First 2024 Biden-Trump Debate: Texas political experts react to, analyze first presidential debate

Hey, everybody, welcome. Uh You made it through the first presidential debate of 2024. Don't know how you're feeling at this point, but we're going to discuss some of the key takeaways here. Uh Jason Wheeler here from uh y the Texas Political podcast. Uh Jason Whiteley, my usual partner in crime is here somewhere. Uh He is in the building. Uh but he's actually doing stuff uh for broadcast television and then he's gonna be joining us here in just a moment. We got Bernardine Stepto, the political producer here at W FAA. We've got Jessica Hussman. I got it right. This is the executive director of vote beat, which is a nonpartisan nonprofit that does true reporting, nuanced reporting at the local level on elections. And we have Michael mcardle, the esteemed political producer here at W FAA as well. Who is much of the magic behind politics. If you can say that there's magic in politics, hard work, I think there is. Yes, the hard work, the grunt work. Uh I have brought beers. Uh I grabbed a couple of six packs cause you know, if you're not familiar with y search for it wherever you get your podcasts and please subscribe to it because, uh we're really diving deep into a lot of the issues that affect us here in Texas. We do this every single week and we do it over a beer. It's a relaxed conversation where you actually get information, not just shouting, back and forth. And so, uh I have a couple of um options for you guys. Actually, I told Jason Whiteley because he always complains about me liking beers that have kind of a fruit in them that I didn't do that today. And I just realized I got Paleta De Mengo from Roar and Sons in Fort Worth. I believe they're out of Fort Worth. Uh We also have a necessary evil from the Manhattan project which has hosted us for the podcast several times in Dallas. That's always a good one. Jessica, do I remember correctly? Uh that you like IP A S uh you do? Wow. I am so flattered. I never remember these kinds of things. I can barely remember how to pronounce your last name every single time we get together and yet I remember this about you, but you do remember my beer. Tell you where my priorities are the most important thing from Oak Island's Brewery. So you're going to have the IP A I am. What are you guys having? Thank you evil, necessary evil. There you go, Bernardin. Are you doing this? Just choose one? Just choose one. Yeah. I'll open it for you. Boy, you are. Hi, mate. Is that your writer for this? You know? Uh, it is a very hoppy. It's very bitter that I feel like if you don't like beer you probably wouldn't like very much. I, I give you Paleta De Mango. Uh, and it should be a good one. cheers to you all, by the way for having made it through. And you too. Uh, the first debate of the season, it was uh a tough one to get through. Um Can we just go down the line here? Because I'm curious, I mean, we were all taking notes as this was unfolding for what seemed like, it seemed like two hours to me, it was 90 minutes or a little bit more than 90 minutes. Uh It felt like a really long debate. What are the takeaways from tonight for each one of you, Bernardine? I think that um those who were concerned about President Biden's faculties and mental state are still concerned and I think that uh those who think that Trump does, well, they still think he does. Well, I don't think anything changed in that respect, but I think that Biden did not step up to what he needed to, to, to do in terms of uh making people more comfortable. Uh But also keep in mind, the expectation was so low, the expectations for him performing well, was so low that he just met those low. Expectations. Yes. It seemed like the Trump campaign was really trying to walk back those expectations that they had set for Joe Biden for President Biden for some time now where they called him sleepy, Joe. He has no energy. He can't remember anything. He can't string a sentence together. And in these last couple of weeks we've been hearing them say you watch, he's going to be juiced up on something. He's a good debater. He's ready to go. He's, you know, he's going to have energy. It's almost like they were trying to raise the expectations on him so that he might miss those expectations. It seemed at least that's what a lot of people were thinking tonight though, President Biden in the very beginning especially did come out and there was a lot being said on social media about, you know, where was he looking? You know, what was he thinking? What was your takeaway, Jessica? Well, I think you're right. I think that if you have, if you have questions or concerns about his ability to lead the office, given his age, you are still dealing with those, right? He didn't, he really missed an opportunity, I think, to address that by a, with a real showing. And I, and I know that there was also some talk on, uh, on the internet about how he had a cold and some news organizations had confirmed that and I hear that, but I think that, you know, the real question on a lot of people's minds tonight was the age of both candidates. And if you just look at the performance of both men, Trump did seem a lot more energetic. Uh, and, and I think that if you're a low information voter who is watching that debate and God bless you, if you made it through the whole thing, um, you know, you, you may have the impression that one was able to address the concerns a lot more clearly. Even if you, if you were listening, listening carefully or if you were following this stuff closely for the last four years, you know, that a lot of what Trump said tonight was not true at all, but I don't know that that moves a lot of people. Yes. So this could have been a fact checker's dream or nightmare depending on how you look at it. If indeed, you know, as you say, former president Trump was saying things that were over the top or that weren't on the mark, there wasn't that substantial specific pushback from President Biden on a lot of those points. And so as you said, if you were a low information voter, you might have heard that forceful presentation from the former president and thought. Ok. Well, that's true. And then President Biden didn't correct it, but Jason, he did, he did a lot of correcting it appeared as if he was on the defensive, but he was answering, addressing the untruths that former president Trump was doing, but he just wasn't doing it in a forceful manner. Yes, that's a good point too. And, you know, this takes us back to 2016 as well when Hillary Clinton said that you don't understand it unless you're out there and he floods the zone. There's so many things to respond to that. It's almost like you lose track of, of all of the things that you're trying to pull back in and fact check and do in real time and still get your