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Hello, everybody, we just watched that major presidential debate. Emily unfortunately had to step away, but three of us will hold down the ford.
I'll be extra loud, all right, double the analysis.
I'm sure that's not a problem for me, but in general, certainly something some major moments. We've got a couple of clips and other things that we can break down for everybody. Will be taking some questions throughout the stream from our supremium subscribers, so make sure you sign up Breakingpoints dot com if you want to be able to take advantage. But before we get to that, and even to some of the clips, why don't we just give our general impressions.
Chrystal, what do you.
Think came in wanting to make this a referendum on Trump, and she succeeded. Yes, she basically called every shot in terms of what the topics, what the focus would be, what he would have to respond to. She maintained an affect of laughing in his face and rolling her eyes. He was pissed off and angry almost from the jump. And so, you know, I think for her this was about as good a performance as possible. She was well prepared and took it seriously and took him seriously. And
I don't think that he took her seriously. And it showed he you know, he took the bait on every look, whether it was his rallies or his indictments, or even the Central Park five or his net worth that he inherited from his dad. He was chasing after every single ball that she was throwing.
Yeah, let me pick up on that, because I think this is a really key point, and it's one where I'm already and see amongst our right wing audience, the ones that remain and others, is there is a tremendous amount of outrage about the moderators and about ABC. And I think we'll talk about this about how the fact that these moderators did interject multiple times to quote unquote fact check Trump. Many of the questions were frankly ridiculous in my opinion, Like Tamo, if you ever met with Putin,
it was like, come on, what are we doing? Okay, let's put that aside. Complaining about moderators is cope when your candidate also did. You had multiple opportunities where you took the bait, where you whiffed on the best answers, where Kamala what I want to pick up on from what you said, was totally in control every single time. It was her worst issue. She puts a little bit of bait in there that Trump is going to pick up on, and he runs with it. The border section
was infuriating to me watching and waiting. This is a This is the part where Trump is leading against Harris as much as Harris is leading Trump on abortion.
I haven't even mentioned Trump's disastrous abortion PA.
We yeah, we got that.
We will have that company as well. But actually that's a perfect example.
When I put them side by side on the abortion one, Trump is all over the place giving the worst answers humanly possible. All the stuff that she's tried to do previously, none of it has worked. He doesn't try and bag Kamma or move the direction. Kama brings up a border the very first, the first border question, she.
Starts talking about his rally size.
Now we're litigating rallies during the damn border section and then during every single other one, which was very good for Kama or sorry, very good for Trump, any issue area. Kamala lays as much bait in there as possible, and Trump takes it, and he takes it and he whiffs it.
He validates every concern that she drops of. He only cares about himself by litigating his rally size instead of talking about the border and litigating his inheritance, instead of talking about well, I don't even remember that about.
Her flip fluffing, ye, So that you're right, that's what it was.
It was about cracking and flipbloff for me. And I'm sitting here losing my mind being like, dude, what are you doing?
And so, in general, yes, we're the moderator's biased. Yeah I think so, But you know you're just going to come across as a whiny baby, you know, only focusing on that when you went into this, you voluntarily accepted and honestly worse. Even within that bad framework, they gave you a chance to shine where you.
Could have if he wanted to.
You've been in many you know, bias debates before, and he screwed it. I mean, he absolutely whifted on every major issue that was best for him.
I want to get Ryan, but real quick, what that reminded me of. Remember the famous Newt Gingridge, Oh course moment where John King asked him this question about he had like asked his wife for an open marriage while she had cancer.
I mean, it was a horrible thing.
You did, right, But they open up with this question, right, and Newt Gingrich goes in on the moderators and turns it into a great moment. If you're Donald Trump, you come in knowing the moderators are probably going to be asking her easier questions. Might do it be doing a little fact check? Trump at the top of his game, not only handles that, but turns that into an asset.
Yeah, he's a deeply wounded man. Like for him across for him not to be able to let anything slide, like nothing, even with the presidency in his grasp, the depth of insecurity he must feel in whatever soul he has inside of him to not just your point is exactly right that they're talking about her flip flops, they're talking about the border these it's a ninety minute debate. These are going to be the rounds where you have to score the most amount of points.
Right, they're all tilted in your favor.
He's just pummeling her in these rounds. Instead, they're not leaving my rally earlier, and they don't even go to her rallies. In fact, they're fake, Like she went into the fake thing. They're paying AI, fake AI people to go to her rallies, and yeah, exactly. Then you're like, it's like, what are we even talking about now? I don't remember.
It was actually during the flip flop, during the border section, they were litigating Donald Trump's cases.
Excuse me, because excuse me.
He took the opening him saying something about bibles to be like, let me tell you about criminals this guy right here, and of course he goes, you know, all in and you know, same thing.
Uh.
The January sixth section was also disastrous for him because he gets asked the question, he gets asked, He gets asked the question, Okay, you said for a long time that he won by a landslide. In the past several weeks, you said, you know that you lost by whisker, and seemed to admit that you lost. No, I didn't admit that I was being sarcastic. I won by a lance and then good goes in although the core cases and
they were biased and there was so much evidence. I mean again, spending time and energy relitigating one of the things people hate about you, No, I mean his the other the the other thing about the demeanor of the two of them, I think was important as well, because you know, some of a lot of this is optics, and one of the things we said is she needs to maintain this sort of like, you know, rolling her eyes, being above the fray, looking down her note, making him small.
