This essay continues my analysis of the first Presidential debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Explanatory clarifications are shown in square brackets. My interpretation of Mr. Biden’s comments are shown indented. I’ve corrected some of the grammar and deleted some interruptions on both sides.
Example 9:
Mr. Wallace: Okay, you have repeatedly criticized the Vice President for not specifically calling out ANTIFA and other left-wing groups. But are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups? And to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha, as we’ve seen in Portland? Are you prepared specifically to do that?
Mr. Trump: Sure, I’m prepared to do it. I would say – I would say, almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not from the right wing.
Mr. Wallace: So what do you, what do you say-
Mr. Trump: I’m willing to do anything I want to see peace.
Mr. Wallace: Then do it, sir.
Mr. Biden: Say it, do it, say it.
Mr. Trump: You want to call them — What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me —
Mr. Wallace: White supremacists and, white supremacists and right-wing —
Mr. Biden: The Proud Boys.
Mr. Trump: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about ANTIFA and the left because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.
Interpretation: This is a clear case of Mr. Wallace taking the side of Mr. Biden. Notice he challenges Mr. Trump, demanding that he specifically denounce various white supremacist groups. Never mind that Mr. Wallace asked this same exact question on 3 Mar 2016, and Mr. Trump did denounce the David Duke, the KKK, and other groups. But Mr. Wallace inserts it here, knowing that if the public thinks it necessary to keep asking about Mr. Trump’s attitude about the KKK, he must be one of their sympathizers. Note also, Mr. Wallace never once challenges Mr. Biden to denounce Black Lives Matter (BLM) or ANTIFA. Also, Mr. Wallace never mentions Mr. Biden’s support for Senator Robert “KKK Grand Dragon” Byrd of West Virginia. This is a typical tactic of the Marxist media. As for Mr. Biden’s policy, it seems he is will demand that his political rivals prove they are not racists. Never mind that he cozies up to proven racists himself.
Example 10:
Mr. Wallace: Mr. President, I’m going to ask you a question. When the President runs for a second term, it’s generally a referendum on his record. But Vice President Biden, you’d like to quote your dad’s sayings which is ‘Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative’. And in this case, sir, you are the alternative. Looking at both of your records, I’m going to ask each of you why should voters should choose you over your opponent. In this segment, President Trump you’ll go first.
Mr. Trump: Because there has never been an administration or President who has done more than I’ve done in a period of three and a half years, and that’s despite the impeachment hoax. And you saw what happened today with Hillary Clinton’s whole big con job. But despite going through all these things, we’re at a fight on both flanks, behind me and above, there has never been an administration that’s done what I’ve done. The greatest, before COVID came in, the greatest economy in history: lowest unemployment numbers. Everything was good, everything was go — And by the way, there was unity. People were calling me. For the first time in years they were calling, and they were saying ‘it’s time maybe’. And then what happened? We got hit but now we’re building it back up again: a rebuilding of the military including space force and all of the other things; a fixing of the VA, which was a mess under him. 308,000 people died. They didn’t have proper health care. He was a mess. And we now got a 91% approval rating at the VA. Our vets, we take care of our vets. But we’ve rebuilt our military. The job that we’ve done – and I’ll tell you some people say is the most important, by the end of the first term, I’ll have approximately 300 federal judges, Court of Appeals judges. And hopefully, three great Supreme Court justices. That is a record, the likes of which very few people – and you know one of the reasons I have so many judges? Because President Obama and him left me 128 judges to fill. When you leave office, you don’t leave any judges. That’s like, you just don’t do that. They left 128 openings. And if I were a member of his party, because they have a little different philosophy, I’d say ‘if you left us 128 openings, you can’t be a good President. You can’t be a good Vice President’. But I want to thank you because it gives us almost, it’ll probably be above that by the end of this term, 300 judges. It’s a record.
Mr. Wallace: Looking at both your records, why should voters elect you President, as opposed to President Trump — You get two minutes uninterrupted.