message out. Michael. What was your takeaway? Two things stood out to me. First off, there's this talk about the voters who are called double haters. They don't like either candidate who did they like better tonight. Well, that's my question. ABC said it's 21% of the voters, right? Double haters. That's a fair amount of people, right? So I don't think that uh they came away happy with either candidate to be honest from the beginning, talking about President Biden's faculty. You know, he stumbled within the first five minutes. Didn't speak for several seconds. It was pretty dramatic. He was trying to recall. Something seemed to get caught on it and then ended a sentence uh saying something like we beat, we beat Medicare. Uh We, we beat Medicare. I remember he Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think it was more profound tonight. The voice thing didn't help him either. And then I kept wondering why not give him water? Was that not part of the, I imagine it, or how about one of the, you know, you know, met or eucalyptus, whatever it is that you can, because, you know, again, the reporting is that he has a cold. Uh, but again, you know, it, it, it's all optics, right. So, you know, this goes all the way back to Kennedy Nixon, you know, when you had this debate and one looks a certain way on TV, and the other looks a certain way on TV. And people get an impression from that. If you were coming into tonight's debate, you got the sense that, you know, if, if somebody did was worried about Biden's age, worried about the president's age, that voice didn't help. I did want to bring up that Politico had put out a headline just a little while ago and it said that the title is Biden is Toast Democratic Insiders already freaking out over his hoarse voice and shaky debate performance from the Get Go was a big audience tonight too. The conjecture going in was that this might be the biggest television audience for a debate in history. And as you say, there are a lot of voters. Do you think everybody's made up their mind by now? What do you not know about Donald Trump and Joe Biden? I mean, both of them have held the presidency, you know, their records, they've been around a long time. So you're going to be exposed to some people though who still could be, you know, pushed one way or the other that didn't help him. No, I don't think it did help him. And I, and I think that there is, there's a really big portion of Joe Biden's supporters that are upset by this conversation, right? That, that think that we shouldn't be having this conversation about the age that we should be directing conversations in entirely different directions when those things come on. But I think that it is a fair thing to note that a lot of Americans are concerned about both candidates age, right? And of the two II, I think that there is one whose age was a problem for them tonight. I mean, whether it was because of his age or because of the cold or the, I mean, there were a lot of things that it could have been and I'm not necessarily blaming it on his age, but I think that he did have a long way to come with voters and he didn't get really, he didn't get very far. I will say that the one way to get rid of people talking about age is to come out and show forcefully that you're here, you're in it, you have the recall, you're able to, you know, match someone t for there. Uh The president though did I mean, he did recall a lot of specifics during this debate. He did better. But see, remember the first out, you have to have a, have a excellent showing out the gate and he didn't because he did get better during the debate. But by then he had lost the audience. Now, there are some who would say though, you know, Jessica, you referred to, you know, a lot of things that were coming out that were very over the top. A lot of superlatives from former President Trump, which is, you know, the way he speaks as well. And there are people who would say, well, you know, that makes me question mental fitness as well. We've heard that complaint about him that, you know, everybody focuses on President Biden's mental fitness. But, you know, people who say, you know, everything you say is over the top and superlatives. And I can't believe what you say. That makes me question your mental fitness. So there's that criticism as well. It's almost like it goes to both camps. I absolutely agree. And I think that the difference here is that, you know, Trump has been lying that much every time he opens his mouth since before he ran for president in 2016, right? So you sort of expect that performance from him. You expect him to sort of be enthusiastically lying to you, but you don't necessarily expect what you saw from Biden tonight from Biden. This is a much different performance than we saw of him four years ago. I don't think that it was very different for Trump. Right. You know, he's following the rules because he can be muted now. But like, aside from that, his energy level was the same and the amount of lies he was telling are the same. And so if we've got the debate from four years ago and this debate to compare it to, you know, you saw a much more energetic and motivated Biden, I think in 2020 then you just go back to the State of the Union this year. Well, here's another good thing about this debate. A very, very excellent thing. What is that? It's early, that's why they asked for it so soon. Not only for the early voting states, but I, I doubt there will be another debate. So you don't think that September 1, September is happening. If they, if it does Biden needs to fire his campaign people because I don't see. Well, he might not have a cold. Then if he actually wants to blame it on the cold for the poor performance and it actually was a poor, poor performance, then, uh, he'll be, he won't be sick in September. So you don't think there's gonna be a second debate? I don't think, why would, why would there nothing changed out of this? It just show their candidates in a worse light. It showed, uh, Trump more lying. So I don't think that he changed any votes. I don't and Biden definitely did not change or, or bring any over. I think that it's so early he has time to make up, he has the time to make it. And Biden, you know, part of the problem is, is there people who backed him in 2020 are, are now a bit skeptical and so he had to win them over and he didn't do that either. So it's double haters and the people who sort of backed away from him a little bit and he didn't help his cause at all. But I don't believe that many people backed away from Biden. I think that you have, I think that you hear the narrative, OK? I don't like him or whatever, but I don't like Trump, but when they go to that they're not going to vote for Trump. So his problem is no, no, that's why I say his problem is turn out that that is, that is Biden's