And she did that.
Her facial expressions were very relaxed. She was the one that was having fun at his expense. That's a real role reversal. If you think back to how much fun he had at Hillary Clinton's expense, how much fun he had at Lil Marco's expense, how much fun he had at Low Energy Jeb Bush's expense. He was not having any fun up there tonight. And you know that's one of his comedic his ability to play to an audience, play to a crowd, that is his superpower, and that was wholly absent to me.
Yeah, I totally did what she That's hard to do for her to kind of ridicule him without looking petty or like a jerk, Like there's a very fine line to walk there, And she didn't really come off as a jerk at all, Like she came off as like exactly like you said, like she she hit that well.
Yeah, And for.
People who didn't follow the Lex Friedman interview or didn't listen to Lex preopid interview, you know, he's one of these guys who is like, I love a lot of things about you, but I don't like January sixth. I don't like that you challenge the election, and why can't
you just say that you lost? And clearly either he was ready to pan or his advisors were like, please, just please, I'm gonna want to ask you about this, Please just say you lost and he and he finally says, I lost by a whisker, right, And it was absolutely not being sarcastic.
Right, And he was not listen to it.
I listened to it multiple times genuinely kind of a historic moment, and I was like, well, maybe this is a new strategy.
This behind it.
And then I mean, this is the thing, and you know, I'll say this too. JD. Just today did they all in summit and they asked him, would you have certified the election? He's like, no, I would have had an alternate state. I'm like, okay, here we go like he's like, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to do. This is what we want to do two months before the election. Okay, this is this is it is what we've decided to go with two
months before the election. The number one reason why a lot of suburban people voted against you in twenty twenty two, right, arguably one of the huge hits on him in that race.
But you need no high I can't really blame JD because I think a big part of the reason he got the vice presidential gig is because he had said that before totally. And there's like like, that's why he's in the slot.
So he's like, this is my job, just sick.
How about we just don't say it? How about we just talk about the border again. We're like, oh, you know, that's an interesting thing. We should talk about the board and Trump. Trump could have told JD. Look, yeah, I know you've said that and I got you on the ticket. Well we're done with that.
We're moving on.
And another thing is that he inexplicably disavowsed JD Vans, who gave him the greatest lay up of all time, and he said JD said, yeah, he would veto a national abortion maan. So they asked him about it, like, hey, JD says, you're going to veto a national abortion ban. And he's like, well, in fairness, we hadn't discussed it. Yeah, let's keep the door open to what a six percent policy?
What are we doing here?
It's like every single level calculation the Trump, the calibration was gone. It was the react of Trump, the angry Trump. It was totally not in control. I can already guarantee
you he's just going to complain about the moderators. I think it is a high likelihood that he does not participate in another debate after what, which would be another win for Commala, which would be a massive win for Kamala, who has to memorize whunch of scripted baited answers rights said boom, Yeah, now you just go rally for two more months, maybe do one more bullshit interview with Dana Bash and yet you know that that's it.
So I just can't get over this.
And I would think some people also probably noticed if they're voting on this abortion question, that his two points clash. Like he says he really believes that on a moral level it should be left to the states, then he also won't say that he'd veto a national abortion BD. Right, that's not leaving it to the.
States, that's right.
It's I don't even really understand why he is sticking on this, Like jd. Vance is actually very like what he said in the past.
He actually embraces.
All the friends yes was.
On abortion, like yah, yeah, right, So jd.
Van should be like, no, no, we're good, We're not going to and you can't. I genuinely don't understand that, especially because he clearly knows he's got a.
Problem on abortion.
He clearly, you know, as soon as Roe versus Wade was overturned, he knew it was going to be a problem. He was all over the place on this floor amendment, and it was mess Since we're talking so much about abortion, we have a little bit of this exchange, so let's go ahead and play it. This is D three guys, if we could play a little bit of this exchange on abortion.
You're running me. JD.
Vance has said that you would veto if it did come to your desk.
Well, I didn't discuss it with JD. In all fairness, JD. And I don't mind if he has a certain view, but I think you was speaking of me, but I really didn't. Look, we don't have to discuss it because she'd never be able to get it, just like she couldn't get student loans. They couldn't get is that did even come close to get any student loans. They taunted young people and a lot of other people that had loans. They can never get this approved. So it doesn't matter
what she says about going to Congress. So wonderful, let's go to Congress do it. But the fact is that for years they wanted to get it out of Congress and out of the federal government, and we did something that everybody said couldn't be done, and now you have a vote of the people on abortion.
He went on this long tangent too about student loan debt. I mean, I know what he's trying to say, which is like, Okay, well you claim you're going to codify ROW, but you're not going to have the vote sit do it.
It is an opportunity you actually got through that.
Couldn't figure out, like he was.
Saying, posing things, and you won't be able to deliver that right.
I mean, listen, I would love for Kammel in that moment to be like, that's why I'm going to get rid of the filibuster so that we can codify roversus way. But she, in the section did the polar opposite of what Trump did, Like in the border section, which is the stronger issue for him, she extended the conversation of abortion.
