The main event finally arrived.  Although there are supposed to be a couple more debates, this seemed like the most important one. It was the first debate, so it probably had what will be the largest viewing audience.

Fox News also hosted it.  I knew going into it that Chris Wallace is no fan of Trump, but I thought that he would at least ask some tough questions to Biden.  We can expect nothing but softballs in future debates

I heard Chris Wallace say before the debate that, as moderator, he basically wanted to be invisible.  Well, if that was his goal, he failed miserably.  He was arguing as much with Trump as Biden was.

I know Trump interrupted a lot.  I think that could be a turn off to some people.  But let’s face it; anyone who already hates Trump will be turned off by his interrupting, while anyone who already loves Trump won’t mind it at all. Maybe there is a tiny percentage of people who could go either way who might have been turned off by it.

At times, it was understandable that Trump interrupted.  He didn’t like hearing false accusations against him.  He didn’t like hearing false premises being thrown out there.  And this wasn’t just coming from Biden.  It was coming from Wallace.

Imagine someone asks you this question.  “Many people say you are a stupid idiot.  Given that you are a stupid idiot, how to do you plan to enact your agenda for the country?”  Ok, so Wallace didn’t ask that, but there were times where his questions went long with premises that were objectionable.  Trump isn’t going to sit back and let him continue with what seems more like a long argument than a debate question.

Overall, I give Chris Wallace a failing grade as moderator.  I had at least hoped he would ask Biden some tough questions. There were a few questions that may have been challenging for Biden, but really they were questions that should have been expected, such as his thoughts on packing the Supreme Court.

It would have been nice for Wallace to ask Biden about his son and Ukraine.  It would have been nice to ask him about threatening to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine (you know, what Trump was impeached over) in order to get the prosecutor fired who was investigating the company his son was “working” for.

Trump had many more challenging questions for Biden than what Wallace had.  I believe Trump has to keep doing this in future debates. He probably shouldn’t interrupt Biden as much, but when it is Trump’s turn to speak, he should challenge Biden with his own questions.

I thought it was a good move bringing up Bernie Sanders and radical leftists.  He was doing his best to have Biden either commit to the far left agenda or to oppose it and risk losing the far left vote. Trump was somewhat effective in this, but they were talking over each other a few times he was trying to make this point.  He said something about Pocahontas (Elizabeth Warren) not dropping out before Super Tuesday, but I’m not sure that a lot of people would have understood Trump’s point there.

Trump should keep hammering away at Biden on Ukraine and his son.  He should keep challenging him on the support from the radical left. He should point out that Kamala Harris is fully supporting the rioters and even helping them get out of jail. Maybe Pence will do this in the upcoming VP debate.

In fact, I think it would be to Trump’s benefit to say that Biden isn’t an awful guy, but that he is being controlled.  If Biden wins, he may be president, but he won’t be running the show.  It will be Harris and her fellow radical leftists.  I believe this strategy could serve Trump well, and I’m not sure how Biden would respond.

It’s hard to say who won the night.  I think it was a victory for Biden in the sense that he didn’t majorly mess up. The expectations were incredibly low for him.  He still can’t figure out the difference between “millions” and “thousands”.  But overall, he didn’t do anything really embarrassing.

Trump was aggressive as usual.  His haters will hate him more, if that’s possible.  His supporters will still support him.  I think Trump is trying to ensure that his base will come out in full force.  There probably aren’t a lot of undecided voters at this point.  There may be some people who may or may not actually vote. I can’t imagine they would be inspired by Biden, but they could be inspired for or against Trump.

Trump was effective on the issue of law and order.  Biden said that Antifa is just an idea.  I think Trump could have hit Biden even harder on this issue, since it is leftists who are burning down cities.  It isn’t coming from Trump supporters, and I think he needs to make this crystal clear.

The problem is that when they talked about the law and order issue, it was an hour into the debate. A lot of people may have stopped watching at that point, and those are the people who could probably be the most swayed at this point.

I thought Trump was absolutely horrible on the issue of the coronavirus.  He just comes across as very weak.  He is quite wishy-washy.  I think this is a mistake.  Trump can be sympathetic while at the same time making it clear that there are trade-offs in life.  He should say that Biden favors national lockdowns and mask mandates. He should say that more people would die from the lockdowns than the coronavirus.  If he were really gutsy, he would point out that the CDC figures are garbage and that the people who died with the coronavirus did not necessarily die of the coronavirus.

This part came early in the debate, and it was his time when likely the most people were tuned in. It is the one issue that touches almost everybody’s life.  Trump should declare himself as fully opposing any more lockdowns. Instead, he came across as unusually weak.  I believe this was his biggest blunder of the night, although I’m not surprised.

There was an interesting part later in the debate when talking about transitioning.  Trump said that there was an attempted coup.  He said that people were spying on his campaign, and it includes charges.  He said Obama knew about it, and it is on tape.

I have no idea if Trump actually has hard evidence in the form of a tape (i.e., a recording). That would be quite the October surprise.  But I’ve heard this story too many times.  I’ve heard many people say that Hillary Clinton will finally be going to prison. I’ve heard the same thing about Obama, Jim Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper.  While I wish it were true because these are the highest form of criminals, I don’t believe it.  The system is so rigged, they seem to be completely protected.

At least Trump seems to be aware that the last 4 years has been one giant coup attempt.  If it isn’t Russia, it’s Ukraine.  If it isn’t Ukraine, it’s tax returns. If it isn’t tax returns, it’s that he’s a racist.  And on and on it goes.  Everything the establishment and its media does is an attempt to delegitimize Trump and to get him out of office.

Overall, I call the debate even in terms of gaining or losing supporters.  Trump was much better at debating overall, but the expectations were low for Biden.  He is probably happy he got through the night.  I know many people will say that the whole thing is an embarrassment and that they acted like little children fighting.  But in a way, that is what Trump wants.  If anything, Trump pulled Biden down into the weeds with him.  He certainly pulled Chris Wallace down with him.

Trump thrives on chaos, and there was some chaos with the debate.  The people who were already going to vote for Trump probably didn’t change their minds because of Trump’s antics.  They like Trump because he is a fighter, so most of them would have been disappointed with anything less.

The big loser is Chris Wallace.  Even someone from Fox News came across as biased against Trump.  We can only imagine what the next two debates will look like.