With Cross Talk, Lies and Mockery, Trump Tramples Decorum in Debate With Biden
Interrupting Joe Biden nearly every time he spoke, President Trump made little attempt to reassure swing voters about his leadership. Mr. Biden hit back: “This is so unpresidential.”
“The last four years, you have promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, but you have never in these four years come up with a plan, a comprehensive plan —” “Yes, I have.” “— to replace Obamacare.” “Of course I have.” “Well, I’ll give you —” “We got rid of the individual mandate.” “I’m going to give you an opportunity —” ”Excuse me. I got rid of the individual mandate.” “I’m not here to call out his lies — everybody knows he’s a liar.” “But you agreed — Joe, you’re the liar.” “I want to make sure —” “You graduated last in your class, not first in your class.” “I — [laughs] — God. I want to make sure —” “Mr. President, could you let him finish, sir?” “The question is, the question is —” “A lot of new Supreme Court justices, radical left —” “Will you shut up, man?” “One of the big debates we had with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination that I won were saying that Biden wanted to allow people to have private insurance still. They can, they do, they will, under my proposal.” “That’s not what you’ve said, and it’s not what your party has said.” “That is simply a lie.” “Your party doesn’t say it — your party wants to go socialist medicine.” “My party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party.” “And they’re going to dominate you, Joe, you know that.” “I am the Democratic Party right now. The platform of the Democratic Party —” “Not according to Harris.” “— is what I, in fact, approved of.” “Is it true that you paid $750 in federal income taxes each of those two years?” “I’ve paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax. Let me just say something, that it was the tax laws. I don’t want to pay tax. Before I came here, I was a private developer, I was a private business people. Like every other private person, unless they’re stupid, they go through the laws, and that’s what it is.” “I’m going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts.” “Good.” “And we’re going to, I’m going to eliminate those tax cuts —” “OK.” “— and make sure that we invest in the people who in fact need the help. People out there need help.” “But why didn’t you do it over 20, the last 25 years?” “Because you weren’t — because you weren’t president screwing things up.” “You were a senator —” “You’re the worst president America has ever had. Come on.” “You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing —” “That’s right.” “— extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups —” “Sure.” “— 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 and as we’ve seen in Portland.” “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but —” “Then do it.” “Go ahead, sir.” “I would say, I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.” “So what are you, what are you saying —” “I’m willing to do anything — I want to see peace.” “Well, then do it, sir.” “Say it. Do it. Say it.” “You want to call them — what do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name.” “White supremacists and —” “Go ahead, who would you like me to condemn?” “Proud Boys.” “Who?” “White supremacists and right-wing militia.” 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 —” “His own F.B.I. director said the threat is —” Are you questioning —” “No, I think masks are OK. You have to understand, if you look, I mean, I have a mask right here. I put a mask on, you know, when I think I need it. Tonight as an example, everybody’s had a test, and you’ve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to — but I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks.” “OK, let me ask —” “I don’t wear masks like him — every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from — he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” “Masks make a big difference. His own head of the C.D.C. said if we just wore masks between now — if everybody wore masks in social distance between now and January, we’d probably save up to 100,000 lives. It matters.” “And they’ve also said the opposite. They’ve also said —” “No serious person said the opposite.” “The fact is that there are going to be millions of people because of Covid that are going to be voting by mail-in ballots, like he does by the way. And this is all about trying to dissuade people from voting, because he’s trying to scare people into thinking that it’s not going to be legitimate.” “As far as the ballots are concerned, it’s a disaster. A solicited ballot, OK? Solicited is OK. You’re soliciting, you’re asking. They send it back. You send it back. I did that. This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen. The other thing: It’s nice, on Nov. 3, you’re watching and you see who won the election. And I think we’re going to do well, because people are really happy with the job we’ve done. But you know what? We won’t know, we might not know for months — because these ballots are going to be all over.” “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 any dispute?” “Yeah, I think I’m counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely. I don’t think we’ll — I hope we don’t need them in terms of the election itself, but for the ballots, I think so. I am 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. I am urging my people — I hope it’s going to be a fair election. If it’s a fair election —” “You’re urging them what?” “— I am 100 percent on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.” “Here’s the deal: They count the ballots. As you’ve pointed out, some of these ballots in some states can’t even be opened until Election Day. And if there’s thousands of ballots, it’s going to take time to do it. No one has established at all that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots, that somehow it’s a fraudulent process.” “It’s already been established.” “He has no idea what he’s talking about. Here’s the deal. The fact is, I will accept it, and he will too. You know why? Because once the winner is declared, after all the ballots are counted, all the votes are counted, that will be the end of it.”
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