She kept going in she kept going in on and going back to it, and then he would feel like, oh, I got to respond in some kind of a way, and so and she brought up visceral examples, and he kept saying, you know, oh, everybody wanted this to be done, and she said, no, those women who were bleeding out in parking lots, they did not want this. The majority of the country doesn't want That's why in red state after red state they chose freedom. She said, is how
she framed it. And the other thing that I kept thinking about in this section, Bryan, is the way that Biden handled the abortion answers in the last debate.
Do you guys.
Remember this He's finished by talking about immigrants raping people.
Yes, yes he did.
And now Trump is the one who's like, you know, bringing up his own worst issues. But yeah, and Biden gets asked the abortion question last time and everyone's like, all right, oh, this is the layup for him, and he starts talking incomprehensibly about an undocumented immigrant raping someone, like what what thing?
Where news here?
Kamala's campaign will now ask for another debate according to the one.
Yeah, I would do, you know, I certainly would do.
After whatever we all hell this witness, I think we should talk then about what we've been alluding to is that, you know, there's this concept of like frame control, where Kamala was just totally in control of the frame constantly.
So we're talking about the border, Oh no, no, no, no, We're gonna make a little thing about rallies that you're going to take, and then oh well, let's also talk about you said, migrant crime reminds me of crime because you're a criminal and and he's like, wait, no, no, I'm not a criminal, you know. And it's like, what are we doing? No, you're supposed to be. And actually, that's one of Trump's most powerful things is that he
was always in setting control of the narrative. He was somebody who could pivot the discussion where he wanted it to go. So we have the perfect example here, guys. Let's go ahead and prepare D four. This is exactly where Trump is talking about. Trump has asked a question about the border. Kamala's initially asked about the border. In her border answer, she gives a rally, a rally com We were all sitting here at the desk, and I was like, here we go. He's going to take debit
and then immediately that's what he does. He focuses on himself, not on the issue. So D four, let's take a listen.
And I'll tell you something.
He's going to talk about immigration a lot tonight, even when it's not the subject that is being raised. And I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about
win Mills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams, and your need and your desires.
First time he responders to the rallies, she said, people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busting him in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light, so she can't talk about that.
People don't leave my rallies.
We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what's going on here. You're going to end up in World War three. Just to go into another subject, what they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country.
And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States, and a lot of towns don't want to talk. It's not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs the people that came in. They're eating the cats, they're eating they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame as far as rallies are concerned.
As far as the reason they go is, they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great against very simple phrase, make America great again. She's destroying this country and if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success, will end up being Venezuela on steroids.
That's a perfect example in that you know what we just watch. He takes a question about the border, spends probably seventy percent of it talking about the rallies in it. He also has to bring up a pet hoax at least as far as we know right now, about Haitian migrants eating pets, and he's not talking about I mean, that's the other thing. Why don't we have to do with the pets? Lake and Riley? We all know lincln
Riley's name. You could say that, you could bring up any legitimate case of migrant crime, and you're not going to get interjected. What the moderator saying, Hey, actually, you know, we talked to the city manager or whatever of Springfield and then they say that's not true. It's like he took the worst decision possible in every single moment there, but most importantly, Ris got under his skin and got him to with the answer on the border whenever.
I mean, did he even say borders are I'm trying to think.
I believe one time he said it.
The moderator instead is that at one saying you, Kamala, you were put in charge of the border Trump. It's like complete incoherence. If you're watching that and you're a normal person who're genuinely concerned about immigration or the border or whatever, what did you get.
Out of that? Yeah, that's the question.
You have to here quick fact, the immigrants are not eating cats. They're actually children who identify as cats.
Oh no, okay, transgender children in yeah, criminals species.
Okay.
See that's the other thing effect that came out in a couple of places because like, we knew what the fuck he was talking about with the whole pet Haitian migrant thing. Because our brains are rotten. We're online way too much. There are millions upon millions of Americans at home who are like, what are you even talking about?
In fact, a.
Someone very close to me who is like not that political and definitely not super online, was like, if you're gonna make up some shit, at least make it believable, you know, like, this is just preposterous and weird.
Sorry, didn't it.
Come from a Springfield town meeting?
It's not.
Isn't some like super far right wing for a right wing lunatic who I have.
I can tell you the genesis.
The genesis of it is that there was a Facebook post in the Springfield community or whatever, in a group on the group it said I hear from my neighbors daughters coud. It was like my neighbor's daughter's friends says that the Haitians are eating cats or eating pets.
That's one.
Two is a viral video. A video goes viral of a black woman who was arrested for eating a cat. Okay, but it turns out that that video did not take place in Springfield, Ohio, and she is an American American, she is not hate.
So it's actually the native born people who are eating.
The cats out.
She's probably also she's probably just a drug addict, but okay, let's put it that.
Yeah, and that's the genesis.
There was also a fake photo of a guy a goose.
Which Columbus, and there was no indication that the man was an immigrant, was a member of the Kennedy family.
I think we should normalize eating geese. But anyway, that's a whole separate conversation. I think fish and game rags are way too hiding.
I think we should.
I mean, there's all these dreamly like greasy, we're such a rich country.
We got these tasty ducks sitting in those ponds for put that. I'll put it all aside.
Anyway, he's so brained, not only then, right that he brings up this whole thing that most.
People, even like won't even know.
