Donald Trump and Joe Biden were supposed to debate each other Thursday night, but instead they appeared in town hall events on different networks, after Trump backed out of the debate and then scheduled an NBC town hall to compete with Biden’s ABC one. Toggling between the two, viewers got a very clear view of the differences between the two candidates and their visions of the United States—and Biden even got to speak uninterrupted for more than three seconds at a time, so that was a win.
On the one hand, you had Trump deflecting responsibility for having tweeted a conspiracy theory that Biden had SEAL Team Six killed to cover up the fake death of Osama bin Laden, saying “That was a retweet. I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don’t take a position,” to which moderator Savannah Guthrie responded “I don’t get that, you’re the president. You’re not like, someone’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever.” On the other hand, you had Biden saying “I am running as a proud Democrat, but I am going to be an American president. I am going to take care of those who voted against me as well as those who voted for me. For real. That’s what presidents do. We’ve got to heal this nation.”
Trump didn’t just refuse to condemn QAnon but actually praised the baseless, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Democrats are running a satanic global pedophile ring, first claiming “I know nothing about QAnon,” then attacking antifa, then finally saying “What I do hear about it, is they are very strongly against pedophilia. And I agree with that.” In reality, QAnon isn’t just spreading a conspiracy theory, it’s hijacking actual efforts to combat child trafficking, getting in the way of organizations doing that work.
As The New York Times reports, “At the moment that Mr. Trump was effectively defending a fringe corner of the internet, Mr. Biden, the former vice president, was speaking about corporate tax rates and citing the business-analysis service Moody’s, underscoring the extraordinary gulf separating the two candidates in their worldviews, policies and connections to factual reality.”
Biden not only gave substantive, meaty policy answers to many questions—whether you like his policies or not—he stayed and talked with the voters at the event for an hour after it ended, still answering questions.
Trump left and his campaign immediately claimed he “soundly defeated NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in her role as debate opponent and Joe Biden surrogate.” It’s true that Guthrie did her best to make up for NBC’s cravenness in giving Trump the time directly opposite Biden despite his refusal to debate, subjecting Trump to the unfamiliar experience of follow-up questions and refusing to allow him to talk over and dominate her, but if Trump hadn’t been defending conspiracy theories and lying constantly, he might have had an easier time.
Guthrie also pushed Trump on when he last had a negative test before his COVID-19 diagnosis—something it seemed he might genuinely not remember, possibly because it had been so long—and whether he had been tested the day of the first debate. “Possibly I did, possibly I didn’t,” Trump answered, which is as close to a firm no as we’re ever going to get—certainly it’s confirmation he didn’t, despite the debate rules requiring it. One hopes the Commission on Presidential Debates has learned its lesson about the honor system and the Trump campaign.
Biden, as usual, showed leadership on mask-wearing and took the coronavirus pandemic seriously, offering ideas for safely reopening schools. But most of all, his basic decency came through, and if that is not as entertaining, by some standards, as Trump, it can be a “delightful boringness,” as Matt Yglesias put it. He’s a good guy. He knows a lot about a lot of things, and you may disagree with him but he’ll talk to you about how and why rather than yelling at you. He wants to make things better for the public and the nation and the world, not profit his own company and stroke his own ego.
As contrasts go, I’ll take it. And speaking of contrasts...
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