Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode One Hundred Sixty Eight: This Shall Not Stand

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Episode One Hundred Sixty Eight: This Shall Not Stand · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number one hundred and sixty eight of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. So
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that presidential debate and the media reaction to it was different. I provide extensive
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analysis, the likes of which you will not hear anywhere else. Gavin Newsome,
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folally gets confronted on his COVID panic, Jerry Sandusky's shocking medical records get
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released to the news media, and some thoughts on our annual family vacation to
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use Semite National Park. Obviously, there is a ton to talk about on
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this episode of the podcast regarding the presidential debate, and we will get to
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all of it. And even though this has probably been the most analyzed debate
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in American history already and I haven't had my say as of yet, I
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still think I'm going to say some things and provide some analysis that you have
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not heard anywhere else, at least I hope I will. That's my goal
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in this That's usually the goal of the Death of Journalism podcast, is to
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provide a perspective that you're not getting anywhere else. And there is a lot
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to get into. So let's start with a review of what I thought was
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going to happen at this debate, essentially my prediction. Our last episode of
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the podcast was called the Trap is Set I believe, as our executive producer,
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Mike Gagavino referred to it, and I have no problem with that because
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I did believe that it looked like the entire situation was a setup. It
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was a trap for Donald Trump. I still believe that that was the intent
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by the Biden people to set a trap for Donald Trump. And the basis
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of this belief was that the rules and the circumstances of the debate on CNN
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in very biased territory, where the rules seem to be set up to restrict
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Trump in every possible way, to protect Biden in numerous ways, that it
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all seemed to be to use a Trump word, to be rigged against Trump.
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In fact, I became so convinced of this narrative based upon Trump's pre
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debate comments and actions and actions of his surrogates, that I tweeted further about
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how this all seems like Trump is setting this up to be able to have
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bitching rights, that he knows he's going to not win the debate, probably
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going to lose it if Biden ends up showing up and not looking completely out
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of it, that he wants everyone to believe that the reason why that happened
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was because this was a system rigged against him. It's CNN, and look
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at all these crazy rules, and it's not fair they have it out for
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me. Wine wine, wine, bitch, bitch, bitch. That's where
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I thought we were going. But that was all predicated upon one very simple
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premise. And that premise, which I've talked constantly about on this podcast,
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is not that Joe Biden is capable on a twenty four to seven basis of
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being at a level of mental acuity that allows him to be president. I
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don't believe that. I've never believed that. However, I do believe that
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in a ninety minute or one hundred minute period of time, where there's a
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lot of preparation and you can rest up for a week and you know,
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get pumped full of viagra, that you're going to be able to get it
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up for that period of time because he's done so in the past. He's
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done so at the State of the Union address, where he exceeded very very
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low expectations, and it was my belief that expectations here were way way too
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low. If you're from the Trump perspective regarding Joe Biden expectations or everything in
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life, these expectations were exceedingly low. And I thought, in a one
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shot deal for ninety or one hundred minutes, in a safe environment where the
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rules are in your favor, where the moderators are in your favor, on
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a network that's a liberal network, that you could fake it. You could
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fake it for ninety minutes. And I was critical of the Trump team because
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basically what the Trump team was doing, in my view, was that they
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were making a bet and taking this early debate with rules that seemingly favored their
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opponent. They were betting on Joe Biden not being able to make what I'm
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referring to as a thirty two yard field goal in a dome stadium where they
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weren't even allowed to rush the kicker. That's essentially what they set up here,
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that this was a chip shot field goal for Joe Biden. All he
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had to do was show up and seem like he was with it. Seem
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like those right wing rumors and the so called cheap fakes were all a bunch
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of BS that he really wasn't that bad off. Yes he's eighty one,
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but sometimes that's charming. And when it really matters, when that chips are
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really down, Biden can get it together and he can at least exceed very
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low expectations. And I thought that was a bad bet by the Trump team
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based upon one my perception of Biden and two my own experience with men like
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Biden in their eighties. I've talked about this all the time. Where the
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big events Christmas, anniversaries, graduations, birthdays, they can generally get it
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together. It's those twenty four to seven moments where people aren't really watching.
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They can get really scary, where you leave the house wondering how the hell
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has nobody burned the house down because things are just that precarious. I've had
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that experience with grandparents and in laws, and I'm sure you have as well.
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Men in their eighties, generally on a twenty four to seven basis,
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cannot perform or function at a high level. It's just not physically possible,
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especially when you're already showing mental decline, as Biden clearly has been doing for
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quite a while. We've documented it on this podcast. The right wing media
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has done so. Now the left wing media has been pretending up until the
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last few days that that's just the right wing bs and it's greatly exaggerated and
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it's just not true. And they've been vouching for Biden's acuity, and Joe
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Scarborough said a few months ago he's never been better, never been sharper.
