him and wouldn't allow him to speak. So that was his first flash of fighting back. I kind of went like this like, oh thank God. He finally said something that was powerful and a line that he had prepared and actually delivered well. So I don't want you to think that we're not fair and that we're not giving you the analysis of the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so Biden did have a good point on that. So, So every once in a while, he would land a blow on Trump. But I'm so curious what's going to happen in the next two debates, because are they going to tell him to go harder on Trump or to point out more of his problems or to prepare better?

Or given that the polling indicates that Biden won this debate, are his consultants and his advisor is going to say, oh, great, we don't need to do anything, let's just coast for the next two debates. And knowing the Democratic Party, I always says in which way that's going. Okay. So I'm worried about it. By the way, we're going to cover all the debates. Don't miss any of the debates right here on the Young Turks and obviously election night.

Either election night is going to be joyous or it's going to be filled with a rage. So either way, it's going to be, look, forget the fact that it's an event and it's going to be an amazing show. It's going to be one of the most important nights in American history. That is not hyperbole. It's absolutely real. So don't miss any of that as we do our coverage. Guys, unfortunately, we're out of time here. But for the members, we have so much more. We're going to analyze how Chris Wallace, the moderator, did. I want to talk about how much damage Biden did to the left by constantly agreeing with Trump on right wing framing. So we got to talk

about that. And then the future, what are we going to do in 2020 for all that's for the members right now. TYt.com slash join or hit the join button below if you're watching on YouTube. you there in one minute. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.