Tonight, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face off in a debate that may last longer with the moderator than with each other, as CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash grill the candidates. The microphone is muted When it’s the other person’s turn to speak, which means that while Trump and Biden can’t interrupt each other (which, broadly speaking, is a good thing), they might not be able to argue much at all.
Under these circumstances, the debate may simply feel like two separate interviews, with the candidates answering different questions from the moderator and barely interacting at all. Only time will tell.
But the most serious problem with this first debate is the absence of a candidate: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent for president and has attracted a significant base of support. There is no good reason to exclude Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the debate. Voters have a right to hear him, too.
This year, the claim that RFK Jr. didn’t garner enough popularity to justify his participation in the debates rings especially hollow, given that Biden, Trump and CNN agreed to throw out the rule book. In fact, in my lifetime (that is, since 1988), the nonprofit that hosts the debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates, has disappeared.
Libertarians will recall that the commission’s rules state that any candidate who clears a 15 percent approval rating threshold in presidential polls is eligible to debate, meaning that 2016 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson did not attend the Trump-Clinton debate, despite having 13 percent approval rating in some polls.
There’s nothing sacrosanct about the 15% number; it’s an arbitrary bar to clear. The candidates and networks who rebelled against the committee could have devised different rules. They certainly agreed to do some things differently, including the aforementioned microphone situation, no live audience, and earlier-than-expected debate dates.
But that’s not the case.CNN Announced Last week, it was reported that RFK Jr. did not meet the network’s criteria, which are to receive at least 15% support in four credible polls and qualify to vote in states that could theoretically award him 270 electoral votes. The Kennedy campaign disputed this second prong, pointing out that neither Trump nor Biden have yet been formally nominated by their respective parties, so they technically do not qualify under this criterion. As for polls, RFK Jr. has passed the (completely arbitrary) 15% threshold in three polls. according to POLITICO. He’s also very close in some other ways.
Of course, the real reason CNN excluded RFK Jr. was because Trump and Biden steadfastly refused to appear alongside him, even though the major party candidates have largely agreed. do The agreement was that I would not have to share the stage with anyone else. That was the deal with CNN, and CNN was abiding by it. The New York Times.
“They want to vote with just the two candidates and a moderator, without the raucous audiences that Trump enjoys, or the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other independent or third-party candidates.” report Times In May.
Reading between the lines, it would seem Biden and Trump would not have participated in a debate with RFK Jr., and CNN was always going to set some kind of standard that would have ruled out Kennedy. The mainstream media claims that democracy itself is at stake in this election, yet they refuse to give voters a chance to hear from a third party candidate who has won the highest number of popular votes in the last 30 years.
reason‘s Matt Welch looked back at the first Trump-Biden debate of 2020 and noted that from the perspective of 2024, Trump’s stance on the pandemic looks pretty convincing, especially when compared to Biden, whose subsequent administration has continued and ramped up the most interventionist COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
“Biden’s CDC, based on the flimsiest of evidence, has recommended mask-wearing in groups, including for 2-year-olds, all the way through 2022,” Welch wrote. “He has mandated vaccinations, inaccurately described the disease as a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ and accused social media companies of ‘killing people.’ Honestly, it’s not good for your blood pressure to be reminded of any of this.”
Similarly, I recently studied the final debate of the 2020 election cycle, which New York PostThe infamous Hunter Biden laptop story was widely suppressed on social media and dismissed by mainstream media as likely Russian misinformation. When Trump mentioned the laptop during the debate, Biden also dismissed the story as clearly linked to Russian election interference, citing a letter from 50 current and former national intelligence officials that concluded the laptop resembled a Russian disinformation campaign.
Trump appeared stunned when Biden made the claim. “Are you saying the laptop is another Russian, Russian, Russian prank?” Trump asked in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Four years later, there is still no evidence that the laptop was part of a Russian influence operation — it’s a literal Russian hoax.
We join Amber Duke to discuss CNN’s treatment of Trump’s press secretary. sceneryThe government’s deference to teachers union talking points, the way MSNBC flinches in horror at the words “illegal immigrant,” and the media’s reaction to Julian Assange’s release.
Since I don’t have much time to debate people on TV (just kidding), I agreed to take part in a debate about immigration for a financial news site. Zero HedgeIt was a battle between me, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Chase Oliver, conservative media man Jack Posobiec and politician Ryan Gardusky, and things got heated.