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We'll get to that in a little bit. But I thought this was a
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bad bet, that Biden couldn't make a thirty two yard field goal in a
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dome stadium with no rushing the kicker, with all the eyes of the nation,
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or at least over fifty million eyes of the nation watching. However,
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when it came down to it, the Trump bet paid off. I was
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wrong. Biden dribbled the thirty two yard field goal into the butt of his
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center, never even got off the ground. And whether it was luck,
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whether it was skill. By the way, I have an interesting theory about
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what could have maybe been going on behind the scenes with regard to Trump's strategy
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on this, which I'll get to momentarily. But regardless whether it's Trump luck
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or a little bit of skill or maybe somewhere in between, it paid off
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at least in the short run. I'm still not convinced of how this is
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all going to turn out in the long run. But in the short run,
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the Trump bet paid off. Biden missed the field goal, and he
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missed it badly. Now, why did Biden miss the field goal? The
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chip shot? I believe that there were a perfect storm of rather interesting and
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somewhat fascinating factors here, you know, because let's be clear, yes,
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Biden's performance was terrible, awful, unacceptable, but it wasn't that much different
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from Joe Biden on a day to day basis. Now, so I'm a
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little bit baffled as to how, especially the media can pretend that, oh
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my god, this is somebody we've never seen before. What are you talking
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about? This was just a situation where the real normal Joe Biden happened to
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show up instead of what you were hoping for. What you were, I
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guess expecting, like I was, that were the weeks worth of rest and
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preparation that Biden would be able to get it together. So that's the first
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part of this that I think is interesting. Yes, Biden was terrible,
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but it wasn't It wasn't as the worst I could have possibly imagined. I
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could have imagined it being even worse at times. I remember, this is
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ninety minutes with no notes, and you know, from a substances standpoint,
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Biden was able to answer most of the questions. I had huge problems with
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the way he did so, but it could have been a lot worse based
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upon some of the things we've already seen from Biden in public. I'm not
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trying to diminish how bad it was. I'm trying to make the point that
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it's weird to me that instantaneously everybody, especially democratic elites and members of the
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media, which are basically the same thing, had the same visceral reaction to
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what they were seeing. It didn't take even five minutes before people were freaking
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out. And why was that. It's not as if Biden came on the
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stage and started talking about things that weren't even related to the questions he was
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being asked, or couldn't spit out any words, or vomited on himself,
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or I mean, that's not what happened. So what did happen? Well,
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I think what happened was the visual contrast with Trump and the comparison that
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people automatically made mostly subconsciously in their brains between the twenty twenty debates and the
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twenty twenty four debates, and when you looked at Biden and you listened to
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his voice, and you looked at Trump and you listened to his voice,
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the contrast was stark. You could almost hear liberals saying, oh shit.
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And if this was a boxing match, they'd be saying, oh my,
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our guy's a lot smaller than I remember. Their guy is a lot bigger
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than I remember. He hasn't changed at all since twenty twenty. Our guy
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is greatly diminished. I mean you put it in Rocky terms, this is,
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oh my god, Trump looks like Van Drago and our guy looks like
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a puny Rocky. Forget about who won that in the Rocky movie. But
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I mean that. I think there was a visceral fear, like, holy
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shit, Biden's dealing with a monster he can't possibly contend with. He's not
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physically capable. And a lot of it had to do with comparing what we
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were seeing to what we remember from twenty twenty. And it's that contrast that
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made it clear how diminished Biden has become. See, I am convinced that
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Let's pretend that that debate was not a debate. Let's pretend it was an
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interview live between Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and the President of the United States,
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not the Biden never does press conferences an he bore or live interviews.
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That would be something else, just you know, noteworthy on itself, which
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I think is emblematic of this entire issue. But let's just pretend that Trump
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wasn't there. Okay, I want you to play that little thought experiment with
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me. If Trump wasn't there, this would have been seen as a bad
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appearance. I don't think it would have been seen quite as catastrophic because there
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wouldn't have been the contrast with Trump. Now again, Trump has huge problems,
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but he physically looks with it. You know, his facial expressions are
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with it. His voice is strong. He you know, even though you
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won't agree with him, or you might say he's playing fast and loose with
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the truth, most of the time he makes sense. And he was frankly
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extremely disciplined. I'll get to that in just a second during this debate.
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So I think the fact that it was literally Trump's presence had such an enormous
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impact on how people were perceiving things. You take Trump off that stage,
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I don't think people would have had nearly the same negative reaction to Biden's performance.
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More specifically, there's the issue of the voice. And obviously, as
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a longtime radio guy and a podcaster, you know, audio is a huge
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part of my life. Voice is a big part of what has been my
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career. I think I have a really good ear for voices, and I
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think it was like ten seconds into the debate, I tweeted Biden's voice with
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you know, a hand over my face emoji, this is gonna be bad.
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The voice was awful. It was ancient sounding. Now somewhere in the
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middle of the debate, NBC, a reporter from NBC tweeted that the Biden
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sources were telling her that Biden had a cold, which, by the way,
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I think it's possible. I think it's possible that Joe Biden had a
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cold. I think though that wasn't the reason for his performance, And I
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think that it would have more credibility if we had been told that before the
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debate instead of in the middle of the debate when it was going very very
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badly for Joe Biden. But here's a zig analogy, metaphor similarly, comparison,
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whatever you want to call it, that you're not going to hear anywhere
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else. With regard to the influence and the power of Biden's very weak voice
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and the influence that it had on people's perceptions of this debate, you're probably
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familiar with an animated movie called up At Asner played the lead role. It's
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about the House that Floats away. It's very poignant movie. But the villain
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in the movie, in this animated movie is the lead dog in a pack
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of dogs. He's the bad guy. Now I have you've seen this movie,
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you know what I'm going to talk about here, and that is that
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there's a scene where this lead dog, the alpha dog, has something happened
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to him where his voice goes from being very commanding to very weak and very
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squeaky, and all of a sudden, the rest of the pack of dogs
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turns on him and goes from being afraid of him to laugh at at him.
