Hello and welcome to this late night reaction edition of the 538 Politics podcast. I'm Galen Droog. We've just wrapped the first twenty twenty presidential debate between Trump and Biden. And like much of the Trump presidency, it was Norm breaking during large portions of the debate. Trump prevented the pre agreed structure of the debate from happening by interrupting Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace. The president spread conspiracy theories, including about the integrity of the election and again did not agree to a peaceful transfer of power.

He also declined to condemn white supremacist groups, telling one white supremacist group to stand back and stand by. We all just live blog this debate. And so we were dealing with the irregularities of it in real time. People can go read those on 538 dotcom. But here to podcast our reactions as well are 538 editor in chief Nate Silver.

Hey, Nate. Hey, Galen. Also here with us is senior politics writer Claire Malone. Hey, Claire Haglund and managing editor Mikiko. And hey, Mike.

Hey, Gailen, everybody. So I don't have any particularly pointed questions out of the gate, but I am curious to get your reactions to what we all just watched, Nate, if you want to kick us off.

I wasn't surprised by it. It seemed to reflect a lot of things the president has said in recent days, it seemed to be a lot of his inner monologue, like you see on his Twitter feed. Sometimes it seemed like the strategy of a of a candidate who isn't happy with his position in the race. I was also not surprised that Joe Biden, I don't think was super sharp, especially in the first half of the debate, although I thought he did get quite a bit better in the second half.

The debate, he seemed at times a little bit rattled by nothing of the kind of his thoughts, although he adjusted to it a little bit. I'm not surprised that Trump refused to kind of denounce. White supremacy. I'm not surprised that Trump refused to kind of say he would respect the results of the election. I'm not surprised that Trump was. Not talking to people in the audience or at home, but kind of, again, engaging in his own head space, I'm not surprised that he attacked the moderation.

I'm not surprised that there was. This kind of both sides ism from a lot of the commentary afterward, I'm not sure who is really expecting it, but I don't think any of that was surprising given the campaign and the presidency that we witnessed for four years.

Yeah, I guess to tack on to what Nate said, I mean, if you're if you're any kind of paying attention to the news or to Twitter, everything that Trump said, he said before, with I guess the exception of, like the in the moment jabs against Biden, I think the big thing that people watching at home will probably take away from it is just the chaotic, impolitic on a personal conversational level that the debate was. I mean, it was just a really a really.

Chaotic thing to watch, it was hard, particularly the first half, to get any kind of sense of what either of them were trying to say because Trump was interrupting so much during Biden's time. And as Nate said, Biden, you know, it wasn't completing the full thought because Trump was throwing them off with interruptions. Biden towards the second half of the debate, kind of started to just do this thing where he would speak to camera or kind of laugh uncomfortably when with along with, frankly, moderator, the moderator, Chris Wallace, whatever.

Trump would interrupt.

But it was just like kind of a devolved spectacle and sort of bizarre to watch.

Frankly, it just felt like a very I think, you know, we were all probably talking four years ago at the same time about how unnerving and weird the the 2016 debates were when Trump kind of, you know, this was a whole different level.

The 2016 presidential debates were more or less debate. Right. This was like a certain point. This wasn't a debate.

Yeah. I mean, it was just, you know, that was. Oh, the sort of there were a lot of, you know, think pieces about the menacing body language of Trump versus, you know, when he kind of came from behind Hillary Clinton.

This was just flat out the first 20 minutes were kind of incoherent. You couldn't figure out what they were talking about. Chris Wallace asking Trump to take things seriously when they talked about covid. I mean, it was it was honestly like the way Wallace was treating Trump was completely. Bananas, and we haven't even gotten to some of the substantive stuff, we're like, I can't remember everything that was said. Frankly, like Biden said, you're the worst president America has ever had.

Trump said something about, don't call me, don't talk about smart around me.

There was just like a lot of weird. Stuff, yeah, so let me throw I'm going to throw in the spirit of the evening a few kind of unrelated takeaways, but I'll do them quickly if we possibly can. We can get through quickly.

I might be grasping for for something new to say, but I do think that Trump and the comparison to 2016 debates bears this out. I believe I do think Trump is more erratic, more willing to break with norms, less concerned about what quote unquote expected of him than he has been at earlier points and key difference between now and 2016. He's president. So it puts it in an entirely different context. But but I do think tonight's debate made clear that his back is against the wall.

