www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cnn-debate-moderators-tapper-bash-b2570657.html
The real loser: CNN blasted for unhinged debate with little fact checking on Trump’s lies and Biden’s rambling
Trump talked about post birth abortions and it just went unchecked.
This is the one that left me speechless. He’s talking about “Democrat states killing babies” and not one mother fucker said “Trump, please provide sources.”
And then by the end of the debate it’s just another thing that he said.
The man is master at stirring up such a storm of bullshit its impossible to stop him on any one point
It’s called Fire Hosing.
Also called a Gish Gallop.
That's when I turned it off. I was screaming internally and externally when nobody said anything.
I turned it off shortly after he said our withdrawal from Afghanistan was the most embarrassing day in American history. I find this to be a bold statement from the mastermind of the 1/6 terrorist attack on the capital.
Also, the withdrawal was a policy from the Trump administration...
Absolutely, but the 1/6 terrorist attack on the capitol, also a product of the Trump administration, remains the most embarrassing moment for America in my lifetime.
Friend of mine said he wished Biden had responded with, "I will bet you $1m right now if you can provide proof of that."
There were so many low hanging one liners Biden could have used, it's just such a shame. My personal choice would have been for him to reply to this one...Trump: 'the illegals are coming here and they're taking black jobs'...Biden: 'define 'black' jobs'
I will pardon you if you show me proof lmao
"I have the best sources, they're the best sources, but millions of people are coming in over the border and killing Americans and soldiers and President Biden is the worst ever, the worst ever..."
"Thank you, President Trump."
"Thank you, President Trump."
Fucking, precisely this. Jake Tapper lost all credibility as a journalist to me. Even if one might argue "well he's not acting as a journalist in this instance, but rather just as a moderator", then I gotta ask why would you take the gig?!? If it means abandoning your principles, then don't show up. Why the fuck was this the agreed-upon format. No wonder Biden was off his game, when literally every lie and evasion by Trump went completely unchecked by the very people tasked with ensuring the rules were followed. And they thanked him every time.
Exactly. Is it any wonder Biden would have to think about his response? He basically had to decide whether to spend his minute answering his question, or calling Trump out on his bs because CNN wouldn't. I lost count of all the times I saw him literally mouth "what is he talking about" when Trump spoke.
How do you debate someone that literally doesn't care if what they say is relevant or correct? Especially when it seems all people care about is energy levels.
I will absolutely give Biden grace in that how DO you respond to constant baseless claims when you're being timed. That being said he also sunk to trumps level at times and tried to play trumps game.
Trump made the game of 'Nuh-uh you are' his own, and as has been seen in any debate with Trump if you play his game you will lose, but he also gives others pretty much no choice. Kind of a keep your opponent on their heels approach.
I really liked Wolf, Jake and Dana etc before rw ownership. It's like the new owner said "hey were gonna take it super easy on Trump" and they all said "YES SIR!" like wtf?.
I trusted them and they flipped like they hadn't spent the previous many years absolutely putting him on blast.
Also he could have said "and we're going to commit many genocides when I'm in office, many many genocides"
"Thank you, Mr. President"
Edit: Not sure who but thanks for the award!
And then he would probably respond with, all the top people are saying it, the best sources. The most respected. From across the aisle. Now that shouldn’t be good enough either and they should ask for proof.
He really thinks there are clinics performing live births/c sections and then immediately killing the baby? Are there people out there that really think that?
Yes, Republicans have been saying this is what happens for my entire life. And their preachers repeat these lies at their services.
If I recall correctly this isn't the first time Trump said that.
WaPo fact checkers had to literally create an entirely new category of lie (called The Bottomless Pinocchio) because Trump told so fucking many of them before, during, and after his term. It's for the most egregious lies which are repeated over & over again, meaning the person telling them has literally no excuse for the dishonesty.
The Washington Post’s Fact Checker introduces Bottomless Pinocchio, a new rating for a false claim repeated over and over again
THE WASHINGTON POST / GLENN KESSLER / DEC 10, 2018
“The bar for the Bottomless Pinocchio is high: The claims must have received three or four Pinocchios from The Fact Checker, and they must have been repeated at least 20 times. Twenty is a sufficiently robust number that there can be no question the politician is aware that his or her facts are wrong. The list of Bottomless Pinocchios will be maintained on its own landing page.”
Yes. The state of Tennessee has a senator that believes this along with selling baby parts.