problem today and that would be his problem in November getting his people to the polls, not them voting for Trump, not going to vote for a president is not going to do. Well, that was his problem in 2020 as well and he managed to get it done. So the question is now, can you inspire voters to get to the polls? Same thing for former president Trump though. Can you inspire? I mean, we've seen, you know, as the primary season, you know, finally went out with a whimper. There were still, even long after Nikki Haley stepped out of that race, there were still quite a few people in some of these states voting for her over Donald Trump in the Republican primaries. And so can he energize people to get to the polls too? You know, one thing that I took away from this is we just went through the primary here in Texas. And if you watch the Republican primaries, there was one thing that they talked about over and over and over and over again and that was the border and immigration. And tonight it was very clear where the Trump campaign is headed. You heard some stuff about inflation. Yes. You heard some stuff about the military and about, you know, overseas interventions and so forth. You heard some stuff about that but over and over, he brought up the border and immigration. It's very clear where the Trump campaign. But really, really, really, I stood up, it's this old line that they're taking your jobs away. So now they're telling black people, ok, the immigrants are coming over now, they're taking your jobs away. You don't have jobs. They used to tell the uh lower income whites, the blacks are taking your jobs. Now, they're telling the blacks the immigrants are taking your job and that's, they're going, that's going to be a line. Now, whether or not we believe it, whether or not we believe it. I still don't think you're going to have a significant number of blacks who are going to vote for Trump. But as I say again, Biden's problem is going to be getting his voters to the polls. And at one point, the former president referred to Black jobs and that was trending on Twitter for a while where people didn't. I, I guess, you know, feel that phrase uh black jobs. It's, it's so racist. I mean, it takes us back to those. Well, I, I'm like, no, he didn't say that but it's just like when he said that blacks are gonna vote for me because they liked my mug shot. You know, they relate. I mean, it's just, it's just unbelievable. But anyway, I'll, I'll get quiet at one point. I mean, it seems like we covered the gamut in this debate. We went all the way from World War II to a really extended, surprisingly extended conversation about golf. Did you? Oh, my God. Did that happen? I, that was the moment in the debate where I most wanted to be fired into the sun. I was like, I was just, and that's also when they were supposed to be defending their age. Right. They'll be a good president doesn't help. I brought my handicap down. Right. That didn't help either one of them because the youth of America, that's really the chief concern. Yeah. I mean, I don't recall that on any list of voter concerns. What is your golf handicap. I mean, and it went on and on and finally the moderators awkwardly sort of stepped in and said, I think we need to move on. I think they were stunned by it too. Just how long this was going back and forth, talking about what happened there, I will say. And I want to find out from you guys, what you thought about this. I don't know what you at home thought the format of this. I, I kind of liked it in a way because it's, there was no crowd to help out either candidate. First of all, there was no crowd to drown out either candidate or to buoy someone and kind of help them through if they were having difficulty. And it really gave you a window into the candidate who's speaking. Um And it seems like, and I love this whole idea of just chopping the microphone, you know, and, and, and so that you can hear the person who's actually talking and the other person can talk, you know, when they get, got time again, but you can hear them one at a time. I believe that the debate format was the winner tonight. And so I had, uh a bunch of friends, uh texting me, we were on whatsapp and so they were talking about some of their quotes that are, this is the best run debate. I, and I, I can't remember how long, uh no audience, you know, is better than I thought. Uh, because it allowed them to form their own opinion and they had to answer and they weren't reacting to anyone, you know, uh, the best time management ever in this debate kind of refreshing. Uh, and they kept reminding the candidates over and over, they'd stopped short. Well, you have 67 seconds left and here's the question we asked and push them. Would you like to answer it now? Since you still have time? Yeah. So that probably ends up being the big winner. I, you know, I, I thought it worked out well and we heard from both, they had good time and I think they managed it. But the, the mic mu I thought worked well. Can I talk Michael's microphone now? So that you can say something, Bernadine? Because you know what, everything that you've said, I agree with the exception of, I think the format while it was very well managed and you gave everybody the opportunity. I think it helped make it more boring because you didn't, you were bored like 20 minutes in God, you were so bored because you didn't have, I'm talking over and talking crazy. Did he just say that you didn't have uh Biden doing the same thing? But I think that in terms of management and I do totally agree that it is the winter time. But I think that it helped to, to add to the border and I, I, that's a problem, I think for both candidates because they had a perfect opportunity to sort of explain where they do you notice if you follow, uh, you know, former President Trump didn't answer many of the questions. And so this would have been a good opportunity for that again, for the double haters, you're trying to get people over and they just didn't, you know, use the format to their benefit, either candidate I don't think, and I think it could have helped them a great deal. Had they done that? It seems like though and, and Jessica correct me if I'm wrong here. It seems like going into this debate. The big, uh it seems like the big, I guess I would say goal for each of these is on the President Biden side. I'm sure that his team was telling him, hey, you know, we need to not give this perception about you. You're too old or any of that. We need you to go out there and be forceful and not fall into the memes that are going to pop up online, which they have tonight already, at least on X anyway. And I would say that the goal from the Trump team was to say, hey, get out there, have a strong performance. Don't go over the top. Like we saw in 2020 that debate didn't do him a lot of good