What you're talking about, let alone what Kamala Harris has to do with, let alone that it even involves immigrants, Like they just have no idea what you're talking about.
And there are other instances.
Of that as well, where it's like, oh, when he in the rally answer, in that same answer, he's talking about these conspiracies, Oh, she's bussing in people, et cetera, which again normally people haven't heard of, they don't care about. It's just I hadn't even heard that particular conspiracy. He refers to the January sixth rioters as J six right,
which is also very like online lingo, subcultural lngo. And you know, I do think that they're like a victim of their own success on Twitter, like it's too much of a right wing echo chamber and they're drinking too much of their own kool aid. They're high on their own supply, and they think that this stuff is like legit, Lands has national purchase and any most people who are at all for grabs in this election are just like, I literally don't even know what the fuck you're talking about.
Right now.
He has spent so and I was sort of joking earlier when I said that getting kicked off of Twitter hurt his ability to be in touch with what's going on, but not really because instead he was on truth social right, and that puts you in a subcultural genre where you start using words and talking to people who are just nowhere near the median. You're using words that they understand, right, but anybody who's not in true social doesn't.
Got some big news. I had to confirm it before I read it. Taylor swift As endorsed Kamala Harris that debate she just posted. She says, like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven't already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their propose. Recently, I was made aware of AI falsely endorsing Trump was posted to a site. It conjured up my fears around
blah blah blah. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Watson the twenty twenty four election. I'm voting for Kamala because she fights for the rights and causes I believe.
I think she steady handed, gifted leader.
She also posted a picture with her cat cat lady. We all knew it was coming, but oh my God, with love and hope, Taylor Swift childless cat lady.
Oh, I'm sure this is real.
Swear to God.
That's why I had to be one hundred percent. I just went to our Instagram page. I refreshed it. I read it right off of it myself.
Well, this comes right on the heels of our cat conversation. So it's a you know, wow, there flip flu how they feel about cats they.
Didn't even is a big one.
That the tailor thing actually is a big one. I mean people have exaggerated it before. The most pop she's like, she sends, you know, pop culture is the most famous person.
Probably the world register.
I mean yeah, because people register to vote. Now, look, you could be right, Crystal.
I just I'm not discounting it, especially in a row row row your vote thing, this whole cat stuff. I mean, You've got tens of millions of people who are following her. She'll be on tour. I only know this because I'm trying to get tickets right before the election in the critical battleground states in Miami and indianapol I'm just saying, if she, you know, does Pepper some of that in there, But I do think you know that is it's it's significant in a certain way, not just the tailor thing.
The media conversation after this relative to how it was after Biden is night and day.
Oh yeah.
You can imagine the backflips that they're doing on CNN and MSNBC. You can imagine the absolute coping Jesse Water tears over how bad the moderators were.
You just don't want to be in that position.
You want to be celebrating good stuff your candidate did, and they didn't have nearly enough moments for that.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's it.
I just want to know where Taylor Swift was at the DMC when I was promised a special guest, So we got to lead on.
Want nor did we get Beyonce, So it's like, what are we doing?
There was an interesting moment where Ryan beforehand you asked us to take the over the under on Kamala doing her like I'm speaking yes, And we got a big surprise on that one, which is it was actually drunk multiple times?
Did he multiple times?
Once time he said quiet please.
His inner girl boss, I'm talking.
Perhaps this is a way for him to try to win the woman vote over by channeling his.
Inner girl boss.
Yes we have we have D six is a little bit of that Trump. But I'm speaking reprising problems.
See very sassy, very.
Sassy Trump, reprising Kamala's famous line piece of you, Mike Pencil's take a listen to that.
She gave up at least twelve and probably fourteen or fifteen different policies, Like she was big on defund the police in Minnesota. She went out, I'm talking now, if you don't mind, please, does that sound familiar? She went out, she went out in Minnesota.
You know there are her face was very active too. That was clearly very intentional her faces. There were times where she would actively go like.
It was a little Wretchen Whitford to me for me, she studied.
There were times where she almost like had a look of like pity on her face.
She was laughing at him.
It was night and day obviously with Joe Biden, but it was also very different affect from what Trump had in this debate, where he was just straight on not looking at her at all, straight on, angry mug to the camera. And you know, I think she was It was I think a smart play on in her regard, and like I said before, like they thought through how they wanted this debate to go. They thought through the
spots they were going to pick. I guarantee they even practiced. Okay, when he brings up criminal immigrants, you're going to say you're the criminal dot dot dot, and then he's going to go in on that when you get asked.
About flip flop.
Apparently there was a plan to bring up like his dad's networth or whatever it was that throw him off track. There they he has become predictable enough so much that they knew what his points were going to be and how she could throw him off.
And they even tell her rafted in her opening remarks where she said, you know you're gonna here's what you're going to see today.
Yeah, we have some of that.
You're going to see a guy that talks about himself. We can roll that one.
Why don't we? Why don't we? Guys?
That's really sting, because this is important. This was the set piece. She telegraphed what she was going to do, then she did it, and he takes the bab every time, zero discipline.
It was ridiculous.
Let's take a listen to her please from the from the beginning of what she was going to do, d one.
But I'm going to tell you all on this debate tonight, you're going to hear from the same old tired.
Playbook, a bunch of lies.