And rather than try to implement a strategy to to come back, he's just kind of following his his gut instinct, the stuff at the end about the results of the election.

I think that's where that's where Trump and Biden styles kind of. Came out most starkly where Biden kind of did again, this looked to camera kind of soothing voice about your votes will count, make sure you vote. I'll accept the results of the election if I win or lose, you know, kind of like a coherent thing, which he he'd obviously practiced because he knew this was going to happen. And Trump's was I think Wallace said, will you make sure that you're we tell your supporters to accept the results of the election peacefully.

And Trump had trouble answering that Fed line from Wallace.

I mean, it was it was the softest of softballs and he couldn't answer that. And it was just such a it was so stark. It's stark.

And it and that's what I was thinking of in particular, Claire. It's like that part was was really scary. Just a couple more thoughts. I would echo what Nate said at the top. I thought Biden was a little off balance for the first 20 minutes.

I think he got better as the debate went on. I thought his best moments were when he just spoke straight to camera like Claire was describing and probably gave a somewhat rehearsed answer. But at least it was like, you know, as a viewer, you're sort of just like grasping for any full sentence. Right? That's like what you wanted to hear. So those moments, I think I think were his his better moments. And then finally, you know, on the moderation, the moderation of the debate by Chris Wallace was maybe to me the most interesting part, just in the sense that the rest of it was such a mess.

But, you know, part of that Wallace really broke with kind of norms in response to Trump breaking with norms to try to keep Trump from further derailing the whole thing.

It took a while to get there, though, but, yeah, he didn't do the newscast. Like, I feel like you could see another network newscaster kind of doing the newscaster thing where they kind of try to, you know, write like. And Wallace was kind of just like almost commiserating with Biden at points about like, yeah, he keeps like I'm having trouble keeping up myself. Like it was just the tone of it was so different and it took and it took him it took him too long to get there.

Although, you know, I'm sympathetic, like, you know, it's obviously a somewhat new situation.

But then also but eventually did get there. And and he was he was fairly aggressive in calling out Trump in particular and not resorting to which he did a couple times, but then largely stayed away from just like both sides.

I think the American people want a more substantive debate. Ah, gentlemen, if you could both right. He he he largely avoided that in regards to interruptions.

But then there were a lot of questions which were like both sides, the like worst parody of both sides, journalism, where like the voting the election integrity question in particular is what sort of a silly framing as as both sides, as if both candidates present equal threats to the election integrity.

Mike, I was wondering during that segment if it was wrong to even have that as a debate topic because it provides the opportunity to spread misinformation about the voting process, which could be deleterious to our democracy. Right. Like if the thing isn't up for debate. Right. Like if we either kind of have a democracy where we respect the results of an election or we don't, why give people the opportunity to undermine the legitimacy of the election when it was weird?

And look, there are like legitimate questions and concerns about how the country and how the 50 states and D.C. are going to adjust to a largely Maylin election in a time of coronavirus.

The problem is, I don't think the debate was the right time to sort of adjudicate those questions and concerns because you knew that's not what was going to happen. And and even trying to get to those concerns, which I think is Wallace was trying to do.

As you say, Gailen just provides a platform for these baseless conspiracy theories about about rigging the election. So I think it was a misguided topic from the beginning.

I know you wanted to talk earlier about comparisons to 2016, and I want to hear what you have to say. But first, today's podcast is brought to you by upstart.

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That's upstart dotcom politics. Your loan amount will be determined based on your credit income and certain other information provided in your loan application. Not all applicants will qualify for the full amount. Again, that's upstart dotcom politics. All right, Nate, we've mentioned that this was was pretty different from twenty sixteen, but you were starting to say that we're misremembering what happened back then. So how does this compare to, you know, the kind of conversation we were having four years ago?

Yeah, I mean, those debates were total shit, chose to kind of set out on this podcast. You know, I don't think they were particularly more traditional.

I mean, you had Trump kind of stalking Clinton around the stage. You had Trump like I mean, yeah, I don't really think this is that much of a difference from 2016, except Trump is kind of not really even kind of. Maintaining the pretense of it being a regular debate, but he didn't really do that much of that anyway in twenty sixteen. I mean, there is you know, we've been watching this president now as a candidate for six years, roughly candidate and our president for six years now.