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And to me, it's the best visual illustration of how human beings react
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to voices. And when you have a very weak sounding voice, as Biden
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did during that debate, it almost doesn't matter what else is going on.
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It doesn't matter what else you say, It doesn't matter who else you are,
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or who else you are doesn't make any damn sense. It doesn't matter
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who you are. Like in the movie, the Dog hadn't changed at all,
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just the sound of his voice had, but the perception of him was
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radically altered. Well, I think a similar phenomenon happened with Joe Biden.
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And let me give you a specific example of that. There were moments in
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the debate where Biden turned dramatically to Trump and made statements that I'm sure he
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thought, and I'm sure his people thought, we're going to be Mike drop.
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Moments where he condemns Trump. I remember one in particular, where you
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know, he admonishes Trump for the alleged suckers and losers comment, which I
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don't even think Trump said regarding the soldiers having died in war, and he
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references his own son, and by the way, playing fast and loose with
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the facts of that whole situation, but he implies that his son died in
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war. I guess, and you know, my son wasn't a sucker or
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a loser. You are right now that I'm sure was planned, and I'm
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sure that Biden thought, man, I really hit a home run there,
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But because his voice was weak and decrepit, it had no power. It
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actually came across as weird and angry and feckless. And so that to me
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is the power of the voice. Now, how much of that was a
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cold or cold medication? How much of that is simply because he's very old.
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And I'm a big believer, not just in the power of the voice,
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but I actually think you can tell when someone is nearing death by the
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sound of their voice. I have picked that up numerous times among public figures.
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I was worried about Jack Nicholas a couple years ago. He's about the
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only person I've ever been wrong about where I thought Jack Nicholas was starting to
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get the sound of death in his voice, and now he's kind of gotten
19:44
it back. So maybe he was just having a cold. I don't know,
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but I've seen it happen many times before. In my experience, I've
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never seen anyone live all that long, maybe a couple of years, once
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they get the sound of death in their voice, And Biden had the sound
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of death in his voice, and that I think played a huge, huge
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role in how people perceived what was happening. But it wasn't just the voice.
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It was also Biden's very distant looks. There were moments where he looked
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when Trump was answering questions, when Biden looked completely out of it. His
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face was vacant, his looks were distant, and the split screen did Biden
20:33
no favors. Now, I don't know whether or not they did a poor
20:37
job of preparing Biden for the split screen. If they did, that's political
20:42
malpractice because it's clearly going to be a huge part of the entire presentation,
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and everyone knew what was going to happen. Well, there was no confusion
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over where the cameras were or the fact that they were going to show both
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candidates simultaneously for most of the debate, and yet Biden had no idea where
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to look left right, He never looked center. Sometimes he went off in
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a completely opposite direction of where Trump was. He was showing his profile,
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which is never good. Thank for take it from me, someone who was
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a terrible profile. So you want to look straight ahead. You either want
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to look straight ahead into the camera or at the very least directly at your
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opponent, and Biden didn't do that, So he had at times a completely
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lost look, and he had no understanding or seemingly no understanding of the power
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of the split screen and the significance of it. Meanwhile, Trump, who's
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a media master, this is his wheelhouse. He absolutely understood the split screen
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and it played into his favor. But to be clear, it wasn't just
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the voice. It wasn't just the looks. There were brain freezes and brain
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farts, and there were at least two or three sound bites in the ninety
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five minute debate where Biden clearly lost whatever train of thought he had and made
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nonsensical statements, and those were key because, you know, even though it
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only happened two or three times, it's a lot in ninety five minutes when
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you're the president of the United States, But two or three is enough to
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where that solidifies the narrative. It's not just boy, something didn't seem right.
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Here's the meat on the bone. Here's the reality that, oh my
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god, can you believe Biden said this, or Biden didn't say anything here,
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or you know, he completely lost this trainer thought and started mumbling,
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and at one point one of the worst soundbites where he just basically gives up,
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and Jake Tapper has to come in and say, thank you, mister
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president. Let's move on. Now. This is where Donald Trump's discipline And
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I can't believe I'm even saying those words, because this is the first time
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I think I've ever praised Donald Trump's discipline where his discipline comes in in a
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very big way, because the normal Donald Trump, at least in my view,
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would have immediately started attacking Biden personally the moment that he made any sort
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of slip up that indicated his declining mental acuity. In other words, that
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Trump would have been on a hair trigger to jump on anything that promoted that
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narrative, a narrative that Trump has been you know, obviously making a big
24:04
deal out of, understandably on the campaign trail, and you know, obviously
24:08
his campaign knows this is a huge part of the narrative and the potentially the
24:14
equation for him to win. So Trump is famously undisciplined, and I kept
24:22
expecting Trump to overplay his hand when it came to how poorly Biden was performing.