there, didn't the, don't you think that the format of this where he knew the microphone was going to be cut, they're far apart, you know, you're going to get time in just a moment. It almost helped him to quote unquote behave. I was just talking to Senator Cruz yesterday and he was saying, I think that's what he's got to do here. He's got to just not, you know, be over the top or unhinged as the Biden administration has been calling him and, and, and, and he said, I don't know if he can do it or if he's going to do it, but it seems like the format almost sort of confined you to that. I mean, you had to, right. It was, you were muted when you weren't talking or when you weren't talking when it wasn't your time. So there was no opportunity for him to interrupt like we saw him do in 2020 they were stuck behind the podium 8 ft apart. So he couldn't sort of like stalk Biden around the stage like we saw him do with Hillary Clinton in 2016. Um And, and so I think, you know, it was, it, it when you have a structure that regiment and you don't have any choice but to behave like an adult. But he tried because you saw his mouth move. I saw that a few times with Biden as well trying to get something in and they were like next question, look what the cat dragged in. Speaking of when I say, look what the cat dragged in. Did you guys catch the? It was almost hard to hear and understand. Um, but he told him I wrote it down because he, uh, uh, President Biden told former President Trump that he had the morals of an alley cat. I, I'd never heard that phrase. That was the only new element that I heard tonight. Was there anything else that was new besides that? I mean, killing babies after their bone warning that was killing babies after their bones? Yes, there was that too. Um, and they went back and forth on that one. There was also uh, immaculate water. You know what Trump saying? He wanted, immaculate water. Do you want, first of all, do you want a beer? Yeah. Let me pause the conversation to, to, to discuss how my prediction was correct. That Wheeler would get a fruity beer tonight. He would come back and I even said four hours ago and I even said no, I didn't. And then I realized when I opened them that actually, in fact, I had done that. Uh, we've got Paleta De Mongo from Roar and Sons. We've got necessary evil from the Manhattan project and we've got, uh derelict West Coast IP A from Oak Island's Brewery. I know which one. You're too late for an IP A I know you too well, used to bartend West slid that night. Well, they tend, I mean, yeah, it, it, it's a 0.7% stronger. So, you've been downstairs, Jason and, and you've been doing stuff for broadcast television, uh, since a lot of our viewers have been watching us here and may not even be in Dallas Fort Worth, but in other places, what did you, when you put it all together tonight? And you've got to boil all of that 90 minutes down to about 90 seconds. What did you say? What was the thrust? It turned out exactly the way everyone thought it was going to turn out. People know Trump people thought, and many democrats worried that Biden would come out and look the way he did tonight and it turned out just like that. Biden stumbled at 11 minutes into the whole thing there and I guarantee you that had a lot of people cringing. There's a friend of mine in DC who was cringing when he saw that he, he works in the administration. They were cringing when they actually watched that. Um, again, we, we discussed it, we didn't hear really much new from, from either candidate Donald Trump especially. He did say that he would not ban the abortion pill. Uh Mr Prestone. Now, he's every candidate makes claims that I, I thought that was interesting when asked about that. He dodged almost everything else that he was asked tonight. I thought the most egregious one that Donald Trump dodged was about, uh January 6th. He had nothing to do with it. He was completely innocent and then he said it was, it was Nancy Pelosi. He played a role and he blamed it on, on Pelosi. Well, he said Pelosi said that she should have been more involved. He named, I think he blamed it on the mayor or somebody else. He blamed it on and, and, and he went through it. It took him, I think, three questions to get that far into it though. At the end of the day though. I mean, if you're, if you're a Republican, you've got to be excited about what you saw tonight. And if you're a Democrat, I'm sure you're worried to death about what you saw tonight. There, there's, there's no other way around it going back to some of the claims that were made when we were talking about, you know, this being either a fact Checker's dream or a nightmare, depending on how you look at it. We have a verified team that has been trying in real time throughout the evening to actually go in fact check some of these things that were said and, and to kind of give context to them. A lot of the things that and, and, and they did this with both candidates, a lot of the things that they looked into determined needs context and that was the label that they put on it and they actually put what their sources were to find the information. One of the things that they got into, they, you know, said misleading on that one. Some of them were true. The only one so far anyway and no doubt they've got kind of a backlog still that they called false was the one that you were just talking about there a moment ago, Bernardine, the Trump claim that Democrat runs states allow after birth abortions. The verified team put sources out for this and said that that is in fact false that democrat run states do not allow after birth abortions killing a child after birth or infanticide is illegal in all 50 states. And it's, that's murder pure and simple. I mean, you know, if, if people watching this sat through the 90 minute debate or the 100 minute debate however long it was, it, it, it devolved so quickly and, and ended up talking about golf and their handicap. We talked about that and went for a long time. How I I'm just thinking about, you know, we like to travel, you just got back from Slovenia. How concerned are you tonight? If you're, if you're watching this in Europe and you see what's happening in Ukraine, how concerned are you if, if you know with the questions that are happening in the United States, how thrilled are you if you're, you know, sitting in tonight, you know, or in China as the leader there and, and you're a major power and you're in competition with the US. How thrilled are you to see it devolve into a golf swing debate. It was shocking. Go ahead, Jessica. No. Yeah, I was just gonna say it was shocking. It was really shocking. And I, and I think that, you know, something that you hear journalists and commentators, many of whom are not in touch with the American public in any way, say all the time is both of these people need