Right. President Trump, like none of this comes out of left field, you know what I mean? Did we all think that we're just going to kind of come back to normal now?

That of course not. But it's also striking to see it on television, right? I mean, it's still it's still odd to see. But a point of comparison would be the Republican National Convention that we all just watched and covered. And, for example, his final formal acceptance speech. I mean, it was off of a teleprompter, obviously, but it was a kind of a very, very, very, very tempered version of Donald Trump. And so there are moments when tens of millions of people are potentially watching where we get a different version of Trump and one that's not completely off the rails like tonight.

I completely take your point that, you know, people shouldn't shouldn't be surprised that it was erratic and that 2016 was, you know, its own kind of unconventional debating. I think I would say that they're just Trump is facing two different opponents. So with Clinton, if he did the first of all, I think that he interrupts Biden in part probably because Biden does have a history of a stutter. And, you know, Nathan Heller, who's a writer for The New Yorker, who also has a stutter, tweeted out and said, that's actually a thing that throws people with stutters off sometimes.

Right? Is that like if you're if you're constantly interrupted, so like that's a good tactic. Perhaps if you're Trump and you're in a debate with Joe Biden. The other thing is in 2016, Trump used you know, there's a different dynamic between a man interrupting constantly a woman, i.e. the Trump Clinton dynamic. So I think it would have read differently. And it's more kind of it reads better, I guess, if Trump is kind of constantly interrupting Biden, like it's just kind of like these two.

We're seeing the two different strategies for the two different candidates that Trump faces. But the the energy is chaotic in both in both debates. OK, guys, we got a cycle there.

This is a bit of a left turn, but we got a insta poll from CBS News who won the debate. Nate, I think you've seen these numbers.

So Claire Galen, you want to guess the guess the results?

I'm guessing that the margin this is CBS now. This is a scientific poll.

Oh, this is a scientific poll. Biden is not a clicker. It's not a clicker. I asked Biden, I think still Trump, did they ask for perceptions of it? I'm going to go where there were enough commentators on Twitter and maybe on some of the news networks that were calling Trump the alpha in the room that people liked that dominating our feelings over thinking Galen is overthinking it.

Forty eight percent Biden. Forty one percent Trump.

Although the exact the polls basically. Yeah. Yeah. But that's important, right. Because, you know, I think we all said this already, but Trump was losing this race.

So, you know, a push, if that's what this is, is is inherently a win for Biden, right? Yeah.

I mean, it's exactly what you see in the polls. And if Biden maintains that seven point lead through Election Day, then his ads will go up from where they are, 78 percent to 90. Some percent still probably have a sweat on Election Day. Obviously, you have to worry about will Trump respect the results and what that means? But tactically, in terms of traditional, how do you win the Electoral College strategy then?

This debate was one of the more important remaining opportunities for Trump, and that poll would suggest that he didn't really take it. We need to see more polls. Sometimes the instant polls differ from the postdebate polls. Sometimes when the reaction gets baked in, people see clips and stuff like that. Then a small lead flips a small. He turns into a big way to become self reinforcing. Right. Well, there something about tonight that went particularly well for Trump.

Yeah, I think it's important to reiterate what you said. I was looking at a political science study done around the 2004 presidential debates, and it showed they took basically an audience and they show them the debate and then gave them to different forms of analysis. Afterwards, one group saw the debate and then NBC's live reaction and then another group saw the debate and then read CNN's online coverage. And the two separate groups came to different conclusions about who won the debate.

CNN online was that Kerry won NBC live analysis was that Bush had won. So, you know, the press obviously plays a role in how this is all perceived. We haven't seen a ton of the. Coverage looks like so far, but what can we tell from how it's being covered? I mean, I don't think there's a clean enough narrative coming out of the debate to really push those numbers meaningfully one way or the other, like the strongest take away that I've seen across news outlets coming out of the debate.

It's just that was a mess. And I'm not sure that really affects kind of who you thought won or who you thought lost.

Right. It was just like that was a massive himself. Absolutely a mess.