Grievances, and name calling. What you're going to hear tonight is it detailed and dangerous plan called Project twenty twenty five that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected to gain I believe very strongly that the American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together, knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. And I pledged you to be a president for all Americans.
So there you go.
Like you said, Ryan, she set up you know what that reminded me of in the moment and did rewatching it there.
Remember when Chris Christy destroyed Marc because he said what he said.
He said he has his memorized talking points, and then Marco Rubio goes on to recite his memorized talking points and use them over again, and then Christy's able to see he's doing the thing I told you he was going to do. And Kamala did that exact same thing with Trump, like here's what you're going to hear tonight. And then when he would do something like this, See I told you this is what he was going to do.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
So I was just telling you, guys, well that clip was playing with a reporter who's in the room the spin room, asked Lindsey Graham, how did you think that the debate went? He said the debate team should be fired and that Trump was unprepared quote disaster. As you said, Crystal, it's never this is like when remember they were saying that about Biden and then Jim Clyburn originally he's the original Kope, He's like, oh, he wasn't well prepared.
He was reciting facts.
They did a lot of throwing the staff under the bus.
Remember it was oh they worked him too hard and they were having him memorize too many facts or whatever instead of just letting Joe be Joe.
Yeah, there was a lot of that.
We're going to watch that now.
I mean Trump is a capricious man, He's deeply sensitive. So what's going to happen. He is going to he's kind of lash out at his staff. We're going to see the multiple truths and others. I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see you know who was at Susie Wiles and Chris las de Vita. Already there's major tension in the campaign and Corey Lewindower. Corey's going to use this against them, But gee, they screwed you, mister.
They are the ones who screwed you. And Laura Lumer was on the plane with Trump right today all the way. Guarantee you She'll be like, oh, you got to get rid of those people.
So look when Trump, the one that told him about the Haitian cat situes.
Trump is in a bad spot. What happens is he always retreats to the most sycophantic people who are the most willing. We saw this and used to be the Hills when I was Yeah, when I was covering him in the White House, I saw this all the time. Like when things got bad, it wasn't Jared Nvanka, it was the Bannons, the you know, the Jenna ellisis all these other people. So I predict something like that now.
Mike Lindell Bingo exactly. I think that this is an overstock CEO and that's only going to make things worse, right, It's going to make things even worse as we get into the overall stream.
This is a really good point because this takes us beyond the theater of the debate, and I think the theater itself doesn't really change the debate, doesn't really change the race that much, like it could have if Kamala completely face planted or if like Trump fell off the stage. But you know, I don't see this moving the poles a whole lot in one way or another. But the way that it will substantively affect the race is exactly what you're talking about. The way that Trump reacts to it
because he can't handle it. He was humiliated by a person he has contempt for, and right, he's going to take it out now on people like las A Vita.
Yeah, people who were like professionals and the.
People is worst side of him, yes, and.
The retreat to the yeah, exactly, to the worst people around him. And those worst people around him will use this to their advantage. And so there's only what how many days left? There's not enough time for him to be fifty five upending the race.
Some states are you know, starting to vote like.
Now North Carolina, that's a disaster.
And North Carolina, as we were talking about in our pre show, has the high chance of actually being the number two according to Nate Silver tipping point state. So there's a lot of there's a lot of problems that happened for Trump tonight. I I genuinely, I mean, look, everyone always said that Hillary won.
You know, the general consis was Hillary won all three debates, she still lost the election. Okay, so we'll see, you know, he could I think you'd probably still win.
I think census was also kind of wrong, was I.
Don't disagree with you, I'm saying the media.
The media conversation around it was that Trump had lost quote unquote all three debates.
Yeah, so look, could he still win? Yeah?
Sure?
What will this have effect on the polls? I don't know what do you guys? Do you think she'll get a bump?
Yeah? You think, like maybe one.
I think I do think she will get a bump.
I think it will be certainly not as consequential as the Biden debate, obviously, but we do have very unique circumstances here. People feel like they don't really know who Kamala Harris is and this was her first really big test on a giant stage, and I think the ratings
for this are going to be astronomical. I know, I mean just from the like normal people aren't really political in my life that were like texting me about it today and what I just I have a feeling the nation was tuning into this, and certainly they will be tuning into the clips that get you know, run and pulled.
From it for sure. And you know, she passed the test.
She did more than pass the test, and he the worst side of him was on display. So I do think that the polls will shift some. Do I think that it's going to be massive?
No?
Does it go back to, you know, more like what it was going into the convention when she had a pretty clear lead, but you know, still very much on an I think that's probably where we're headed. And then the question is does that sustain? Is she able to sustain that, because to Ryan's point, you don't have to sustain it for that long, Like we're down to the wire already, and Kamo says, now she wants to do another debate. Do you guys think Trump is going to want to do this again?
I do not think he well, it depends. So he has agreed to NBC and Fox. She has only agreed, I believe to NBC. So is he going to agree to an NBC News debate? Like I have a high maybe have agreed to Fox? She?
I mean, I'm not sure.
She would agree to fix just because look, when you're already, when you came out of a good debate and then you just say, oh, I'm not going to you know, acquiesce to his sycophantic people. Even though the moderators on this one were buyased in favor of you, There'd be enough media cover that she could probably get away with it. I think it is a very legitimate question of if
Trump participates in another debate. I'm not ready to say he won't, but just because his vanity generally gets the better of him and he thinks he can take someone and he's agreed.