Like organs or you can get like toes?
Not sure, but someone made a fake video and the GOP went wild over it. That someone got caught for faking the video, but the GOP didn't care. They still repeated the selling of baby parts for several years using the fake video as evidence. Plenty of people believe them.
It's kinda like the pizza place in DC that the dems were using to source baby blood or something. I listen to Cspan and people still bring it up as true and believe what they hear on right-wing news.
Republicans do. It's modern blood libel, except instead of against jewish people it's against democrats
You really felt the two moderators just going on with their per-planned script and questions completely ignoring and disregarding the answers or the behavior.
Zero push-back, zero interactions. It felt like a debate ran by a computer, before AI. I mean, my god - I thought the whole point of human beings is that they can respond and adjust in some way.
This whole debate made me realize the value Chris Wallace brought not just to trying to be an objectional journalist (even at Fox) but also as a moderator in reining in Trump.
I was thinking the same thing. Real time fact-checking should be the norm in 2024, especially with a candidate that lies with such velocity and has an unabashed disregard for the truth.
i dont understand why he received the courtesy of being asked THREE TIMES if he would accept the results of the election. why have moderators if they wont moderate?
And that's after they gave him all the qualifiers in the world just so he could answer a simple yes. "Would you accept the elections after all your objections and attempting a coup and trying it in courts all over and yelling it's stolen for a year?"
God damn, we need to stop normalizing the concept that elections aren't safe and secure. It's been checked multiple times, and proven to be secure with nearly zero vote manipulations.
Bring back the league of women voters debates.
He also went on national TV and denied having sex with a porn star after being found guilty on 34 felony counts for paying to cover up his sex with a porn star.
He didn't deny being a molester, though. Pretty weird choice of defense from him.
…and not once or twice. He brought it up MULTIPLE times.
And if he actually believes that shouldn’t he be significantly more upset about it?
He was more upset at the golfing rhetoric
I turned it off after hearing that and nothing being done about it
Yeah, too bad Biden literally said nothing about it when he had a full minute to respond.
What surprised me was that Joe didn’t fight back on that comment. It was like he was ok with it.
PBS kept a running fact checker and pointed out all of Trump's BS.
That's what's needed for these debates
Absolutely every channel should have had live fact checkers for both.
Give them a button to hit when a candidate lies that turns on red lights on their podium
I wish I knew this. I didn't last more than five minutes before I had to turn it off.
There's nothing that makes my blood boil more than someone who spews fallacies rooted in hatred and bigotry to seem like “the good guy”. This person is fucking evil and will shit down your throat the first chance he gets.
The most amazing thing about TFG's political career is he sows so much chaos that the fatigue of keeping up with it leads to apathy.
This was me during most of his term. I just largely had to disconnect from most politic shows/subs. It was a never-ending deluge of "What did he ragetweet on the shitter at 2am this time?"
Fascism aside, I don't want to go back to that. #MakePoliticsBoringAgain.
I'll usually read politics over the course of 2 or 3 weeks then miraculously I just forget about it (and feel better by doing so) for a couple weeks then it's like "well, time to see what Trump has lied about now".
A break from MAGAs shit every few weeks is necessary for mental health reasons.
Biden should have called him out on a lot of that stuff. Biden can't challenge every lie, but he let a lot slide.
The format had a lot to do with that, as his mic was off when Trump was speaking, and the moderators didn't ask for follow ups and rebuttals, but instead just pressed ahead with the next topic.
The debate was terrible for that. No fact checking, no real chance to respond or have a conversation between the two candidates, Trump could rant about whatever bs he wanted with no pushback.
Also Biden should’ve had a lozenge and a pound of cocaine before the debate. Dudes voice was not great to listen to and he lacked energy.
More than the live fact checking, I missed them actually nailing both participants down on answering the effing question they were asked - or at the very end of each answer proclaiming that this was not a reply to what was asked, at least. At least that'd have been something.
Once it became clear that the question wasn't going to be answered (after about 15 seconds or so, or whenever Trump did his "let me revisit" line) the mic should have been cut and the question repeated. If they refused to answer a second time the time should have been voided. Spewing canned lines about the border on questions about healthcare just turned it into a Trump campaign speech.
The moderators literally told Trump that they were gonna ask a question but he could use his time however he wanted. That happened within the first five minutes. They were never gonna make them answer questions or fact check them
They like his ramblings because it gets clicks and views. The media is selling our democracy for profits
And most social medialites are fine with it as long as they have a steady stream of stories to complain about, unfortunately.