Isn't that a little bit more both sides in the situation than the reality? I mean, like I hoped to make clear at the top of this podcast, this wasn't exactly like a two way street on the Scott throwing.

It's definitely yes. More both sides than the truth, which is that, you know, President Trump made this mess. But my point is just that. Like, I at least not that I'm seeing the Clarin Nature jump in, but I don't think there are like I actually haven't seen that much of the like, oh, Biden wasn't enough of an Alpha or or any of those type of storylines. And I don't think there were any clips of Biden in particular that would that would get replayed and replayed.

That would kind of change the fundamental. This thing was a isn't going to change the trajectory of the race.

Right. I think partly what happens here was that the narrative gets set in the first 15 minutes to a half hour and the first half hour was very chippy. Biden seemed a little off balance. The stuff Trump said that was more dangerous came in the second half. And I just seen that these debates were like like if you were kind of watching Twitter, because that's where the narrative gets form. Its Twitter is social media. It's like journalists on Twitter.

Right. The narrative in the first 20 minutes was kind of, oh, Trump kind of has an off balance a little bit. And then it kind of pivoted to like, oh, it's just a really bad debate. And then at the end, it's like, oh, Trump is do anything to help himself. Right. But like the first third of that tends to filter into the leads that news organizations write more than one or two thirds. Right.

So the initial wait to let go Trump has him off balance, kind of like it's partly counteracted by the both remaining two thirds of the way that I thought Trump is pretty bad and Biden is fine. But let's just as an observer of how these things are scored.

So we've been talking a lot about Trump's performance this evening. I mean, one notable thing when it comes to Biden and his coalition is how he responded to questions about things like court packing or ending the filibuster or the green New Deal. He essentially didn't. I mean, he said he does not support the Green New Deal, but he didn't want to answer questions about court packing or ending the filibuster. Can he just make it to Election Day by never answering those kinds of questions?

I think that's the hope. I mean, there's so much news and Trump tends to want to dominate news cycles. I mean I mean, it probably is too late at this point, given covid in the economy and the Supreme Court. Right. Well, this is certainly Supreme Court, obviously. Right. If Trump tried to actually drive a make Biden answer for this thing new cycle, maybe he could do it. But he doesn't seem very interested in that.

I think the one thing that Trump's team will probably take away from tonight, I mean, you know, you saw you saw Trump in the moment react to being something in the climate change section about they'll never be another coal plant, coal powered plant built in America. And Trump says, oh, you know, I don't remember exactly what he interjected, but, you know, I'm sure there'll be ads made off of that. You know, Biden hates coal and, you know, whatever is against American industry, like, you can see the little things that that they might try to like.

Peikoff But I think somewhere around the closing statements, Biden was making this kind of sweeping argument, about two hundred and 6000 Americans are dead of covid.

It's Trump's fault. And Trump went into his. I've appointed more federal judges than anyone else. And it was kind of like this weird for me. Moment of Trump was kind of making like a conventional what if covid had never happened and we had the 2020 election argument. Right. Like, I'm good for, you know, restoring the, um, the conservative bent of the or the, you know, balancing out the judicial system in America. And Biden was making the war in a catastrophic moment, closing early.

And it was kind of this off kilter experience. I thought as as a viewer, it's it's tough.

It's really like I think we're all sort of struggling with just like how how to respond to something like what we just watched.

It's this really weird mixture of not surprising. So there's there's not there's not a ton new to say. You know, Trump declined to condemn white supremacists. That's not new. Trump, you know, raised these conspiracy theories about the about mail in ballots and and didn't commit to a peaceful transfer transfer power. That's not new. But yet it's still I think it's still shocking to see, even if it's not surprising.

And and I think it's supposed to be I think I think it should be shocking, but I don't know. I you know, there's two more these Foch.

Yeah. I think it's it's just it's I mean, it's so it's so damaging just just for whatever not to use that terrible word for the discourse, but just like.

It was just so weird and there were so many things happening and the tenor of it was gross and there was so much like the section on masks and forest fires and climate change, there were still a lot of just raw misinformation and bad facts.

And a couple of times I kind of wish Wallace had followed up on some of those easy, low hanging fruit fact checks with Trump, particularly about like mask wearing. Having two more of those in the next month is. I don't. I don't. Yeah, I don't really know how, you know, where else people are watching this from other countries. Right. And like, it's not a great look for the U.S. to have the presidential election become this, you know, primetime spectacle of of like just completely bizarre misinformation.