to show the American public that they are in touch with the issues of your average American. And I am really struggling to like, remember even one meaningful thing that came out of tonight's debate that I think your average American can sit down with and like, really think about as like, OK, here's something I didn't know about these two people before tonight and here's how it will affect my vote. They're just, it was the biggest, like slow deflating balloon sound like I, I don't, if, if Biden had, if Biden has any, any win at all tonight, it that this happened at the end of June. And, and there's a lot of time until we get, until we get closer to the September debate, which is, you know, six weeks out, Fernand doesn't think that's going to happen. But you can't, I mean, again, I'm not on either campaign. But if I'm, if I'm with any campaign, there's no way I would let this stand as the, as the final thing for Biden. I, I would, I would change the way I, I, you know, prep him or, or anything else, this, if, if you're Biden's campaign, there's no way this would stand. But see Jason, keep in mind if you have $20 million you can turn a, a narrative. But if there is no guarantee because now they say that he had a cold, which we'll accept that, but there's no guarantee he's going to come out here. 0 100%. So, if I put him back out there now, I think why, why not would be, would be my argument to that? I know you're, I, I always admitted Bernardine is a lot smarter of a political mind than I am and, and she's probably right at the end of the day. But I, I just think if, if I'm Biden's team, there is no way I would let this be his last debate. Biden was on the Trump had Biden defensive the entire time. Never mind how Biden looked, he was on the defensive the entire time and there was rarely any talk about the future. This was all talk about the past. This was nothing about the next four years. This is the last four in the last eight years. That's what this was. It was unbelievable. If, if I'm one of these independent voters trying to decide which guy do I like the least here, which guy do I like the most here, what am I going home with? I know all this stuff. This stuff is history. What are you going to do for me the next four years? I think a lot of them are trying to decide which of these guys they dislike the least or dislike the most. It is interesting though you talk about, if you were on Biden's team, you wouldn't let this be the last debate, would you, if you were on Trump's team, would you say let's pull out of the next? Absolutely not Trump. Trump owned this debate tonight? No, you can. No, I'm not talking about factually, I'm not talking about factual, but keep in mind he controlled the conversation the entire time. He pivoted off of every question to get back to his talking points. He clearly owned it and he made every claim he wanted to assertions. Here's what the whole debate is about. Do you change minds because he needs to pull over more independence. Those Republicans who are shy who don't want to vote for him? Did he do that? Not that he, of course not because he was Trump. He did talk about anything that he's going to do for them. He did, he, he did not change Trump. So Biden is left with this as we talked about earlier Democrats saying, ok, well, is he, is he capable? Then he was left with uh the same Republicans not wanting, you saw the same Democratic, I mean, same Republican, same Trump and then he was the No. So Now, I, I do say this, I do this, I will say this, that if you're, if you're going to talk about merely winners or losers, I think Trump won in the sense that, um, he, he seemed more in control of himself, not necessarily in control of what was going on because he was controlled the, the, the format of the debate, controlled the debate. Now it controlled him. What, what is the overnight polling show on this? And does any of this make a blip in the, in the minds of, of the independent voters? I thought you were gonna say something there. But do you know what? It's too? OK. These are going to be instant polling which are not always so accurate. So you, you don't know. And I think that we would have to wait a little, I don't think, I don't think it's going to be the instant overnight polling that matters on this. I think it's going to be the three and four and five and eight days from now when you still will see and mark my words on this, you're still going to see over and over again. These memes with the moment that President Biden was having the issue recalling something and then, you know, said something about breaking Medicare. He wasn't putting his words together in that statement. And I think you're going to see things like that over and over again on the internet. You know, I think that debates are very rarely, something really catastrophic has to happen in a debate to really swing people on either side. But I, you know, I think that the thing that debates provide us with are fodder for advertisements and, and, and, and it, it gives us an opportunity to sit before you and drink these beers. Um, but, you know, I think that they provide really good clips for radio and television advertising and, and I don't, I don't think that either, either man had a home run moment. You know, there was no one sentence that either of them said that was so amazing that it was going to be a positive clip going forward for weeks and weeks. But goodness, um they both gave the, each, each other's campaigns a lot of firepower and I think that the most visually striking firepower was given to Trump from Biden. And like in this specific instance, the Biden campaign used it wisely. I would do a comparison. I still go back to uh Trump president, former president Trump talking about blacks taking jobs. I would use, I would show that why, how the Republicans blame blacks for taking jobs for whites. And now you have um saying that the Hispanics or the immigrants are taking jobs from blacks. How racist is that? See, I think that they can use a lot of things, both camps. It's just go are the campaigns savvy enough and I think they are, I think they, I think they have the money to do it. But who, who gets more money coming in after tonight? Who in used the donor class after tonight to get more of that money to cut more of those ads? Both of them. Yes, because keep in mind, Trump was Trump. The people who did not like Biden was Biden. And, and then, ok, the Trump people are going to want to defeat and highlight what Biden did in correction and, and, and the Biden people are going to do the same thing. You're going to get money on both sides. Remember? This is early. That's, that's the thing we like to get carried away. But we're 100 and 32 days away from, you know, we'll be sitting in these same chairs on election night, 100 and 32 days, November the sixth having the same