Fuck CNN. Just as bad as Fox, except neoliberal flavored
Lügenpresse
I missed that they said that. However, it’s still a stupid policy. Their rules allowed Trump to have lying rambles and allowed Biden to just ramble.
Right, what's the point of the debate and moderators if your questions are just suggestions and you let them just talk about whatever.
Yeah, they told this to Trump after he wanted to respond to what Biden said. They said that he could use his time however he wanted after they asked him their question, if I recall correctly. Terrible.
CNN made sure that regardless of Biden's performance that Trump would have been free to say what he wanted.
Exactly. CNN loves and wants Trump ... because it gives them 4 years of bashing him which equals ratings. Yay Capitalism and Mainstream media! /s
Seems most people missed that part, you're the first I've seen to mention it
That’s because everyone’s too focused on the crazy idea that Biden should step down after the debate. It was really just more of the same from both of them although Biden obviously looked and sounded worse than usual because of his cold. The election is still 4 months out, so I doubt this debate changed many minds. If we’re lucky, it’ll be forgotten in a week or two
The sad thing is that it won't be, Joe Biden is going to be under more scrutiny than ever and just gave Trump the incentive he needs to ditch every debate from now till November because now it's Joe that needs to prove something.
Honestly, last night demonstrated the true both sides issue: our country is being run by people that would've been forced out of any other career that wasn't Walmart greeter.
People over sixty can be lovely but they shouldn't be president.
Absolutely. It was such a contrast from that debate in Colorado. If only those moderators would have moderated this thing, it would have actually been useful.
“Mr. Trump, would you be open to a Palestinian state?”
“I’d have to see, because, you know- but the thing is, I’d make them pay! They have to pay. That’s the thing about Europe- they don’t pay for anything, and I made them pay, I said, you should pay and they paid and he doesn’t make them pay but they have to pay because we’re getting killed on trade and we want the things they sell but they don’t want our things and that’s not fair. And about NATO- I made them pay for nato- I said you should pay and now they pay and he doesn’t want them to pay because he’s a Palestinian but a not very good one.”
How tf is this an answer to the above question?
the childcare answer was like a 5 minute rant on Biden not firing generals or something, it was wild
Trump had 2 answers the entire time: the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the worst thing in American history (somehow), and millions on murderers and rapists are being led across the border. Every "answer" he gave was just one of those 2 over and over. CNN needed to do a better job of managing the debate, which they did not do. The substance of Biden's response were far better than anything from Trump. But Trump was allowed to just control everything like the lunatic that he is. This was a shitshow all around.
Many of those migrants are coming from prisons and mental institutions!
One of the candidates should be heading to a prison or mental institution.
I have one ticket to a psych ward and one ticket to a retirement home! Pack your bags gentlemen!
Biden can just go home. He has a loving family that will take care of him.
Like to be fair to Biden, the man isn’t an idiot, he’s just not cut out for this job at this time in his life.
They're stealing Black Jobs... oh and Hispanic jobs too.
Yeah lol, like I thought so in Trump’s brain does he think the illegal hispanics are stealing jobs from the legal hispanics?
Yupp. Biden had a bad showing but he gave some actual answers. No one looked at Trump who was undecided and said Yes, give me more of that.
Is this a real quote
It is not- it’s my paraphrasing of his answer. The real one was longer and less on-topic.
It's always a real quote.
Good lord, is that an actual transcript of his answer? How tf can anyone think this is somehow better than Biden trying his hardest to actually answer the questions even if he was struggling?
I feel like every political debate should put the text of the question on the bottom of the screen during the entire answer period.
Yup. It was a smart tactic for trump tbh. At least 3 times when there was a question he didn’t feel like answering he would just extend the previous one and cnn would move on with zero repercussions or pushback. It was a win win for him.
Not only would he not answer the question, but often times after finishing his rant the moderator would say " You have only used X seconds, would you like to answer <whatever the initial question was>?" To which he would spend the rest of the time on a second rant, never answering the question in either instance.
Yeah it was silly.
I started watching 20 minutes in and was stunned that the CNN moderators asked questions of Trump, who rambled on about some talking point instead of answering the question being asked, and they let him finish. If there was time, they would just ask him the question again. They seemed to let Trump control the debate.