What I take to things like one is my friends were texting this like, why are you know, they have figured out how to mute people on around the horn, which is like that sports debate show on from our colleagues at ESPN.

Like, why can't they do it for a presidential debate that might be worth exploring?

But between that, essentially, I don't think and this came out before the debate where the people who organized the debate and I think Wallace said this, too, they were like, it's not the moderators job to fact check.

If you are willing to interrupt non-stop and are willing to lie nonstop, then the debate is it breaks the debate.

Well, that's my question, actually. Michael, do you think that after this debate, the Biden campaign just says, well, we're not interested in any more debates, like if you can't actually agree to follow up on the pre agreed structure of the debate, which is that people can talk for two minutes and then you have a more of a freewheeling back and forth. Like, I kind of just think the Biden campaign says we're leading seven points nationally.

We're not really even struggling in the battleground states at this point. Like fucking. No, you don't think so. What do you think?

Yeah, first of all. There's this weird premise that, like somehow this debate is hurting Biden when I don't know that's true and in fact, the only place we go so far is just buy one, although by about the same margin usually leads in polls.

Oh, that wasn't the premise of my question. It was more it was so bad and it was just so chaotic that like if the message is going to be that Trump's not following the rules of the debate anyway, why not?

I mean, our friends talking politics podcast, the podcast, what if they had a great quote and maybe maybe it was a guess, maybe totally distributing this, but it's a good podcast.

I think it was from them where they're like when you press hard on democracy, right? When it starts to bend, then this is a total paraphrase. Now, does it snap back right that sometimes the moments at which democracy seems to be in the greatest danger are the moments where it proves itself?

Is it a supple Bertsch or a dry twig? Yeah, but if if you're worried that Trump is antidemocratic and institutions respond to it by a the voters vote for the candidate or they don't don't think it's a Democratic. Right. And Biden has a huge lead among independent voters right now who might not be as partisan as other voters and independents by 20 points. Maybe if the court system responds by rejecting what they see as anti-democratic challenges from Trump or Biden, for that matter, but more pertinently, by Trump and not just the usual kind of litigating about like, OK, you win, can you send ballot?

They'd like to. But like, you know, if they respond negatively to efforts by Trump to kind of prevent mass numbers of ballots from being counted. Right. So you can't kind of presuppose demise of democracy if democracy at the first chance it gets. Trump is a one term president so far responds by rejecting appeals to anti-democratic impulses. You can predict that they won't respond. Well, I'm not sure where the polls, if you are to believe them, bear that out.

But like but the obituary can't be written yet when the system hasn't really had a chance to react. And by the way, in twenty eighteen, it threw Republicans out of the House by a pretty big margin. So and also lot out of a lot of governorships, although not so much Senate seats.

That's a totally fair point, Nate. And I think it's it's worth keeping in mind in these last few weeks. But just as we can't presuppose that that democracy is a brittle twig, as Claire put it, that that will break, I don't think we can presuppose that it's a supple Bertsch either.

Birch Birch branch, like there's just too many there's too many cracking sounds to be really confident of anything.

Ironic, ironic that these this metaphor of wisdom is coming from our I don't know how we would describe this. The health of the British civic life, but I think a lot of people would say it is also quite broken.

I don't know. Um, I think I don't think there's any comparison. So also, they had quite a bit they had quite a slide for the past, you know, 50 years.

Don't throw suppo birch branches in glass houses as the is the lesson.

Listen, I'm I'm I'm speaking from a point of like, you know, precariousness in the US. But like, you know, again, the 50 year slide of the United Kingdom is notable.

Ah, you mean decline generally not decline in democracy.

But you can make that argument, too. And I'm sure some people would. But yeah, general decline, which I think you should, talking to the press.

No, I mean, I'm saying that it was a system with problems. And also, by the way, you could argue that like a lot of people in the Commonwealth didn't have healthy democratic rights. Right. There's lots of whatever. Yeah, you're right. Now, I am just talking the Brits all alone.

It's the Irish lady wants to talk about the Commonwealth, not just I mean, the Commonwealth is very big, can talk to some Indians and Pakistanis.