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He did not do that, and I was impressed. Now it's possible
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that this is where the rules that people like me thought were going to favor
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Biden, actually did Trump a favor because one of those rules was that the
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mics were turned off when you weren't answering a question, I thought, and
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most people thought that would hurt Trump because it would not allow him to interrupt
25:03
Biden. Biden would feel comfortable knowing he wasn't going to be interrupted. I
25:07
thought that one of the strengths Trump would have would be able to get in
25:11
a good line in the middle of something that Biden was saying, because Trump
25:17
is a lot quicker than Biden, a lot funnier than Biden. But in
25:22
this particular case, because Trump knew his mic was off, he shut up
25:30
except for one situation, which I'm going to get to later on, which
25:33
was probably the most bizarre element of the entire debate, which was the whole
25:37
golf argument. But we'll get to that and due course. But the reality
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is, for most of the debate, Trump was very cognizant that his mic
25:48
was off, and so I think that forced discipline on his part. And
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the beauty of what Trump did was he loud. Biden had a couple of
26:02
different answers that were ridiculous and mockworthy without going on the attack until finally he
26:14
understood that even the audience was well aware of this, and he responded to
26:21
a Biden answer by saying, I, frankly don't understand his last sentence,
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and I don't think he does either. That was devastating. That probably was
26:30
the moment of the debate for Donald Trump. And the reason why it was
26:37
so powerful was that Trump had waited. He allowed things to take their course.
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He didn't jump in prematurely. It was clear to the entire audience,
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it was even clear to the moderators and to the media that Trump was only
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saying what everybody else was thinking. And that's why it worked. Now,
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this is where we get to my I don't even know if I call it
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a theory. It's just maybe an interesting way of thinking about what may have
27:15
actually been happening here and what's really going on with Joe Biden. You know,
27:21
for months, the right wing has been referencing Biden has having dementia.
27:26
And I've used the word dementia many times. I often, in my mind,
27:30
I'm using it quotes because he's never been diagnosed that we're aware of with
27:36
dementia. I'm not an expert on dementia, but I just I'm not sure
27:41
that's what it is. Because let's be clear, For even though his voice
27:47
was terrible and his words were mumbled intellectually substantively, for a huge portion of
27:53
that debate, Biden showed no signs of dementia, and so I'm not sure
28:00
that's really what he has. But here's why I'm mentioning it in this context.
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So since the debate, I have probably seen at least three or four
28:10
interviews or TikTok videos put out by clearly non partisan doctors. It's weird to
28:18
me that they've just decided now that this is a good time to come forward
28:22
with their informal diagnosis. But these all seem to be very credible people,
28:29
and they almost all of them have come to the same conclusion based upon watching
28:34
Biden for ninety or one hundred minutes. And the word they keep using is
28:41
Parkinson's not dementia. Again, I'm not an expert in this area, but
28:48
that makes a little bit more sense to me. And here's where that leads
28:52
to. Again, I don't know if you want to call this a theory
28:56
or something that may or may not have happened, and that allowed Trump to
29:02
be as disciplined as he was, and even caused the Trump people to take
29:06
this debate in the first place. Now, if I've believed that the Trump
29:14
team was really with it, that they were they were really smart, that
29:21
they were really full of experts and really on their game, and if I
29:25
believed that Trump was, you know, this true genius, I think there
29:30
would be a theory here that would make some sense as to what really happened.
29:34
And here's that theory again, the caveat being I don't have nearly this
29:40
much faith in the Trump team to believe that this is what happened. Let's
29:45
let me let me back up. If if the exact same circumstances had occurred
29:48
with Ron DeSantis and the Desantas team had inexplicably accepted these terms of this debate
29:59
at this time, I'm of the campaign an unprecedented early debate where the rules
30:04
seemingly were fit for Biden and where the venue was pro Biden since it was
30:10
CNN. If the Desantist people had done that and it turned this out this
30:15
way, I would have a lot more confidence that what I'm about to tell
30:21
you may have actually happened. So with all those caveats. Here's my thought.
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And this came to me as I was watching all these doctors on TikTok
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and elsewhere saying that they believe that Biden has some level of Parkinson's. What
30:38
if there's a doctor on the Trump team or related to the doctor to the
30:45
Trump team that said, Hey, look, I've been watching videos of the
30:49
president. Here's exactly what he has, and here's what's going to happen if
30:56
you debate him. As long as this is a debate where he has no
31:00
notes and where he has to stand for ninety minutes and it's after nine o'clock
31:07
at night, you're not going to have to worry about anything. I can
31:11
imagine that conversation happening. That that would be an explanation for why the Trump
31:21
team accepted this debate allowed him a situation, Biden where all he had to
31:26
do was kick a thirty two yard field goal in a dome stadium, because
31:32
they had someone telling him telling them he can't make the field goal under these
31:37
certain circumstances. In other words, they were told, I don't care what
31:42
you have to do, just make sure the debate is after nine o'clock at
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least ninety minutes. He's standing the whole time, and he has no notes.
31:53
He can't do it. I have no way of knowing that actually happened.
32:00
That would make everything in my mind makes sense. It would make sense
32:06
why the Trump team did this, and it would make sense as to how
32:09
the very undisciplined Donald Trump was able to be extremely disciplined. It was almost
32:19
like he was a football coach who knew the scouting report was just be patient.