Biden’s reactions seemed to be “why is he talking about this and not responding to the question?” That being said, Biden should have responded to the questions that CNN was asking instead of responding to the BS that Trump was spewing.
I get wanting to finish answering a question, but generally, they let rules slide and after using up time on the previous question or response they would still have to answer the next question. They threw that away completely and once trump realized they would just move on without any issue, he kept going.
Biden should have said, “Please note that convict Trump did not answer the question. But here’s my answer…”
My dad asked a couple of times, “Has Trump answered the question yet?” Ofc I say no.
It was frustrating because both CNN and Biden were letting Trump get away with it.
No the moderator gave him permission to revisit! You can go back but you have X amount of time.
So he burns half his time on that and then gives no answer to the actual questions
It's what Kyle Clark and probably some foreign networks would have done because it's the right thing
Fact checking should be a given. You can’t have a person spouting blatant lies and not hold him/her accountable. At that point they have won. They get to say what.ever.they.want. Absolutely no repercussions. They should be fact checked realtime on air, immediately after what is said. But agreed, the moderators should have noted vocally when a candidate did not answer the question they were asked, then move in to the next question. ‘So you have no answer on the Palestinian issue. Ok. Next’
They literally told trump he could use his minute after the question however he liked when he asked to respond to Biden.
TAPPER: President Trump, I want to follow up, if I can, you want - TRUMP: (CROSSTALK) TRUMP: Am I allowed to respond to him? TAPPER: Well, I’m going to ask you a follow-up. You can do whatever you want with the minute that we give you. I want to follow up. You want to impose a 10 percent tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. How will you ensure that that doesn’t drive prices even higher? TRUMP: It’s not going to drive them higher. It’s just going to cause countries that have been ripping us off for years, like China – and many others, in all fairness to China – it’s going to just force them to pay us a lot of money, reduce our deficit tremendously, and give us a lot of power for other things.
Exactly! Moderation was atrocious. They should have jumped in a directed both candidates to actually answer the question. Trump pivoted nearly 100% of the time, and Biden dodged a few times as well.
Tapper literally said to trump like two minutes into the debate, ‘you can do whatever you want with your minute but here’s the question’ LOOOL
why even have rules or questions then
I noticed Dana do that a couple times, but Jake Tapper told Trump early on something like “the question is about X but you can do whatever you want with your time.”
CNN is Fox Lite now. It was never their intention to host the debate, they just wanted to give Trump a platform to lie to hundreds of millions of people at once without anyone to correct him.
Hell, even when the mics were on, at least Biden could call out his BS. Last night was a total jackass jackpot for Trump.
There’s a couple of times early where they basically just repeated the question.
"Thank you for you opinion, that is contrary to the facts, on a subject that has nothing to do with the question. This grants you a bonus question: are you trying to play some brain worm angle?"
It's crazy to compare Presidential Cadidate debate moderators to State and Local election mods. A fucking 10 year old could have hosted the CNN debate with notecards.
I stopped watching when it became clear this was just another opportunity for Trump to lie for 90 minutes straight. What a waste of resources.
Long-term, our debates absolutely need to have fact checking. Short-term, Biden and the Dems need to fucking adapt to using the shitty hand God gave them.
The voters are not wholly to blame, but boy howdy. There is apparently a need to spoon feed reality to the modern American audience. We have far too many voters unshackled by mere facts and figures. We have millions of people falling for the rambling tactics of a cartoonishly evil con man, because he talks confidently and loudly.
It was fittingly iconic how a valid climate change question was deflected for Trump's 10000th angry screed against migrants.
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TBF: if this isn’t a thing, it should be. I’d subscribe. In this day and age, most of our news is fed in short bursts, and politics always seems too messy for me to digest.
Give it to me fast, clean, dumbed down with facts.
Trump is targeting low info, low intelligence voters. It's hard to argue that its not working. After everything he's done he should be polling in the single digits.
This is why Republicans move heaven and Earth to defund public education.
The fact that golf was debated...
Was the only time trump tried to speak into a muted mic all night. When Biden joked about Trump being 6'5" and 225 pounds and able to walk 18 holes
He also seemed more upset at Biden's handicap than anything else said last night.
Prob the only thing trump could truthfully call Biden out on for bullshitting. I laughed at that one. When Biden said carry your own bag I was like what haha.