Can we go back to Galen's questions just for one second? Like, I don't think the Biden campaign will pull out of the the remaining two debates, but the reason maybe it's worth them having an internal discussion about it or maybe conducting some polling about it is. And I think we knew this going into the debates. I thought Biden did fine on Tuesday night. The other two debates, though, still represent basically only downside for him and Trump's behavior in the first debates, in the first debate gives the campaign a credible excuse to pull out of them if they wanted to.

Now, maybe pulling out is like more of a risk has more downside risk than staying in. But it's I don't know. It's an interesting question. We should we should fix the remaining two debates, though.

How do we fix them? OK, moderator has a mute button. They can mute either of the candidates. What else? The fact that no fact checking.

Well, but I mean, the campaigns agree to these rules, right? If the campaigns agree. If the campaigns agree that you can have a mute button Tony rally, you can do that. I don't think the Trump campaign would agree to that. However, who it was who sent was a clear idea who was who said Biden has a stutter. Maybe they're deliberately trying to rattle him. I think especially in the first 15 minutes where Trump would just be like, I'm just going to filibuster.

So you can not actually string a coherent set of thoughts together. Seem pretty deliberate to me. And then eventually. Trump got bored of it or kind of realized it like this, we're staying after 15 minutes or Chris Wallace regain some control. Right. But it's not the format, it's not the moderator. It's one of the candidates. Is Donald Trump right? And unless you're going to have one in the country stopping Donald Trump, then it's not really going to fix the problem.

I mean, I guess if you actually literally hit a button, then that would fix the problem. But because he's down Trump, he's not going to agree to it.

I don't think if you had a mute, I would have a mute button and then I would have an army of fact checkers working inside in a side room and a huge screen in back of the candidates.

And any time any of them said something that was not true, a huge red X would appear on the screen along with the giant buzzer sound and the mute button that would be equally disjointed.

That's how I would fix it. It's like the NBA bubble where someone somewhere which might be equally disjointed, but it would be disjointed in a more illuminating way.

I think also it'd be kind of cool to see I. Don't love the real time fact checking, Nadia. And I think it makes the media seem less neutral because, I mean, it's an old media ethics conversation, but like I think if candidates like. Tell lies in response to a direct question that's maybe a little different. You can say, actually, I know this, Mr. President, blah, blah, blah, right.

But if they're going on and on down the road and going back and forth and like I mean, a lot people do not think that President Trump is honest Echelon insights or Escalon insights and opposing one of the biggest negatives or positives for each candidate.

You can pick a maximum of three because we know you have lots right. And for Trump, the number one issue is that we don't think he's honest. Right. And so when Trump says something and Biden says something, the average voter tends to trust Biden a little bit more. And it's part of the reason that Biden leads in polls. And like a he said she said where Trump is just kind of rehearsing his talking points. I mean, we'll see.

We only have this one poll so far. I think there'll be more polls of debate watchers, including our poll with Ipsos. So watch for that.

Indeed. I also say it's almost Wednesday, so we should wrap things up. But very quickly, does this change? The dynamics of the race at all in the polls make a yes or no, no, Claire, no, Nate, no.

But but again, the time is an element here, because if it. If we go another two weeks and Biden maintains the same lead, then that's good for Biden. All right. Well, we will see what happens maybe after all of this. It won't matter. Nothing will change. But anyway, thank you guys. Make clear, Mike, it's been real.

Can I just give a quick shout out to our debate live blog team helmed expertly by politics editor Sarah Frost.

And then I thought it was probably our best live blog for a debate ever full of analysis and data and charts and smart commentary and funny comments. So shout out to a job well done from the from the whole team, including the people on this podcast, all of you. Indeed. We also actually have one more thing to shout out, which is that we have the 538 store up and running with new merchandise, including T-shirts with five Fox on them.

I think you've already picked your T-shirt now. I did. I freaking love these t shirts. The there are three five Fox t shirts, is that right?

And one of them's listening to the podcast. And yes, one of them is listening to the podcast. They're great. You should go get them. I think you just go to 538 dotcom slash store, right? Mm hmm. All right. Well, let's leave it there. My name is Gail and Tony Chow is in the virtual control room. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538 dotcom. You can also, of course, tweet us with any questions or comments.

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