I mean, look, he agreed to debate Biden.
But at this point, now he's got a debate which got Biden out of the race, which was objectively a disaster for Trump and the Trump campaign, and now he is another debate where he's going to one hundred percent what's gonna happen? He's going to blame the moderators, and he's gonna blame his staff. Does he have the wherewithal to accept another debate under those circumstances. I'm not one hundred percent sure. He might have taken away. Both debates in this race so far were bad for me, so
why would I do another one? But I actually that helps Kamala as well. I think he'd probably rather She probably a little bit of a bump. I mean, I certainly don't think the election was won or lost or anything like that tonight, but I think it is very consequential in that he blew a moment where both she rose.
To the place where she needed to be.
She's probably reassured a lot of vodors about like the who are you question, and then worse every time she didn't want to reassure them about anything that she fake believes. She just laid up this very classic attack on Trump if he only cares about himself, and then he would validate those by taking debate on all of these ridiculous So on the issues front, he really failed to actually shine in the ways that I think he needed to, and that's objectively a disaster for his campaign.
Yeah, yeah, he hasn't gotten over Biden leaving the race yet.
That was what I kept talking about Biden.
He's probably going to like fume about that for days on truth and maybe jump over to Twitter with that. And part of that is part of not accepting Kamala Harris as his opponent comes from I think him just not respecting her whatsoever, holding her in complete contempt. And when you hold your adversary and contempt, it only come it only comes back to bite you.
Yeah.
Right, Should we take some questions, that's absolutely right, Yeah, go ahead and pull up some questions. One last thought I had before we get to the questions is I think we also learned a lot about Kamala's theory, political theory of the case, and her approach in this debate.
This was not a.
Debate about here's my policy, Here's how I'm in a delivery. It was an attempt to turn it into referendum on Donald trump.
One policy fifteen thousand dollars for startups.
Yeah right, it WHI was not a bad There was also I actually.
Was at the bathroom. You guys told me about this.
But Trump gets asked about healthcare and what did he say?
Like, I have some concepts and.
I have it.
I have the concepts of a plan. I have some concept as a plan quote, but I'm not president.
Right, okay, So but it was you know, there was very little policy, and that was clearly by design. And they also started running this ad today I think where it was a reprisal of Obama's crowd size joke.
And so you know that.
That rally line was planned to coincide with the Obama rally size joke, and you know, so they're they're leaning into that as well. That was like their equivalent I think of that little Girl was Me moment that they had planned in advance.
So we have a question here.
Reminder to everybody who was watching on YouTube or rumbo or anywhere else who's not watching on locals, we're taking questions from our premium subscribers. If you do want to ask a question, become a premium subscriber breakingpoints dot com. So this is first one is a great one from Jude one, two three four. Was this worse for Trump than the Biden debate in twenty twenty? Great question for.
The Biden debate in twenty twenty.
The one, the first, the bad one.
I don't have to think about it, I'm not sure if I had to say, I think this one was probably worse, just because first time against Kamala Biden is such a known quantity, so many more questions about Kamala and her abilities you rising to her.
I think the state were hiring the spy, h why it matters.
And the opportunity was so much greater, Like there was so much damage he could have done because she's not known. There's only so much you can do to a twenty twenty Biden, and.
Those views of her are hardening very quickly. So every opportunity you miss to define her, throw her off balance, make her appear like you know, the word clouds that we got that were incompetent, make her appear like that caricatureish, incompetent person that you know, has that image that has been spun up over these number of years. Every time you miss those opportunities, the clock is ticking down to election day point by point.
So you know.
Also that Biden debate, I believe it was probably a little earlier too, so there was also probably more time to recover from it. But they were also just both individuals whose images were largely hardened, so it was the stakes were a bit lower.
It was actually later September twenty ninth, crazy to think about. I know, wow, September twenty nine, I think twenty twenty all right, what else have we got here?
They say, oh.
Question, what were your thoughts on the foreign policy sections of the debate. Yeah, I think we get all guests. I mean this, lady, I'll let you guys handle Israel. On Ukraine ridiculous, she basically implied that the only acceptable condition of victory in Ukraine his total Ukrainian victory. It's like, okay, we're going to be there until the goddamn end of
the century. Then if that's the plan. On Afghanistan, she is both defending the first time that a Democrat has defended Biden's withdrawal of Afghanistan.
Cool. I think the side.
Let's give her.
Kana Procy was out there on the Sunday defending it at the time.
So she's like, well, it's good that we got out and now we're not paying for it. And I was like, oh, this is good, you know, this is good. And at the end she's like, and he invited a terrorist to Camp David. I'm like, well, you know, we were fighting a war against him. So that's probably how you should end a war. You want to negotiate at Camp David. There's a lot of bad people that have been at Camp David. That's how you get some shit to be over.
It's just didn't coherent. So anyways, that was my general thoughts. I'll let you guys handle it.
On Ukraine, I noticed a little not the whine on behalf of Republicans, but there was a moment where the David and we were saying, you know, do you want Ukraine to win this war? Yes? Multiple times, that's right, and Trump's says I want the war to end.
Yeah.
Unusually anti war for a presidential candidate. Against the war by.