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The real loser: the entire planet who has to endure the consequences of this ranging from Project 2025 to a Christian Theocracy in the United States to the deregulation of oil, gas and coal as well as a baked into legislation the inability for Republicans to lose thanks to all control of electoral votes given to Republicans in each state’s legislature.
All the while a new world order that takes hold with Europe versus Russia, Iran, China…ought to keep the world too busy in conflict to combat climate change. Where will the US sit on the world stage amidst all of this carnage around the globe?
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Also, EU voters seem to be making the same mistake American voters are, with their recent wide support for various far right parties and candidates across the continent.
The real losers in this are the citizens of the US
Biden would not be bad for citizens of the US. Trump would be disastrous.
Biden may be kind of whatever, but the team around him is outstanding. You're voting for them, vs Trump's team of religious zealots, treasonous criminals, and professional con-men.
I get that and will vote for Biden anyway. The problem is the several million who may now decide “fuck it both of these guys suck I’m staying home”
Yup :(
Both sides........
Its not like this is a Biden's fist election.
He and his cabinet have been objectively productive over the last 4 years. You are voting for more than biden with a biden vote. Hes an effective president, and last night doesnt change that.
I’m voting for Biden and his competent administration. I’m also voting against Trump and his fascist sycophants.
As I have already stated to two different people: I don't value the opinion of anyone who changed theirs after the debate. We know what we are getting from both candidates.
The problem is those of us who have been paying attention know a Biden presidency is 1000x a safer bet than Trump. My concern is the swing and undecided voters. If I were undecided, last night would’ve seriously increased my concern about Biden’s competency. I am still voting for him because I’d literally vote for an orange juice can before Trump, but damn, it was disheartening.
Judging on vocal strength or appearance of age feels absurd when we have so many other metrics to use that have objective impacts on our daily lives.
But, as is often the case, the power of media/social media spin and disinformation to control narratives among the average voter turned this into a "who is older" challenge, and that will drive certain voters. It's hard to say that a person is wrong for acting within the mental framework they've already constructed. But it is fair to question why they have that framework at all...
That’s a reasonable argument - the problem is the people who don’t follow his administration closely and who might stay home instead of vote. The debate was supposed to energize them to come out for Biden. I don’t think that goal was achieved.
Only about 25% of us get that. 30% won't have cared regardless, the rapist felon could spend half the night saying obscenities and they'd say he won the debate. And the other 40% or so that is eligible to vote can't seem to remember anything from last month let alone the last administration.
It's embarrassing.
The mainstream media wants Trump to win because they want his corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich. That's why they didn't bother fact-checking even though they said they would. That's they they immediately went into their usual "how this is bad for Biden" routine but on steroids. That's why they keep giving Trump and his army of liars free airtime to spread their lies to the world.
Yall still take CNN seriously anymore? They've been dying for Trump to come back so they can post breaking headlines of what he said about Taylor Swift
That is because CNN is now owned by a Right-winger
Buddy CNN jumped the shark in 2014 when they spent 24/7 for 6 months talking about a missing plane
Buddy CNN jumped the shark in 2014 when they spent 24/7 for 6 months talking about a missing plane
That stupid holograph....I'm surprised they haven't broken it out again anytime there's a travel related topic.
Yeah, this was entirely predictable. CNN doesn't care about legitimacy or competency in disseminating information. They are now an entertainment network.
They are now an entertainment network.
All big media companies are profit generating ventures, they don't give a fuck about democracy or the health of America, just non-stop shock value news.
Trump said this!, Biden did this!, etc. etc.
Trump generates non-stop bullshit that generates views/clicks and ultimately dollars for CNN.
Nope. CNN has been dead to me since the Trump Town Hall. I don't watch, and I don't click.
It’s a circus orchestrated by capitalists. The fact that our choice of candidate is so pathetic is no accident . The reality is I would vote for Bidens corpse over Trump any day. There’s really no other option right now. Trump shouldn’t even be allowed to run in the first place . Trump is a useful idiot for every shitty horrible scam known to man. Monsters are all waiting in the wings drooling for their chance to fuck things up beyond repair.Trump will sell our country out in a heartbeat.
Why would they need fact checking when EVERYTHING trump said was just a repeat of the same lies he’s spouted for years now that have been proven lies since day one.