32:28
This team can't make it for the full sixty minutes. Just be patient,
32:32
Just be patient. And that's what happened. Again, this could be
32:37
a complete fantasy. With the Trump team, you never know, because they're
32:43
often very lucky. There's not usually a lot of science or expertise behind anything
32:49
they do. It's a lot of seat of their pants. It's a lot
32:52
of based upon Trump's gut. So I don't know. Like I said,
32:55
if this was DeSantis, I would be very confident and that they knew that,
33:01
almost like a fighter, you know, knowing that the fight was their
33:07
opponent had been drugged or something. I'm not suggesting that at all, though,
33:09
I'm sure some whack jobs now believe in that conspiracy theory since Biden seemingly
33:17
did better in other events in public, specifically the next day. What was
33:22
going on that night, was he drugged up? Whatever? Who knows.
33:24
But the point of all this is that in retrospect, if they did this
33:31
again under exactly the same or similar circumstances, Biden wouldn't perform any better,
33:37
because this is who Biden is now, and the media is pretending that this
33:44
is a new Biden, they'd never seen this before, which is utterly ridiculous.
33:47
But that's not the reality, you know. The reality is that the
33:52
left wing media is now saying things that a couple of weeks ago we're right
33:57
wing conspiracy theories. Now all of a sudden, this is just accepted as
34:01
truth because we all saw it live with our own eyes. Now. I'm
34:07
going to get to the media reaction to all this more in just a moment,
34:10
but I do want to at least reference that while I'm praising Trump for
34:15
his discipline, Trump also missed a lot of opportunities during this debate. I
34:20
mean that was very frustrating. I mean I already referenced what if DeSantis had
34:24
been on that stage, My god, if Desandas had been on that stage,
34:30
this campaign would be completely over and because DeSantis would have been able to
34:35
handle not just the Biden lack of mental acuity issue very very well, but
34:42
on the substantive issues, he would have taken advantage of opportunities that Trump missed.
34:46
There were so many. Let me just give you one example that no
34:51
one else is going to mention with regard to what I thought was a miss
34:54
Trump opportunity. The question of race came up. And I'm going to get
34:59
to how how CNN is getting a pass on these questions because Biden did so
35:06
poorly and because Republicans feel so good about the debate. I thought the CNN
35:10
questions were terrible, both in the questions that they asked as well as the
35:15
questions that they did not ask. I'll get to that momentarily. But the
35:20
race question, which of course is always out there, and it's always out
35:22
there from the standpoint of oh woe is what black people? The poor black
35:28
people? What can we do for black people? It's always from that liberal,
35:31
what I believe to be racist perspective, why can't you do more for
35:37
black people? Aren't black people disappointed by how much you've done for them?
35:40
Which is so insulted? In my view, to black people. But Biden's
35:45
answer, especially considering the fact that this is a huge issue for him and
35:49
the black vote is a huge part of this campaign, and that Biden can't
35:53
win unless he recovers at least in perception with the black vote, especially in
36:00
Michigan and Pennsylvania, Biden's answer was very weak, very weak, both substantively
36:07
and from a performance standpoint. And Trump, to me, dave a very
36:15
weak answer himself. He went right along with the whole idea that we're supposed
36:20
to evaluate your candidacy visit v black voters by how much you've done for them.
36:25
And you know, because you're never as a Republican, you're never going
36:30
to be able to outdo Democrats or Biden on how much have we given away
36:36
to black people situation. To me, Trump had a great opportunity to talk
36:44
to the American people and say, hey, look, this guy here is
36:47
insulting to black people. He thinks black people owe him their vote. He's
36:54
basically said that he believes not inequality of opportunity, he believes in equity of
37:01
outcome. That is insulting to black people because he believes black people cannot compete
37:09
on an even playing field. It's also insulting to white people and Asians and
37:15
Hispanics because they, according to Joe Biden, black people should be getting preferential
37:22
treatment simply because of the color of their skin. That's not America. That's
37:29
not the America I believe in. That's not the America most Americans believe in.
37:36
But that's the America Joe Biden believes in. And it's insulting to black
37:42
people. I want a world like Martin Luther King Junior wanted, where people
37:47
are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
37:52
And he is driving us in the opposite direction of that, simply because
37:58
he's desperate for black votes. Now, if anything close to that have been
38:04
said by Donald Trump, can you imagine can you imagine the mic drop moment,
38:13
the viral moment that that would have created, especially I think within the
38:19
black community, especially in this social media era. I think it could have
38:23
been a game changer. It was a missed opportunity by Donald Trump. And
38:29
you know why it's a missed opportunity. It's not just because Trump's not a
38:31
very good debater. He isn't really a conservative. That's the core problem.
38:37
Because a conservative like a Rhonda Santis would have instincttionally responded in that way.
38:43
A liberal responded like Trump did, which is no, I can out give
38:49
away Joe Biden when it comes to black people. And with regard to you
38:57
know, the scene in questions, the race question itself is insulting because of
39:02
the way it was framed. But race issues in this country, which have
39:07
always been a huge issue, have morphed dramatically in the last few years.
39:15
How come no question about the affirmative action in admissions in schools decision by the
39:23
US Supreme Court, or the fact that whites and Asians believe that they're now
39:29
being discriminated against because of all of this reverse discrimination, No question about that
39:35
at all. That's bias. That's the CNN bias that they see race through
39:42
the prism of only one way of looking at this. Well, black people
39:46
aren't doing well. It's because we're not giving them enough. And there's no
39:51
concept that other races may be legitimately feeling as if they're being discriminated against because
39:58
we've created this very screwed up society where instead of color meaning nothing, color
40:06
means everything. So that to me was one of many areas of dramatic bias
40:15
omission on the part of CNN's questioning. But it wasn't just the issue of
40:20
race. They threw in a question about the climate crisis, which they always
40:24
do because that's part of the liberal media religion. And the climate crisis question
40:30
really pissed me off for a couple of reasons, one of which Dana Bash
40:35
asked the question and she referenced rising sea levels. She referenced rising sea levels.