Mr. Biden: Under this president we become weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided and more violent. When I was Vice President, we inherited a recession. I was asked to fix it, I did. We left a booming economy, and he caused the recession. With regard to be weaker, the fact is that I’ve gone head to head with Putin and made it clear to him we’re not going to take any of his stuff. He’s Putin’s puppy. He still refuses to even say anything to Putin about the bounty on the heads of American soldiers.
Interpretation: So here we have Mr. Biden re-writing history: Obama had a great economy until Mr. Trump ruined it; precisely contrary to fact. Mr. Biden claims that the US is now weaker and poorer than before, also contrary to fact. But that is not all: Mr. Trump (claims Mr. Biden) is still controlled by Mr. Putin of Russia, even though Mr. Mueller and Mr. Weissmann spent two years looking for it and never found it. This shows that Mr. Biden’s policy is to claim that he is the great savior, and Mr. Trump is the devil, just because Mr. Biden says so.
Example 11:
Mr. Wallace: The forest fires in the West are raging now. They have burned millions of acres. They have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. When state officials there blame the fires on climate change, Mr. President, you said, ‘I don’t think the science knows.’ Over your four years, you have pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate accord. You have rolled back a number of Obama environmental records. What do you believe about the science of climate change? And what will you do in the next four years to confront it?
Mr. Trump: I want crystal clean water and air. I want beautiful clean air. We have now the lowest carbon, if you look at our numbers right now, we are doing phenomenally. But I haven’t destroyed our businesses, our businesses are put out of commission. If you look at the Paris accord, it was a disaster from our standpoint. And people are actually very happy about what’s going on, because our businesses are doing well as far as the fires are concerned, you need forest management, in addition to everything else. The forest floors are loaded up with trees, dead trees, that a years old and they’re like Tinder, and leaves and everything else. You drop a cigarette and then the whole forest burns. You’ve got to have forest management-
Mr. Wallace: What do you, what do you believe about the science of climate change, sir?
Mr. Trump: I believe that we have to do everything we can to have immaculate air, immaculate water and do whatever else we can that’s good. You know we’re planting a billion trees, the billion tree project, and it’s very exciting.
Mr. Wallace: Do you believe that human pollution, gashouse, greenhouse gas emissions contributes to the global warming of this planet?
Mr. Trump: I think a lot of things do, but I think to an extent yes. I think, to an extent, yes. But I also think we have to do better management of our forests. Every year, I get the call. ‘California is burning California’s burning.’ If that was cleaned, if that were, if you had forest management, good forest management, you wouldn’t be getting those calls. You know in Europe they live that, forest cities, they call forest cities. They maintain their forests. They manage their forests. I was with the head of a major country. It’s a forest city. He said, ‘Sir, we have trees that are far more, they ignite much easier than California, there shouldn’t be that problem’. I spoke with the governor about it. I’m getting along very well with the governor, but he said you know at some point, he can’t every year have hundreds of thousands of acres of land just burned to the ground. That’s burning down because of a lack of management.
Mr. Wallace: But sir, if you believe in the science of climate change, why have you rolled back the Obama Clean Power Plan, which limited carbon emissions in power plants? Why have you relaxed —
Mr. Trump: Because it was driving energy prices through the sky —
Mr. Wallace: Why have you relaxed fuel economy standards that are going to create more pollution from cars?
Mr. Trump: Not really, because what’s happening is the car is much less expensive and it’s a much safer car. And you’re talking about a tiny difference. And then what would happen, because of the cost of the car, you would have at least double and triple the number of cars purchased. We have the old slugs out there that are 10-12 years old. If you did that the car would be safer, it would be much cheaper-
Mr. Wallace: In California, they simply ignored —
Mr. Trump: Take a lot of cars off the market because people would be able to afford a car. Now, so, and by the way we’re going to see how that turns out, but a lot of people agree with, many people. The car has gotten so expensive because they have computers all over the place for an extra little bit of gasoline. And I’m okay with electric cars too. I think I’m all for electric cars with big incentives or electric cars. But what they’ve done in California is just-
Mr. Wallace: Vice President Biden I’d like you to respond to the President’s climate change record, but I also want to ask you about a concern. You proposed $2 trillion in green jobs you talk about new limits, not abolishing, but new limits on fracking, ending the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by 2035, and zero, net emission of greenhouse gases by 2050. The President says a lot of these things would tank the economy and cost millions of jobs.