Anyone that still believe the lies and vitriol will not be swayed, yeah Biden talked like an Alzheimer’s patient but he answered the questions, mostly was able to stick to topic, speak to what has been done, what will be done and specific numbers that were correct (except the price of insulin he first said was $15 but later correct $35) meanwhile trump couldn’t do any of that just “we’ve done the best border job, ask anybody, everybody says it was the best ever, never seen anything like it, just ask them, best in the history of America but ask anybody, Biden is the worst ever!” Yet can not expound of either of those two subjects “just ask anybody” because maybe they can give you details, I don’t care”
Why is NO ONE talking about trumps complete lack of knowledge or ability to answer a question on any subject yet it’s only focused on “Biden old”.
You overestimate the general public's ability to parse information and think critically. The electorate is chock full of idiots. It's the only reason Trump has mass support.
However, the real backers of Trump, the wealthy and connected, want another presidency from him because they know what it means for their money and their power: consolidation. Those same people control the media networks that are lambasting Biden and empowering Trump's demagoguery.
It's a large-scale game of manipulation, and the rubes, unfortunately, cannot defend themselves.
To answer your question, it’s because we’ve known for a long time that Trump’s full of shit. No one is surprised that he spouted bullshit and refused to answer the fucking question all night. We were however upset and surprised at how piss-poor of a job Biden did.
The sane Americans, myself included, are licking our wounds after last night. It was not a good night for American democracy.
Debates are a complete waste of time if one party intends to lie the entire time.
“…There were no wars.”-Trump.
There were literally wars happening while Trump was president. American servicemembers served and died In them.
Crickets
‘Little’ fact checking? I saw none! They needed a running banner across the bottom! I thought their setup and moderation absolutely sucked balls, but I don’t wanna sound like a MAGA whining that fact checking was ‘bias towards Biden’. Sounds like CNN dropped the fact-checking bc trump threatened not to show. They should have let him!
It was fucking atrocious. Trumps "strength" is in rambling talking points about wedge issues and just spewing constant lies about whatever takes his fancy in the moment. Of course he's more charismatic and lively when he doesn't have to actually address an issue or hew to facts... He's just scatting bullshit and they let him.
Had they actually interrupted and insisted he answer the question at hand, he would have looked much worse as he doesn't fucking know anything or have any policies. He would have been riled and shook, like he got towards the end. Had they challenged him on his lies, he wouldn't have gotten away with just nonstop horseshit delivered confidently and brushed past.
Instead they just let him deliver a stump speech over the course of the debate and immediately followed up with lambasting Biden for looking old. Literally I watched a few minutes of the after party and they immediately launched into "DNC in free fall" talk, with an eventual minor aside about how "Biden was stronger on substance" and "trump called out on truth-o-metre, didn't answer questions". Then back to "omg Biden old".
The most charitable explanation is that CNN thought that they were maintaining neutrality by not actually moderating at all, trusting the American public to discern for themselves. Which is honestly too naive to be believable, especially when they themselves immediately jumped on the optics they created to hand wring about Biden. The whole thing was such a a fucking farce, I hope the wider world can finally accept what a malignant force of trash CNN is now.
Yeah, and they cut Biden off mid-sentence the second his time was over, but let trump ramble on for another sentence or two. It just felt like the setup was tailor-made for his style bs. The whole ‘both sides’ thing should have died a permanent death after Jan 6. The good news is, in the hour following the debate, Biden had his strongest grass-roots donation rally since he first announced his bid. But jfc is ridiculous every other article today is about how bad Biden did and no attempt to even measure trump by the same standards.
That was maybe the single worst moderated debate I have ever seen. They asked Trump if he would support independent Palestinian state and was like "we'll see" and then proceeded to ramble for 2 minutes about completely irrelevant topic and when his time was up they were like "ok thanks", and moved on to another topic. How is it even a moderated topic if you won't force the debaters to stick to the topics.
Pretty sure the real losers are the American People and CNN are one of the many perps, actually.
Oh thank God, I'm so glad I started reading the comments here, I was starting to freak out just a little bit thinking, I hope people didn't buy into any of that BS coming out of trump's mouth. Just a constant stream of lies, zero pushback, and you could tell Biden didn't really know what to do with it. Hell, who would? Even I had a hard time keeping up with him. As soon as he was done saying whatever it was he was saying, I would get dizzy at the end, just running around in circles. Just thinking, oh dear God if that fool somehow worms his way back into the White House because of THIS, screwed doesn't even BEGIN to describe us.