40:44
Now. The reason why that was particularly infuriating was just the day before,
40:49
the New York Times had a major article which they put out in their
40:53
email newsletter, which was hilarious because it dealt with a study, a very
41:00
respective study that, Oh, by the way, isn't this weird? You
41:05
know how we were told that islands, little islands, were going to disappear
41:08
because of rising sea levels. Yeah, that hasn't happened. In fact,
41:14
it's the opposite. Weirdly, these islands are actually increasing slightly in size generally.
41:21
And the hilarity of the article was the explanation for this wasn't that the
41:27
sea levels aren't really rising. We've accepted that the sea levels are all they
41:30
have to be rising because that's part of our religion. No, they came
41:35
up with some convoluted bullshit about how, somehow rising sea levels is consistent with
41:39
small islands getting bigger, which is just ridiculous, absurd. It's like,
41:45
you know, global warming causing more cold weather. It's just so ridiculous.
41:51
But the point is that here we have The New York Times the day before
41:55
acknowledging that one of the basic tenets of the climate crisis, the sea level
42:01
rise, doesn't really appear to be happening, or if it is, somehow
42:06
it's not having any impact at all. And yet it still makes it into
42:10
a question for the President of the United States, of course, clearly under
42:15
the premise that it's real, the climate crisis is real, and we must
42:22
do something about it. I mean, that is as biased as it gets
42:27
right out of the CNN liberal media playbook. But then it got even worse
42:32
to me because at the end, at the end, or here's how they
42:38
got into the climate crisis question. This is what really pissed me off about
42:42
the climate crisis question because it came right out of Joe Biden claiming that Trump
42:49
destroyed the twenty twenty economy, that Trump destroyed the twenty twenty economy. He
42:57
decimated. You decimated the economy. That's why we had no inflation, because
43:01
you destroyed the economy in twenty twenty, which, of course is absurd,
43:08
even though I loathed Donald Trump, it's absurd because that all happened thanks to
43:13
the COVID panic that allowed thanks to Democratic governors Davin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo.
43:20
That's what destroyed the economy. And Biden angrily and forcefully claimed directly at Trump
43:29
that he had destroyed the economy. And instead of giving Trump the opportunity to
43:34
respond to this, and how Trump didn't jump out of his skin is beyond
43:37
me. I thought it was another missed opportunity by Trump. I think he
43:40
should have not allowed the debate to continue on it was because that was such
43:45
an easily refutable charge and such a potentially devastating allegation against him. Instead of
43:53
giving Trump the opportunity to respond to that bullshit, Dana Bash went right into
44:00
a climate crisis question, which I just thought was one of the worst moments
44:06
of the debate from the moderation standpoint. But the immigration question was weak and
44:13
dealt with quickly. It was not done from a remotely conservative perspective. That
44:17
was another example of bias on the part of CNN. But the real bias
44:23
came in the subjects that were never made questions. For instance, how the
44:30
hell, especially in the you know, the end of Pride month, with
44:36
everything that's been going on with transgenderism in this country, how do you have
44:40
no questions about the issue of transgenderism or you know, men playing female sports,
44:49
or any other issues related to transgenderism. Not one question. Gee,
44:53
I wonder why that was. Oh, I know why that was because everybody
45:00
at CNN knows that's a very bad question for Joe Biden. They have to
45:05
pretend to ask the immigration question because that's at the top of everybody's list of
45:10
important subjects. You know, every polling, transgenderism doesn't rate nearly as highly,
45:19
so they can pretend that that doesn't really exist or it's not that important.
45:22
No, if they thought it was going to work for them politically,
45:27
or worked for Biden politically, they would have asked about it. But they
45:30
didn't ask about it because that's bias. They also didn't ask any questions about
45:36
the campus protests this past spring, one of the biggest news stories of the
45:39
year, or the anti semitism among liberal elites in academia. Gee, I
45:46
wonder why didn't ask that question? Because they know it doesn't work for Biden.
45:52
So no questions about transgenderism, no questions about campus protests or anti semitism.
45:58
Once again, and this is us so mind blowing that I don't even
46:02
I mean, I've given up. It's just so ridiculous. Historians are I
46:07
think decades from now, are going to go, how the fuck is this
46:09
possible? But once again we had a major debate with no COVID response questions,
46:16
not one. Now came up tangentially a couple of times, but no
46:21
direct questions about COVID. To my recollection, I don't think there was any
46:25
COVID questions in any at least not in the liberal media hosting of the Republican
46:31
debates. This is the biggest thing that's happened in the modern history of the
46:37
country, and we've never had any legitimate questioning at a presidential debate about the
46:45
COVID response. How is that possible? Well, the reason why it doesn't
46:50
happen is because the news media wants to forget about it. They know at
46:53
some level that it was all screw up. It was all fiasco. Is
46:59
not exactly the same thing as transgenderism or the campus protests. But they know
47:02
this is not a good subject, and we're just all going to move along
47:07
and pretend that that didn't really happen. So no COVID response questions. And
47:13
by the way, I think both Trump and Biden should be held accountable obviously
47:17
for the horrendous response during the COVID panic. So that pissed me off that
47:22
there were no questions. It's just unbelievable. It's absolutely unbelievable. How you
47:25
don't ask a question about COVID. I mean, you know, we have
47:30
a rematch of the two candidates that were running during COVID, and you don't
47:36
even ask one question about Okay, so whose response was better, who was
47:40
worse? What did we do right? What did we do wrong? Nothing?