Mr. Biden: He’s absolutely wrong, number one. Number two, if in fact, when — During our administration Recovery Act I was able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than, or as cheap as coal, and gas, and oil. Nobody’s going to build another coal fire plant in America. No one’s going to build another oil fire in America. They’re going to move to renewable energy, number one. Number two, we’re going to make sure that we are able to take the federal fleet and turn it into a fleet that’s run on their electric vehicles. Making sure that they can do that we’re going to put 500,000 charging stations in all of the highways that we’re going to be building in the future. We’re going to build a economy, that in fact, is going to provide for the ability, us to take 4 million buildings and make sure that they in fact are weatherized. In a way that, in fact, they’ll, they’ll emit significantly less gas and oil because the heat will not be going out. There’s so many things we can do now to create thousands and thousands of jobs. We can get to net zero in terms of energy production by 2035. Not only not costing people jobs, creating jobs. Creating millions of jobs. Not 15 bucks an hour, but prevailing wage. By having a new infrastructure that in fact is green. And the first thing I will do, I will rejoin the Paris accord. I will join the Paris accord because with us out look what’s happening. It’s all falling apart. And talk about someone who has no relationship with foreign policy. Brazil, the rain forest to Brazil are being torn down, are being ripped down. More, more carbon is absorbed in that rain forest than every bit of carbon that’s admitted the United States. Instead of doing something about that, I would be gathering up and making sure we had the countries of the world coming up with 20 billion dollars. And say, ‘Here’s $20 billion. Stop, stop, tearing down the forest. And if you don’t, then you’re going to have significant economic consequences’.
Mr. Wallace: What about the argument that President Trump basically says that you have to balance environmental interests and economic interests? And he’s drawn a line
Mr. Biden: But if he hadn’t drawn a line. He still, for example, makes sure that we – He wants to make sure that methane is not a problem. We could, you could now emit more methane without it being a problem. Methane. This is a guy who says that we don’t have to have mileage standards for automobiles that exist now. He says that, the fact that it’s all true and here’s the deal —
Mr. Trump: He’s talking about the Green New Deal. And it’s not 2 billion or 20 billion as you said, it’s $100 trillion.
Mr. Biden: I’m talking about –
Mr. Trump: You want to rip down buildings and rebuild the buildings — where airplanes are out of business. Where there are two car systems or where they want to take out the cows.
Mr. Biden: That’s not true. Not true. Not true. Not true.
Mr. Trump: That’s not true either, right? Now, this is $100 [trillion]. That’s more money than our country could make in a hundred years.
Mr. Biden: That is simply not true.
Mr. Wallace: Wait a minute, sir. I actually have studied your plan, and it includes upgrading 4 million buildings, weatherizing 2 million homes over four years, building one and a half million energy efficient homes. So the question becomes, the President said, I think some people who support the President would say, ‘That sounds like it’s going to cost a lot of money and hurt the economy.’
Mr. Biden: What it’s going to to do, it’s going to create thousands and millions of jobs. Good-paying jobs-
Mr. Wallace: Let him finish, sir.
Mr. Biden: He doesn’t know how to do that. The fact it’s going to create millions of good paying jobs. And these tax incentives to people to weatherize, where he wants to get rid of, is going to make the economy much safer. Look how much we’re paying now to deal with the hurricanes, with a deal with – By the way he has an answer for hurricanes. He said, ‘Maybe we should drop a nuclear weapon on them, they may’.
Mr. Trump: I never said that; you made it up. You make up a lot.