I gotta be honest tho, I'm still a little bit nervous. You KNOW most people don't pay NEARLY the amount of attention that this situation calls for. Not even CLOSE.
It matters. Vote for Biden. Tell all your friend and family to vote Biden.
And totally fuck cnn!!
It's called gish gallop and its by design. Per wiki:
The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm their opponent by providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments.
During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of specious arguments, half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. Each point raised by the Gish galloper takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place, which is known online as Brandolini's law. The technique wastes an opponent's time and may cast doubt on the opponent's debating ability for an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved or if the audience has limited knowledge of the topics.
It's literally a tried and true method for fucking up a debate by actors working in bad faith. Even looking at the politifact truth checker, a one off random aside from Trump requires paragraphs of explanation to provide context and explain why it's false. Its a firehouse of bullshit and you have to be extremely on the ball to even keep track of them, never mind address them all, and you don't have time for that. The debate participant that values truth and accuracy is always at a disadvantage trying to come up against that. CNN provided a perfect opportunity for trump to do this and Biden was not the guy to effectively shut it down.
Oh that's what that is. I've heard people use that term A LOT, and I never did really dive into it's meaning. Not sure why, I guess the conversation just always ended up taking another turn and never really came back to it but yea, I can see that.
I wonder if orange Jesus was actually intending to use that "style" if you can call it that, of debate or is he literally so narcissistic and delusional that he actually believes all of that garbage he spews out and honestly believes he's actually doing a good thing. Honestly, I think he's too stupid to, not only choose any particular style of debate, but also implement it to any kind of useful degree.
I hope I explained that right. You know what I mean? Did that make any sense right there?
Yea I totally could imagine that trump doesn't have the attention span or discipline to engage in any specific strategy beyond that which comes naturally. Could be that in this situation, like so many others, the only thing he is actually "good" at is being a conman and he intuitively just falls into being the best at the worst things. Lots of showmen and conmen are just intuitively able to "get" what people need to hear in order to fall for their schtick. He actively workshops his material at rallies and incorporates the things people respond to into his pitch, rather than having an actual platform built on his own beliefs or expertise.
That said, gish galloping is not exactly a big brained rhetorical strategy that requires planning and discipline. The fact is that trumps beliefs are abhorrent, his actual policy aims are only popular insofar as he can propagate lies and bigotry to support them. He doesn't know much of anything about anything and can't argue a topic by demonstrating an actual understanding of the issues. His entire platform is based on a complete abandonment of objective fact. His only potential strength in a debate is to overwhelm his opponent with bullshit and keep confidently asserting that "everyone believes" this, "everyone agrees with" that. Its shallow, idiotic showmanship that appeals to people who can't think critically, and relies on being so audaciously dishonest so consistently that it's hard to know even where to start in refuting.
CNN allowed him to play to his strengths by choosing not to employ fact checking and neglecting to keep him on the subject at hand. Had they actually moderated in any capacity, things might have looked a lot different. Had his opponent been up to the task of deftly shutting down the nonsense, it may have looked different. But the difficulty of opposing someone who is gish galloping is not just a Biden weakness, it's a fundamental aspect of this strategy. Gish galloping takes what should be an even playing field, debating ideas based on a shared deference to truth, and flips it by burying the opponent in a mountain of lies that would take hours to parse through and debunk. Time they don't have (and an attention span/interest in minutiea that their audience doesn't have either).
Yea that is true, I guess for the most part, it would take more effort for someone like him to NOT use that debate method, that to actually use it. It's kind of embedded into his whole personality.
That makes sense, did you hear he had done an interview lately, the past week or so. I forget who it was with, just someone who spreads his propaganda for him. BUT, the interesting thing was, when trump was asked HOW he was actually getting ready for the debate, right? Which, on it on is an EXTREMELY stupid question, when it's being posed to trump, I should say. Getting ready? Yea right. But trump said he wasn't really preparing, which, I could have told him that. But then he said, I guess I've been kind of preparing for it my whole life. And he has. Conning people, lying, just general scum baggery would be a type of preparation for that. So in essence, he was right, he had been preparing his whole life. He's been a scumbag his whole life.
That was a train wreck. No more debates without real time fact checking and calling out each candidate on their lies or not answering the question.
CNN knows that Trump would not agree to the debate that way.
Because Trump can’t stop lying and it’s the only way he thinks he can win.
They just have him giving 90 minutes of unadulterated poison spilling.
