The first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was a shit show, a dumpster fire, a disaster of Biblical proportions …
No debate that includes Trump will ever be compared to a Lincoln-Douglas debate, but to prevent the spectacle from devolving into a WWE Battle Royale there must be a modicum of structure.
The first presidential debate was divided into six 15-minute segments during which the moderator, Chris Wallace, posed the same question to former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. The candidates had two minutes to respond to each question, and basically the rest of each segment was a free-for-all.
Trump interrupted Biden during the initial question of each segment, and the remaining part of each segment was a torrent of cross-talk, insults, lies, and just general mayhem.
Wallace is an excellent interviewer and a competent moderator, but he had as much control of the debate as a substitute teacher has at a reform school. No moderator, not even the even-tempered and competent Wallace could have reined in the wild animal, unless he was equipped with a button on his desk to deliver a shock to Trump every time, he broke the debate rules.
Trump doesn’t respect judges, generals, legislators, so it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that he wouldn’t respect a debate moderator, even one from his favorite news outlet, Fox News.
Biden has already committed to participating in the final two debates, but since Trump didn’t follow the rules agreed to by both campaigns, he isn’t under any moral obligation to participate in any more debates.
But if Biden decides to debate Trump again, he should demand that the moderator kill the microphone when a debater interrupts or exceeds his time limit.
Last night’s debate was a shit show that left everyone involved including Trump, Biden, Wallace, the viewing audience and democracy itself covered in excrement.
I’ve had enough, the only other debate I will watch is the one between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.