Mr. Biden: And here’s the deal, we are going to be in a position where we can create hard good jobs by making sure the environment is clean, and we all are in better shape. We spend billions of dollars now, billions of dollars, on floods, hurricanes rising seas. We’re in real trouble. Look what’s happened just in the Midwest with these storms that came through and wiped out entire sections and counties in Iowa. They didn’t happen before. There because of global warming. We make up 15% of the world’s problem. We in fact- But the rest of the world we got to get them to come along. That’s why we have to get back into, back into the Paris accord.
Interpretation: Here is an interesting case where Mr. Wallace decides to debate Mr. Trump on Mr. Biden’s behalf; demanding that Mr. Trump explain everything there is to know about climate science and embrace the “man-made global climate change” theory. Mr. Wallace ignores Mr. Trump’s accurate claim that clearing out the underbrush would make a big difference in how forest fires propagate. Mr. Biden then jumps in and claims that during the Obama administration, he (Mr. Biden) made solar and wind cheaper than gas and oil. If that were true, why hasn’t America switched over? Because it isn’t true, that’s why. Mr. Biden then claims that he will magically create millions of new jobs (without saying what happens to the old ones), and never mentions what it will cost. Mr. Biden than brags about how he will bribe and coerce other nations into doing what he dictates; it is not clear how that will work out. Last, Mr. Biden blames hurricanes and floods on Mr. Trump, as if none of those ever occurred before. Mr. Biden’s policy is clear here: embrace the latest scientific fad, whether proven or not, and remake the entire infrastructure, no matter what the economic or personal costs may be.
Example 12:
Mr. Wallace: President Trump, you have been charging for months that mail-in balloting is going to be a disaster. You say it’s going to lead to fraud. But in 2018, the last midterm election, 3 million people voted mail-in voting. That was a quarter, more than a quarter, of all the voters that year cast their ballots by mail. Now that millions of mail-in ballots have gone out, what are you going to do about it? And are you counting on the Supreme Court, including a justice Barrett, to settle on a disputes?
Mr. Trump: Yeah, I think we’re getting them to look at the ballots, differently. I don’t think I want them in terms of the election itself, but for the ballots I’d say. Because what’s happening is incredible. I just heard, I read today where 1% of the ballots for 2016 were invalidated. They, they take them ‘we don’t like them, we don’t like them’.
Mr. Wallace: There are millions of ballots going out right now.
Mr. Trump: You do a solicited ballot.
Mr. Wallace: No, no, I’m asking you about the fact that millions of people —
Mr. Trump: You go and vote. You go and vote, like they used to do. You either do a solicited ballot, where you’re sending it in and sending it back in and your sending. We have mailmen with lots of a- Did you see what’s going on, take a look at West Virginia, mail-in ballots. They’re being sold. They’re being dumped in rivers. This is a horrible thing for our country. This is no — This is not going to end well.
Mr. Biden: There is no evidence of that. Five states have had mail-in ballots in the last decade or so, including two republican states. And you don’t have to solicit the ballot. It’s sent to you, and sent to your home. All we’re saying is, they’re saying is, that there has to be a postmark by Election Day. If it just doesn’t get in until the seventh, eighth, ninth, it still should be counted. He’s just afraid of counting the votes because-
Mr. Trump: You’re wrong. You’re wrong
Mr. Wallace: And I want to continue with you on this — Vice President Biden —
Mr. Trump: Chris, he’s so wrong when he makes a statement like that.
Mr. Wallace: Excuse me. Vice President Biden, the biggest problem, in fact, over the years, with mail-in voting has not been fraud, historically. It has been that sizable number, sometimes hundreds of thousands of ballots, are thrown out because they have not been properly filled out or there is some other irregularity they just see through that deadline. So the question I have is, are you concerned that the Supreme Court with a justice Barrett will settle any disputes?
Mr. Biden: I’m concerned that any court would settle this. Because here’s the deal, when you, when you get a ballot and you fill it out, you’re supposed to have an affidavit. If you didn’t know, you have someone say that this is me. You should be able to, if in fact you can verify that’s you when the, before the ballot is thrown out, that’s sufficient to be able to count the ballot, because someone made a mistake in not dotting the correct i. Who they voted for, testify, say who they voted for, say to you ‘that is totally legitimate’.