Far, in my opinion, like his best answer, because he gave the same one to CNN and the media freaked out about it then too, and he's obviously on the side of the American people who want to also end the war.
But then when he circled over to Kamala Harris for that question, he said, I want to ask you about support for Ukraine, which is different than saying to ask you about support for your grand That's different than saying you want Ukraine to win the war. It's a much softer way of letting her point into it. But then she still went in with.
The equivalent questions would be, you know, does you are you going to just continue.
This war forever? What point do you?
At what point do you?
Is it negotiating and the war?
Right?
I mean listen on the foreign policy. So first of all, I thought, over all the foreign policy section was Trump's strongest section.
Yes, I thought of.
The whole debate was was that section. They were roughly at a draw in terms of the substance. I mean Kama's is the answer was exactly what Kama was Israel answer has been the question was framing was actually kind of sympathetic to Palestinians. It was like, hey, this has been a lot of suffering and this many have died
and nothing has changed. What would you do different? Nothing layup to, you know, put some distance between yourself and this president and this horrifically like, you know, atrocious policy that is wildly unpopular. But we all knew she wasn't going to do that. We talked about it before, and she went through her whole like memorized, same things she said at the convention, same things she says every time she gets these answer, So that sucked. Obviously Trump sucks
on Israel. You know, he's always and his line is always to say, oh, this never.
Would have happened.
Okay, well it did, so what now?
Right in terms of Ukraine, you know, on the substance, obviously the worst crime that we committed on Ukraine was scuttling and now we have even more confirmation the way we scuttled this early piece deal that could have could have avoided so much tragedy and loss, et cetera. And you know, there's no indication that she has any desire
to break from the Biden policy on Ukraine. I also would be remiss if I didn't say it's one of the areas where his policy is actually the most popular in terms of you know, when people ask Howsie doing on this? In that issue, this is one of the areas where he pulls the best. So to separate my own feelings on the issue from you know, what I
think how it will be received. All her bluster about the Taliban and Afghanistan and what she said about Ukraine and standing with our allies, and that's why we have to turn a page on Donald Trump. And also baiting him there too, remember about foreign leaders having contempt for him. She did not that sex as well, which he again took the bait and spent an amount of time talking about Victor orbon for.
God knows what reason.
But I think that the way she presented those things, even though I disagree with her in certain very key and important ways, I think it probably did land with general audience.
The funny thing is on the Orbon point, It's like, you know, we would be lucky if fifteen percent of this country knew who Immanuel Macrone was, like the president. It's like to name check Victor orbon Like.
Because this is a leader that there's a fixation with in online right wing subcultures.
You you know, you drop a true social or.
I'm like, yeah, Grandma in Wisconsin definitely knows who Victor Orbon is.
Bro Like, Yeah.
Can can people even name the Prime Minister of the UK?
Probably not?
Like, no way, and let that's like our closest ally let alone the d president of Hungary.
Right and maybe somebody in the comments is gonna help us out here, because I have had no success finding out what the heck Kamala Harris was talking about with this thing we're accusing Trump China ships to China.
Like remember early on she said Trump sold us sound by giving our chips to China to make their military better or something like that.
Yeah, I don't know what.
There's gotta be something.
I'm sure there's some something if I had to guess, even like confused, like I don't know what you're talking about.
But it's also also certainly not true because the Trump administration banned Huawei, the ad Siphius.
That it arrested like the vice president of right, well that was.
I think that was Canada.
I'm pretty sure you're talking about possibly with us anyway.
We don't need to get back.
But she took the tack in that hole, in that whole portion of trying to ount hawk yes, Trump on China. She even was like, you sent a tweet about President she congratulating him.
Oh and she did the labakh Yes, your favorite.
Kamala is a lab leaker.
She was like, she congratulated President she when he was covering up the origins of COVID.
I'm like, whoa, what you know?
You know?
Kama?
Okay, wait, okay, Ryan, let's at least take that bro. We want it took US four years.
We got the the vice president of a democratic administration to admit at least that there were quote unquote questions around the cod The.
Boniest way for her to finish her closing remarks be like, oh, and by the way, Trump funded the wuhan.
Yeah, yes, yes, and then he covered it up. Yeah, Fauci and Trump Trump, Fauci funded.
Just skip Fauci Trump, Yeah, Trump funded the Obama had had a moratorium.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, he lifted, reversed, gotorum.
He would have melted right, game over, games set.
And every Democrat would be like, yes, that's exactly what.
Yes, yes, yeah, you're right, you're absolutely.
In the spin room immediately afterwards or whoever, they never believed in.
A natural origin.
One last question, I think from Parah al Baran, what was the single most determinative moment in the debate and what do you anticipate the cope will be the one that we played, which where he responded on rallies.
That was that was when it was solidified for me.
I think that was roughly what twenty five thirty minutes or so, and it was the first time of the border section, and I said, that's it. He's lost. He lost it. He has no discipline. He let himself get riled up and angry, and from then on, I think it would just continue to be downhill. And he did it over and over and over again.
If people were watching from the skycam, they have seen Sager flopping around like a yeah.
So.
You believe in things and you see them go to shit on national television, You're like, okay.