conversation, but you mentioned where we are right now and, and, and I think that that's salient in another way and that is that a lot of people are on vacation right now. A lot of people are tuned out, they're not paying attention, they didn't watch this debate. And that's why I'm saying that I think that the, what you will see on the internet for the next week to come is especially important. That might be for a lot of people. There are only takeaways from this debate. They won't see the strong moments from candidate X or Y they're going to see the little clips that were made from candidate X or Y and they'll develop a perception based upon that. So I think that I think that it's even more significant in this case because it's so early and people aren't totally tuned in yet. But will it reinforce the preconceived ideas or is it going to any of those memes or clips can actually hit anybody new? I'm not sure that they are right. But is it enough to make somebody think? Well, I was going to hold my nose and vote for him or for him, but maybe I'll just not even bother. Maybe I won't go vote. I think that's, I think that's the danger for either one of them. That's the danger for both of them both. What do you think? We talked a lot about the format of this debate? Let's talk about the moderators here because something that I noticed tonight that we have in past debates, it seems like we saw the moderator doing fact checking. So if false claims were being made, they might say, well, wait a minute there. You know, former President Trump, you're saying that there were abortions performed after birth, you know, just to be clear, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You would hear that we didn't see that tonight and it could all be in the rules that both sides agreed to that. Hey, I get my two minutes to respond. You don't interrupt me. I get to say what I want to say, whether I want to answer the question or not. I don't know if that was in the negotiations or not. Is that a win for voters though? To hear it that way? But the other way around though is a no win for, you know, members of the media because even if you're, you know, fact checking and you're saying a fact you're, you're seeing, even if you do it with both of them, you're seen as taking a side or you know, being confrontation. The other thing I would like to have seen tonight from the moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper is, is following these up, not waiting until that two minutes is up. Just let's get back to the question I asked you about November the sixth or about the abortion pill or about Ukraine. Make sure I understand yes or no. Where are you on this? You can say yes and then pivot off and do something right. I get that. But I would like to get the answer and then we can, you know, let you have extra time and Biden takes, I'm sorry, JB M it's ok. At some point you shut me up. But Biden takes the bait about the golf game. Are you kidding me? And then it was Trump who came back and said, let's not be Children and he, and then Biden shoots back. You are a child Yes, it was. I mean, it was a mess, I think from start to finish and I think the moderators did as much as they could have. I think, trying to fact check live during it. You would never get anywhere. Right. And, and unless you're willing to interrupt the candidates repeatedly to get them back on track, you know, that would be a very frustrating debate to watch because I think that we have all seen, you know, intrepid brave broadcast journalist interviewing Donald J Trump trying to do those things and it becomes impossible and they just give up because then because a conversation can't even move forward, right? Nothing happens. You did see both of them call each other a liar during the night. But over and over again, you saw President Biden say everything you just said was a lie or those are just all lies. And I was curious, did his team, you know, you almost want to develop a tag line a through line in a debate and if that's what they thought was going to happen coming in knowing, you know how Trump speaks, why didn't they go with something like what Reagan did you know that? There he goes again with Carter in 80. You know, that was a tagline that came out of that debate and it was effective. People remembered there he goes again telling you no, that was Reagan and Carter. Oh no, no, you're right. It was Mondale fact, by fact checking, you guys knew that this was gonna happen when you, when you watch these live streams of the versions. Yeah, we usually cut out my mess ups. Yeah, that substantial too, if you've been watching news enough or watching Trump, uh, fact check, isn't it? Like, it's impossible to do. It's, it's impossible to do. You know, you know, that, that, uh, he's claimed responsibility for September, I mean, for January 6th and now he, oh, wait real quick here. Uh, it was the 1980 debate. This is wh wh wh holds grudges. And if he found out in the middle of the night, he would text me at 4 a.m. Oh, by the way, here's the link. Actually, I would text you twice right after each other. So it would definitely ring. That's Classic Wheeler. Classic Wheeler. Yeah, that's, oh my gosh. That's funny. We'll put you up there with Jake Tapper. Just give me my laptop. Let me have the laptop while I'm there. That's good. II, I think that there is a second debate. Um, and there was talk about whether there might be a third debate. There's no way. There's, there's absolutely no way I won't. I'm not a batter. So I wouldn't bet on it. But a second debate that's if they put Biden back out there and because they'll put Trump because Trump will just get out there. He's a performer. He will perform and he will tell untruths I won't even call him a liar. He'll just tell our troops. So they, they're subject to put him back, but I would put by him back. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a tough call. Right. And I think that, you know, I don't think that Trump loses or gains anything because I think he's very likely to perform, given these debate rules the exact same in September or October or whenever we do this again. Right. He's likely to do exact the same, like Biden can only do better than what he did tonight. And I, I feel really discouraging now that I'm saying that out loud, but I've said it. So we'll just stick with that. I think that is true. I, I, he's really got nowhere to go but up and so if they put him on the debate stage the second time and he has another performance like this tonight, that could be really quite bad. Let's talk about the other thing in, in, in the Republican media sphere and that is, you may have already discussed this. But, but that is the talk that, oh, well, the Democrats are going to replace Biden before they get to the convention in Chicago in August, or they're going to do it at the convention. I see. There's absolutely no way, it's really hard to do that. Absolutely no way to do that, really hard to do. Number one, the money issue, you know, because the campaign has raised this money up to. Now, you'd have to have somebody else who starts as I understand it anyway and start raising all of their own money. And that's pretty late in the game to do that. And then on top of that, who would be the person to step in, who has the name recognition and the ability to, to put together a campaign that quickly. So, no, I think Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat that could. He was, he was in the spin room tonight. Uh And, and you know what they said, the, the pundits said the same thing about Biden when he was running for president. And then when he won, what was the, the narrative? He was the man of the hour who's we won't know if Biden loses until Biden loses. And then we talk about uh Super Tuesday, remember Super Tuesday when he was losing and he came out four years ago in 2020 but he came out of Super Tuesday. He finished fifth in Iowa. Well, and I will say that in that campaign, as you remember those debates and there were lots of them because the field was so large in those first several debates. He was missing a step. He was behind, he wasn't responding, he wasn't fact checking. He wasn't, he didn't hold his own. And then suddenly, as you know, people started to coalesce a little bit and he got some momentum. You saw an invigoration in the candidate and the campaign. I think you saw that tonight though. I think you saw it, get, get his footing as it went as it went. But were people still tuned in by then Bernardine was bored. I said 20 minutes in it was like two minutes in. She was like, is this almost over? You know? And so did people stick around to see him get his footing to get his comfort level? You know, you know, you have to have a good showing out the gate and you have to have a cough drop. If you have trouble with your voice, you have to have. But you know what, I blame the moderators, they saw he was struggling. Why would you blame the moderators? Because you are you out for water or something? He had to have water under his, he should, he's the president of the United States. He has a staff of doctors and an ambulance that follows him around wherever he goes, it drives behind him. It dries behind him. If you're on his staff of 15 people trying to get him ready for the debate, you ask the doctor to come over and give you a steroid shot. You do. You do because I'm standing right over there and someone starts coughing or, or get caught in their throat. Do you need some water? I mean, off the bat that takes a while, you know, but those are also. So if you could have a steroid then to get your voice. Wouldn't you have done that for this debate if people are concerned about your age? Yeah. Did they do it? Well, I mean, you know, II, I think that certainly one of the things that Trump claimed at the beginning of this, which is that he was going to be on performance enhancing drugs, that will not be something that we continue to talk about after today. So there's like one little silver lining that like that, that crazy thing will no longer be happening. But yeah, but I think it was, it was an interesting and painful evening. There was a point when and this wasn't that moment when Biden had the recall issue, but there was a point and he said something and they went to former president Trump and he says, I have no idea what he just said that and I don't think he does either. But then, you know, there were counter punches that eventually came from President Biden where especially that part about where he was going with that claim that former President Trump called dead service members, losers and suckers. And he pointed at him and said, you're the loser and you're the sucker. That was a several strong moments here. You start talking about his son, um his older son who, who died, Beau Biden. Um But he, he got his footing but it was still, it was a bad night for Joe Biden. It was too late. That's the way to say it. I think it was too late when you know, early on in it. But, hey, Michael, do you have any other closing thoughts? Would you like to make a closing statement? Michael mcardle? There's always tomorrow, we're still going to be inundated with ads for the next three months. Four months. No, all I would ask is, you know, we're all about this matter. Do you, would you like a, would you like a Paleta De Mingo? No, thanks. But we're sitting up here talking about all of this and there were a lot of substantive issues tonight that they wanted to ask about that. We didn't get answers to climate. You know, Trump said, I want clean water and, you know, clean immaculate water. So that's what uh childcare, the cost of childcare. How are you going to bring that down? We don't know, we don't know what they're going to get all of that. So all these big issues, it was a missed opportunity. We still don't know how this country is going to move forward over the next four years, which makes you question are debates useful. What are they useful for? I think they are increasingly less useful than they, than they used to be. And I, and you know, and I all to your point, Michael, like I think, and I know that I cover voting and so I am biased in this way. But the conversation or the lack of conversation around democratic process and January 6th and the, the sort of like flub of an answer that Trump gave to January 6th was so shameful. I mean, the, the immediate attempt to pivot that to, oh, well, Joe Biden is awful and January 6th was, you know, don't worry about it. Like, let's talk about before January 6th and, and what he's done in the time since, like, that was, that was, I think, very shameful. And I think that this debate was a really interesting opportunity for him to sort of be held to account for that, not only by the moderators, but also by Joe Biden in a way that I don't really think Joe Biden landed and if you're going to be prepared for one thing, that's, that's the thing, that's your punch. But he did. I, I'm telling you his responses were so low key. That's the problem though. That's your, that's your, that's your haymaker. Exactly. Exactly. Because I know you kept saying he's on the defensive. No, he was responding. It was just like it was as if though he was, you know, he was, you know, the, you know, the arguments that Trump's gonna lodge, he's been lodging them for weeks and every press conference, every camera and every, uh, you know, rally he can find again, I've never prepped a candidate for this. But if you know what the other person's gonna say, you should have some type of response to come back and nail him. And maybe he did watch, like Justice said it. I don't think he landed many, I think he landed many. The, the, the