Get ready for tonight’s second and (thankfully) final Presidential debate of the 2020 cycle. Have a bottle of your favorite spirit nearby (or your alternative intoxicating substance) and your bingo card at hand.
Tonight’s debate, scheduled for six 15-minute segments to be moderated by Kristen Welker, White House correspondent for NBC News, will start at 9 p.m. ET from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. It will run approximately 90 minutes and be aired on all three networks and various cable news outlets.
At one podium: Democratic Presidential nominee 77-year-old Joe Biden, the Scranton Scrapper, 6 feet tall even and 190 pounds.
At the other: incumbent republican candidate 74-year-old Donald Trump, the Megalomaniac from Manhattan, reported to be 6’3″ tall (with lifts) and a morbidly obese 244 pounds (reportedly).
You’ll be able to watch it live here on NatZero, along with our traditional stellar commentary. (Now’s a good time to mention you can help support these efforts through the PayPal link above the comments section. Every little bit helps and as always, we thank you for your support.)
Here are some things to look for during the debate:
Trump’s mic will be shut off during Biden’s opening statements, but his mouth won’t be. Trump whined and complained that the moderators will cut off the microphone when the opponent is making his two-minute opening statement each round. This infuriated Trump, who’s known for his impatience and desire to stomp all over his opponent’s statements. A silenced mic will not shut up Trump, however, who will continue to comment throughout Biden’s remarks, loud enough to be picked up by the other’s mic. Welker will be forced to remind Trump to shut TF up, which is Trump’s desire: to throw off Biden and eat up his comment time.
Trump’s team is urging him to be self-deprecating and funny. It won’t happen. After coming across as an ill-mannered, uninformed schoolyard bully in the first debate, Trump’s debate prep team–which met for a reported three whole hours in the run-up to this debate–urged Trump to endear himself to the audience by making jokes at his own expense. The problem: Trump doesn’t know how to joke about himself. He’s incapable of it. He’ll joke that he’s really rich, or about how women love him, or how he’ll be a laughingstock if he loses to Biden. He’ll come nowhere close to saying anything that will elicit a laugh from the audience.
Biden won’t bite at the jabs at Hunter. Trump will repeatedly try to get Biden to turn the debate into an effort to defend his son, Hunter and the rapidly crumbling tale of a wayward laptop. Trump will bring up Hunter’s connection to China, Ukraine and Russia–all of which have been non-stories outside the Trump Bubble–and will likely bring up Hunter’s struggles with addiction. Trump will try to continue the false allegation that Biden made money off his son’s connection to Burisma, and that Biden changed policy to help his son. My over/under on the number of Trump references to Hunter stands at 15½ times. Trump will bring him up earlier, and Biden will brush off the comments. As the debate wears on, Trump will start pounding on it as a national security and corruption issue, desperately trying to get Biden to react, but Joe won’t.
Joe will mention that he loves Hunter and supports him in his struggle against drug addiction–an issue that about 4-in-10 American families have to address. Trump should see that as time to abandon the topic, but he won’t. And rightfully, Joe will stay away from bringing Trump’s children–as screwed up as they are–into the mix.
The six topics of the debate land in Biden’s wheelhouse. The topics for tonight’s debate–Fighting COVID-19; American Families; Race in America; Climate Change; and National Security–are all strong points for Biden given his record. Obviously, Trump will blame COVID on China. He’ll claim he did more for American families than any president in history. He’ll tout his (pre-pandemic) job numbers for “the blacks” and list his “black friends.” He’ll claim why, sure, if you want him to say climate change is manmade, he will, sure, but Biden is being taken over by “AOC+3, as I like to call them” on climate issues which will mean no more cows or fossil fuels. And he’s been tougher on Russia than anyone, before pivoting to antifa as a national security threat.
Unlike Trump, however, Biden has actual policy proposals for each of these topics–and he knows them well. Biden will bring up Trump’s plans to revoke the ACA–with no plan to replace it–as issues for families, race and national security. He’ll note the instability Trump has brought to American families through poor pandemic management and economic turmoil. And Joe will likely bring up, again, how he used to meet defendants in the Wilmington train station.
Biden will hit hard on Trump’s financial foibles and secrecy. With recent disclosures about Trump only paying $750 in federal income tax the year he took office and Trump having a previously undisclosed Chinese bank account, Biden will use these issues as bludgeons not just for Trump’s unsuitability for the office, but as wedges between Trump and normal Americans. (“How many of you paid just $750 in taxes while being driven in a chauffeured limousine?”) Biden will also use it in discussing racial inequities in America, as well as national security issues. Likely, this will be the first time many Americans have heard about these issues, so it will take a few minutes to explain, during which Trump will yell and interrupt.
Long-shot on a Trump joke. Trump’s attempts at being humorous won’t play, because his brand of humor is demeaning and offensive, usually aimed at others, not himself. But I can see his writers seeing one obvious joke: When the topic of American families is raised, Trump could say, “I know a lot about American families. I have enough of them.”