All right. I'm torn between that moment or that series of moments where she just you know, throws out the bait and he just chases after it like you know whatever, but or the abortion exchange, because I do think that's true, and this is you know, it was kind of Kamala ask frankly because she normally is the one who gets a predictable question and screws it all up. There was nothing more predictable in this debate than that you were going to get asked about abortion. Like you knew this
question was coming. You know, specifically you're going to get asked about a national abortion band, which Jade Vance had said you would veto.
You knew this.
Was coming, and you can't handle You still don't know what to say on this issue. I think It's just that one is so consequential to so many voters. It's clearly been such a motivating factor, and it's just such a clear winner for Democrats that you know, I do think that that also was a very determinive moment.
What do you think, right, Yeah, the knock on Paris is that she doesn't prepare. Instead, Trump didn't prepare, and you've just he flopped. I think that's that's right, like him her being able to just lead him by the nose around it just made him look ridiculous, Yeah, and made him miss all the opportunities he has to score points where his policies are more popular.
Interesting, So apparently Trump himself actually just came into the been into the spin room, of course.
So that's that's generally a bad.
That's the sign he knows it went back. You know.
I also knew he realized towards the end it went bad because there was a moment when they were getting to the final questions where he starts trying to rattle off everything that he'd clearly you know, prepare, like fracking and medicare for end in private insurance. It was like, oh, you realize the clock is ticking down.
All your good stuff.
You're trying. You're like, oh shit, I didn't.
I saw that too. His last statement, he was trying to just spray and pray all about there.
That's exactly where it's.
Been long time.
That's the other problem, you know, I realized very early on is statistically the vast majority of people only watch for like thirty minutes, Like almost nobody watches this entire thing.
You're very rare. If you do.
You watch the first thirty like get a sense of it, and you go to bed, especially if you're on the East Coast and those where that was when Trump really whiffed. They had whifted on abortion and then he whifted on immigration, back to back, the two most consequential issues of this entire election. So that was my takeaway, and knowing him too,
the fact that he's in that spin room. He is there because he probably immediately turned on the television afterwards, saw the coverage and he goes, I need to go out there and I need to reclaim.
He's trying to trying to change the narrative. Spin It's I mean, those days are those days.
Are kind of over, you know.
It's I think the spin room used to be a lot more consequential than it is at this point. But you know, to your point about his closing statement, the message.
There is very effective.
It's like, Okay, you got all these great ideas, where were they for three and a half years. How does it take you to the very end of the debate before that ever comes out of your mouth? Totally because that should have been what He could have hit her on that over over and over and over again, and that's how you get a message to actually sink in. You can't just say it once at the end of the debate that.
Needed to do.
That could have been a refrain, you know, no matter what she was talking about, on Ukraine, on healthcare, on energy, whatever it was, he could have been saying that, and it doesn't come out till the very end when he realizes, like, shit, I got to do something to try to turn this around and put lipstick on this pig.
Yeah, that's right, all right. Any closing thoughts, Ryan, what do you think I.
Think Trump going out to the spin room is great evidence of the point that you were making earlier that this could that he's going to unravel for a week or two, but so much more could still happen, like maybe there's a break breakthrough in Ukraine or something like the collapse over there, like the election is still wide open.
Yes, that's the point.
Yeah, that's absolutely Do you so you what do you think is going to happen with the polls with regard to this debate?
If anything, I think probably I think she probably does get a little tiny bump from people leaving Trump. Yeah, like a couple of people, you know.
You know. And also I think she's going to raise eight Absolutely.
She's getting so much money, like like a hundred million dollars like.
In a week or and she just has to make people not hate her. Yeah, and she did fine, right, and that if that's the goal in that debate.
And be an acceptable people be able to envision you in the role and like rise the case.
Still no idea what she stands for.
Still no idea what she stands for?
Last night?
Yeah, no, I mean I think I think we've covered it all.
Not a good knight for Trump.
Not determinative, right, I think she did herself a lot of favors. And the question has been can she like vibe and meme her way into November?
And every day that goes.
By We're closer to her being able to pull that off because she's going to get a phenomenal news cycle out of this, right, She's going to get a phenomenal news cycle. The clips are going to be circulating. He's going to be fuming and doing himself no favors. There's going to be all kinds of like leaks out of his campaign, this one, throwing this one under the bus,
and all that stuff. And you know, so I think she's the strategy of running out the clock and vibing and meming till November is kind of working out.
So certainly could work also now Taylor Swift is waight in. So yeah, my general one is just what a missed opportunity. And it just shows you that the Trump, the you know, the chaotic Trump, the one that everybody said shouldn't appear, he just can't help himself sometimes. And if you're such an easy mark for Kamala, who's not it, let's be hout it, like we're not looking at the most talented politician in modern American history.
I think a lot of people are going to read into that.
And you, certainly, at the very least you really did not give yourself the opportunity to be that change candidate that people wanted you to be.
From those undecided voters we saw in the New York Times.
You give Kamala an eagle shot at that, and that very much at You know that that ethos through the election going up.
It could be what costs you at the end of the.
Day when we're such, when we're this tight, everything matters, and the stakes were crazy.
There was no he His greatest asset is like his charm and his levity and when he makes people laugh when they don't even want to laugh. And there was none, none of that side of him tonight.
So yeah, it be interesting to see what he's saying.
All Right, we will have we will have comprehensive coverage continue in here on breaking points.
So we will see you all later.
H