Mr. Trump: When you have 80 million ballots sent in and swamping the system — You know it can’t be done, you know it can’t. And already there have been —
Mr. Wallace: Alright, so wait a minute. Final question is, in eight states, election workers are prohibited, currently by law in eight states, from even beginning to process ballots, even take them out of the envelopes and flatten them, until Election Day. That means that it’s likely, because there’s going to be a huge increase in mail-in balloting, that we are not going to know on election night who the winner is. And it could be days, it could be weeks.
Mr. Trump: Could be months.
Mr. Wallace: Finally, for the, for the vice president. I hope neither of you will interrupt the other. Will you urge our supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest? Will you pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified? President Trump will go first.
Mr. Trump: I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that’s what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. As you know, today there was a big problem. In Philadelphia, they went into watch, they were called poll watchers, a very safe very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia. Bad things. And I am urging, I am urging my people- I hope it’s going be a fair election. If it’s a fair election, I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.
Mr. Wallace: Does that mean you are going to tell your people to take to the streets?
Mr. Trump: I’ll tell you what it means. It means you have a fraudulent election. You’re not equipped to, these people aren’t equipped to handle it, number one. Number two, they cheat. They cheat. Hey, they found ballots in a wastepaper basket days ago and they all had the name, military fellas. They were military, they all had the name Trump on them. You think that’s good?
Mr. Wallace: Vice President Biden, final question for you. Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted? And will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?
Mr. Biden: Yes. Here’s the deal, they count the ballots, as you pointed out some of these ballots in some states can’t even be open until Election Day. And if there’s thousands of ballots, it’s going to take time to do it. And by the way, our military. They’ve been voting by ballots since the end of the Civil War in effect. And that’s what’s going to happen. Why was it not, why is it for them to somehow not fraudulent? It’s the same process. It’s honest. No one has established at all, that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots. That somehow it’s a fraudulent —
Mr. Trump: It’s already been established. Look at —
Mr. Wallace: You had an opportunity to respond. Go ahead.
Mr. Biden: He has no idea what he’s talking about. Here’s the deal, the fact is I will accept it and he will too. Because you know why? Because once the winner is declared all the ballots are counted, all the votes are counted, that’ll be the end of it. That’ll be the end of it. And if it’s me, in fact, fine. And if it’s not me, I’ll support the outcome. And I’ll be a President, not just for the Democrats. I’ll be president for Democrats and Republicans.
Interpretation: Mr. Wallace’s initial question to Mr. Trump was confusing. He states that in 2018 one-fourth of all mail-in ballots were cast by mail. No kidding, Chris, how else would a mail-on vote be cast? But his point (if I may infer), is Mr. Trump’s criticism of the new approach being taken in several states, that is, flooding the mail with ballots per the current voter rolls, even those rolls are known to contain many errors (people have moved or are now deceased). Mr. Trump’s method secure mail-in votes prevails in Arizona, where a registered voter has to request to be place on the mail-in list, and their eligibility is verified beforehand. The same is true of the military ballots. But Mr. Wallace and Mr. Biden will have none of that: the goal is to maximize chaos. Mr. Biden then went off on some side issue about affidavits and ballots. Mr. Biden’s policy is to cast aside election integrity so long as he gets elected.
Summary of Part 3:
- Mr. Biden claims that Mr. Trump is a racist even though Mr. Trump has denounced the KKK. But Mr. Biden refuses to denounce ANTIFA or BLM. It is reasonable to assume that Mr. Biden is a Marxist.
- Mr. Biden continues to claim that Mr. Trump works for Mr. Putin; never mind that Mr. Biden’s family has benefited directly from payments made by Russian oligarchs. Mr. Biden’s policy is to accuse others of doing what he have been doing.
- Any radical policy that can be justified on the basis of ‘climate change’ is acceptable; there is no reason to take into account how it will affect the working people.
- Election fraud is OK so long as Mr. Biden and Democrats win.