47:45
Not one question about student debt forgiveness, which is another huge issue where
47:51
Biden is openly defying the Supreme Court in paying off voters by using our to
48:00
forgive student debt against what the Supreme Court declared was legal. Yet no question
48:08
about this, even though the entire Biden effort had gotten rebuked in court either
48:15
that day or the day before, I can't remember which, so it was
48:20
even in the news that week. Well, why was there no student debt
48:25
forgiveness question? Because they know that's not good for Biden. They know,
48:30
My god, can you imagine if Trump was president he was defining the Supreme
48:34
Court by trying to buy off votes by forgiving student debt. I can guarantee,
48:39
MTA that question would come up in a presidential debate, but not in
48:45
this one. And then finally, no questions about the vice presidencies, the
48:52
vice presidential candidates, no questions about Kamala Harris, no questions about who Trump
49:00
going to pick is his VP, which right now, I mean, that's
49:02
a huge decision right now. On paper, Trump is about to reveal he
49:08
was supposedly going to reveal. There rumors that he was going to reveal either
49:12
directly or indirectly, who his VP nominee was going to be during the debate.
49:16
That didn't happen or after the debate. There was all sorts of stories
49:20
circulating about that that never occurred. I don't know if that was bullshit or
49:23
they change and planned because they didn't want to distract from the Biden disaster.
49:30
But Trump's VP pick is going to be the most significant in the modern history
49:36
of the country from all sorts of respects, because he's now the clear favorite,
49:40
at least in perception, to be the next president. He's seventy eight
49:45
years old, so who he picks is his VP is by far the most
49:51
underrated issue in the campaign right now. No questions about either Kamala Harris,
49:57
her fitness, or whether or not she will take over. That's the part
50:01
that's the question that should have asked related to the age question was Okay,
50:07
so are you going to serve a full second term or is Kamala Harris gonna
50:12
take over? Is that the plan in your second term so that she becomes
50:15
an incumbent in twenty twenty eight. How do you not ask that question?
50:21
It's so I am not willing to say that CNN did a great job in
50:27
this debate. There were conservatives, even Trump fans, who were saying that
50:30
CNN really deserves credit. That's just ridiculous. They're only evaluating that because Biden
50:37
shited the bed. If Biden had not shited the bed, all the things
50:42
that I'm talking about right now would have been of grave concern to Trump fans
50:47
and conservatives, and so I do not give kudos to CNN and how they
50:53
handle this. And as far as the age question was concerned, I even
50:57
tweeted about this about two thirds of the way through the debate, were really
51:00
going to go through this whole debate without an age question? Well, they
51:04
finally got to it near the very end of the debate, and the age
51:09
question I think has been lost in all of the other attention related to what
51:15
happened in the first twenty five minutes of the debate. I think the age
51:20
question was Biden's most underrated by far bad answer. I think it was a
51:27
catastrophically bad answer on multiple levels for Joe Biden when he was given the age
51:35
question. The age question is one they obviously had prepared for. It's one
51:40
that has a very clear history. Anyone of my age or older will remember
51:46
what happened in the second debate in nineteen eighty four between Ronald Reagan and Walter
51:52
Mondale. After Reagan had had a poor first debate, he was asked very
51:58
gently but firmly about his age. He was seventy three at the time,
52:02
and Reagan was prepared, and Reagan said very deadpan that he would not use
52:12
for political purposes his opponent's youth and inexperience, And in probably the most significant
52:22
director's move in the history of presidential debates, the director cut perfectly from Reagan
52:31
on a one shot to Reagan and Mondale in a two shot, and Mondale
52:37
laughed, and the election was over. The election was over. Even the
52:44
moderator laughed, the audience laughed. And what's really interesting about that situation because
52:51
you know, even though I was in high school at the time, I
52:54
was a huge Ronald Reagan fan, and I will never forget that while that
53:00
was a great moment, it completely overshadowed what happened at the very end of
53:07
that debate, at the very end of that debate. After you know,
53:10
it's so ironic and so telling that that debate historically gets known for the joke
53:16
that ended the age question. When later on in that debate, during the
53:23
closing statements, Ronald Reagan had to be cut off because he literally got lost
53:31
on a car ride on the on the coast of California somewhere. I mean
53:37
that he started trying to tell the story. It is closing prepared remarks about
53:43
California, driving up and down the coast and he got literally and figuratively lost,
53:50
and they had to stop him in the middle of the story. It
53:54
was embarrassing. I was crestfallen, but it didn't matter because the story had
54:01
already been written, the joke had already eliminated the issue, the narrative was
54:08
already going to be set. Which shows you how important the first few minutes
54:14
of these debates are. The last few minutes mean almost nothing. But Biden
54:20
blew it on this age question. He had no set answer. In fact,
54:27
he didn't even respond to the question. And later it has been reported
54:31
and I don't know whether this is asked covering on the part of Biden operatives,
54:37
but it seemed pretty credible to me. There was a report from a
54:39
liberal outlet that Biden's handlers I'm going to paraphrase here, were shocked that Biden
54:47
did not use the prepared response to the age question, which is rather telling,
54:54
ironic and really says it all, doesn't it, Because when you forget
55:01
what you're supposed to say in response to the age question, it's pretty much
55:07
game, set match. So I don't know what they had prepared. It
55:12
was clearly not what Biden said, because he had no line. I mean
55:16
it's a I mean Reagan proved. I mean he could have been referenced Reagan.