hit wasn't strong. Right. He responded but he, he was just still getting beat up. Right. You know, I, I think that it is, it isn't highly likely that once a transcript of this debate comes out and you can kind of like go point for point, they were evenly matched and Biden probably did much better in terms of being on topic and responding truthfully. But the performance was, was not great. And, and I think that they're over 90 minutes in that format, you need to hold an audience's attention. Um and it not there. And we all know that in the television era, it has been so important how you look and how you sound. I would argue that now in the internet and social media era, it's more important than ever and you have to do it the entire time. You can't have even that six second gaffe in the middle of 90 minutes because that is what's going to be clipped and played until people can't stand it anymore. Here's the last thing I would ask, how does, how does ABC, what does ABC do differently in the next debate in September to talk about the future? I wouldn't have that. I wouldn't have that. I think you would have No, I, well, I, I don't know, but I think that made it, it was hard to watch. Well, and it added to the boring because you didn't have, you didn't have Trump going crazy and you didn't have, I think it added to it being more boring. I think the format it helped you want, don't you? Bernardine? You just want to see it. You know, and it helped us because we were able to listen and all of that. But I think that you brought up earlier that, that Trump's people like to see him going at it. He couldn't, because he, he, he uses the words that he was not able to do. And I, and, and now I really, I liked, I liked it when they were Jessica. What do you think ABC does differently? Anything? You know what I think that I don't mind the muting I will say and maybe it's just the former high school teacher in me, but I'm like, they were not interrupting each other for 94 minutes. That's amazing. So I'm ok with it. Um But I do think that we would benefit from sort of like a cooling of the topic areas because 90 minutes sounds like a long time. It is not a long time and it is especially not a long time if you are talking about everything from abortion to January 6th to like everything that they just immigration. Israel, Palestine. There's so much breadth in what we heard about tonight and, and the, and the result of that is that when you get your two minutes, you got to pack in everything you think about Israel and Palestine into two minutes. And that's insane. And so, and I, and I also think that it means that their answers are not very robust and you don't get a lot of specifics out of them. And so I think, you know, we only have two debates. So I'm not honestly sure how ABC deals with that, but I, you know, I would like to see sort of more a, a narrower scope of topics and I don't know, given how few debates we have, how you narrow that down. But I think it would, it would result in a more interesting discussion. I, I, my, my take away from it is I going into this, I thought, you know, how useful are debates anymore? Were they ever useful? But are they, how useful are they anymore? Uh And I think after this one tonight and, and, and this has been building, you know, one after the other where I just think they just, they're just not, I mean, you know, the temperament of these two guys, you know, the age of these two guys, you know, the idiosyncrasies of these two guys, you know, the record of these two guys, you know, they can't stand each other. Um It didn't give me anything that I didn't already have. And in the end, I mean, I have to watch it because it's my job. But I just think, you know, and I'm an involved member of the electorate, you know, I'm not a low information voter and maybe that's why, maybe because I keep up with what's going on. I don't need to watch this. It's a show and it's kind of a bad show. So, you think they ought not to have one? I think it's, you know, for me and I'm just talking about, for me, it feels like a big, it's a waste of time. It's a waste of time and it's a waste of energy and I walk away at the end of the night thinking that went pretty much like I thought it was II, I think we've hit all the topics. These guys are gonna change their mind on the topics. You gotta look to the future. But again, what, what more are you gonna get out of this in the future? What, what more are you that you haven't heard from Biden or Trump that you're gonna get out of them? And I don't know the, the time parameters for the next one. If it's 90 minutes long. I mean, I, I thought 90 minutes for, for these guys and these topics was too long, too long. And, and then I think that it's tough for moderators but you, you've got to nail down positions on some of these guys not that they have to stick to their, to their positions at all, but I think that helps people when they go into the voting booth. Yeah. Uh, one last thing, uh, for the ABC debate, if it happens, which Bernardine doesn't think it's going to happen in September 1 change I would make in the rules is the word golf cannot be said in this debate. My goodness. And, and I tell you about how I felt like it was just a waste of time. I'm not a golfer and that part especially I was just sitting there like, come on, please, somebody make this stop unbelievable and way to connect with the voters out there. You know, you know, especially if somebody's, you know, been struggling or whatever has real, you know, pressing issues, you know, way to connect guys talking about the world on fire right now. And we're talking about, we're talking about, you know, the existence of American democracy going forward. Both of these candidates have said you may not have a democracy or you may not have a country if that guy gets elected. And we're talking about handicaps and golf. But, but keep in mind those are the candidates and you're, you're going to have the same candidates, elections have consequences. Bernardine. Make sure you go vote. But do you, but do we have to sit through another? We might, we might have to sit through another one of these, I think it's, it's good. It's, it's just like wishful thinking on your part that there won't be a second one because you don't want to sit through another. I think that, I think that it would, I don't think that the Biden campaign would put it back out. Well, we, we hope that, uh, you all haven't felt the same way about this, uh, post debate analysis. Uh, let us know. I hope another one of these post debate analysis. Well, we'll see, we don't know, Darryl. What's the email? We always try to give that? I can never remember. That's the simplest email in the world. Why can I not remember that? It's like I have a mental block. Y at W faa.com. Let us know what you think. Thanks for watching.