55:22
If he had just simply quoted Reagan, he would have done way better
55:28
than what he did. Instead, he barely answered the question, and then
55:32
he moved off into other areas and somehow got himself into a situation that devolved
55:40
into a debate over golf. I mean, if you're the Biden team and
55:45
you're like, Okay, how badly could the age question possibly go? I
55:51
doubt you could come up with a scenario that would be worse than Biden forgetting
55:57
what he's supposed to say, not really answering the question, trying to claim
56:04
the stuff about his accomplishments and how he gets things done, and then in
56:09
response to Trump's answer to the question, somehow getting into a debate over who's
56:15
the better golfer, which is absurd on its face, even as a golfer
56:21
myself, but particularly bad for Biden when it is very obvious who the better
56:27
golfer is and it's not even close, and that's Donald Trump. But this
56:32
was by far the most bizarre, pathetic, possibly the funniest moment in the
56:40
debate, where Trump and Biden get into this argument over who's the better golfer,
56:50
and Biden at first claims to be a six handicap, and then he
56:54
pulls it back to say, well, I'm an eight hitdicap, which is
56:58
a flat out lie. And the funniest part to me in all this is
57:04
that all the lies that Biden told about Trump. He doesn't really go off
57:09
on Biden at all during the entire debate, but he draws the line here.
57:14
He draws the line. He draws the line at Biden claiming to be
57:19
a six handicap that really got under Trump's skin and required a response, and
57:24
really the only response during the entire debate where Trump tries to speak over his
57:31
might being turned off. And here's what that sounded like during the debate.
57:37
I'm in very good health. I just won two club championships, not even
57:40
senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be
57:45
quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long
57:47
way. And I do it. He doesn't do it. He can't hit
57:50
a ball fifty yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can't
57:52
hit a ball fifty yards. I think I'm in very good shape. I
57:55
feel that as in good as shape as I was twenty five, thirty years
58:00
ago. Actually, I'm probably a little bit lighter look. I'd be happy
58:02
to have a driving contest them. I mean, I got my handicap,
58:07
which when I was Vice president down to a six. And well, by
58:12
the way I told you before, I'm happy to play golf. If you
58:15
carry your own bag, I think you can do it. That's the biggest
58:19
lie. He's a six handicap. Of all, I was an eight handicap
58:22
now height, but I see this way, I know this way. Let's
58:31
not act like children. Now. There are so many funny elements to that
58:37
exchange, But to me, the most humorous is that Trump decides, Okay,
58:45
this shall not stand. Joe Biden, you can claim that I decimated
58:52
the twenty twenty economy that when that was really the COVID panic led by your
58:57
own Democratic governors. And I'm not going to respond. But you claim to
59:00
be a six handicap, and that's where I must draw the line. This
59:06
cannot stand. Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports tweeted during the debate about this,
59:15
which I thought was very well said. He wrote, Trump nearly fell off
59:20
the stage and Biden said he was a six handicap like nothing else faced him
59:24
that literally almost knocked him over. And it's so true, But it's also
59:31
a lie on Biden's part. I mean, and it's not a completely irrelevant
59:36
lie. I mean, Biden thinking that he is a six or an eight
59:40
handicap is I think significant and emblematic of where we are in this race right
59:49
now and how and why it is that Democrats are very very unlikely to be
59:53
able to get Biden to drop out. I think there's a direct connection to
59:59
that because it shows that Biden is delusional about his own abilities. That's why
1:00:07
this is significant. One. It's a lie, but in this case,
1:00:12
we're dealing with a man who's eighty one years old who doesn't realize his abilities
1:00:16
are diminished. Now, is there some point in his life when he could
1:00:21
have been close to an eight handicap? Maybe, I guess, But I've
1:00:24
seen the same videos that Trump was referencing, and there's zero chance, zero
1:00:30
chance that Joe Biden is anything close to an eight handicap right now. Joe
1:00:35
Biden couldn't break a hundred on a very short, easy golf course. Meanwhile,
1:00:39
Donald Trump while he cheats and lies his ass off, and you know,
1:00:44
those club championships are all very questionable. There's zero doubt, zero doubt
1:00:50
that Donald Trump would crush Joe Biden on the golf course in every possible way.
1:00:55
And Trump knows this, and the fact that Biden doesn't seem to know
1:01:00
this, I think is troubling. That didn't seem to me to be just
1:01:06
bravado on Biden's part. He seems to be that delusional. And if you're
1:01:12
that delusional about your golf game, then it's not a stretch that you're going
1:01:16
to be that delusional about what your abilities are to do the job of president
1:01:22
and whether or not you can actually serve another four years. Thanks for listening
1:01:29
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