When I heard that they were going to be live fact checking, I thought that meant they would have corrections ready for any falsehood said, since they knew the topics being discussed. Instead they did their usual after-the-lie check they normally do, which doesn't work in a debate setting.
Having to rely on Biden pointing out that Trump lied is not good enough, and makes the political landscape so much worse. Trump's entire political career has been carried by realizing that the average voter will just believe you if you say something they want to be true. Not calling it out constantly rewards it.
News media in general should be ashamed of themselves for legitimizing Trump by looking at his felony convictions, nonstop hyperbole, constant lies, and overall active damage he did to the country and still acting like his platform is at all worth acknowledging as more than the deception for power and money that it is.
CNN is the most useless news organization in the world and hopefully when the boomers die off, me being one of them, the network will burn.
The real winner of the debate: The American Oligarchy.
User deleted comment
9d
CNN is owned by a right wing nut job and never had higher ratings then when Trump was president. What did people expect? For them to try and help Biden?
When Warner Bro Discovery bought CNN, it spiraled downward. They're nonsense now.
CNN! Big, Big, HUGE FAIL!
User deleted comment
9d
Biden’s two biggest home run opportunities were the abortion issue and blaming Trump for killing his plan to “solve” the migrant crisis (which had bipartisan support before Trump intervened). He straight up whiffed on both, on top of his other usual gaffes.
He didn't just whiff on abortion, he pivoted to migrants raping and killing a teenager. That was a huge blunder.
I think I understood his concept: highlight how Trump is focused on rare examples of women harmed by immigrants as part of his racist diatribes when there are actual American women harmed every day by his actions on abortion.
It might have worked if he really nailed it, but I think it is far too complicated of an argument because it requires knowing about the murder, knowing about immigration policies on both sides, and then connecting it all back to abortion. American voters can't follow that.
Just hit him on the impacts to women. Cite the Texas child mortality rates. And then finish it off with an appeal to emotions. Easy.
And this journalistic network behavior, and "best"-practice performative dereliction, will continue until such time that the general citizenry causes CNN -- and all other networks guilty of such duplicitous malfeasance -- to undergo severe, lasting/permanent (ongoing) consequences that are disproportionately heavy-handed.
In other words, they operate in this manner because doing so is rewarded by cowardly responses, legislative negligence, and a apathetic weary populace.
It's an issue which has...a definitive 'resolution' but I have zero confidence that the necessary steps would be taken to attain (and reinforce) such.
"A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves."
~ Edward R. Murrow (spinning in his grave like a fuckin' lathe)
You mean Pseudo-fox news
CNN always fails when it comes to events trumps involved in
At the beginning they even said 'its your time, you can do with it what you want' Oh, thats great moderation. They just asked questions and and let the kids sling mud. at lest 2 questions were completely ignored.
What did we expect?
CNN was captured by the wealth class
Journalists there want to keep their jobs
Look at Hungary for a loose reference
Trump only speaks in hyperbole, and every hyperbolic statement is easily proven wrong by specifics. But, the media absolutely refuses to address it.
I didn't watch the whole thing. Couldn't.
Those fuckers at CNN were absolutely useless. Seriously. They were of no use whatsoever. They sat there, pretending like Trump is just another candidate with views and not the unhinged, hate spewing, pandering dirt bag he is.
We all can see it.
Shit, conservatives can see it
But they want to play make believe reporters and sit there in their little suits and play their part like everything is fucking fine and just let Trump spew his bullshit.
Fuck CNN. This was a spectacle from the start. They exploited the political process to sell ad time or Ozympic and shit we don't need and so they could fill a few days worth of outrage porn later.
Fuck cnn and their billionaire Trump loving owner
Isn’t that the format both parties agreed to? Yea, the lack of fact checking sucks but you can’t blame that all on cnn
A good moderator would have kept them on topic. Like, you have two minutes to answer this question, but they let Trump completely ignore questions and effectively gave him half an hour to lie about immigration. That’s not moderating. It was basically like giving them a sheet of paper with some suggestions for what to talk about.
Trump lied about losers and suckers being made up when Jake Tapper, one of the moderators, did the reporting and got it directly from John Kelly, on the record, and he was just like, “Thank you, President Trump.”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans
This isn’t like fact checking a dubious number or something. This would be akin to Trump saying that Jake Tapper called him the greatest president in history, and Tapper not bothering to be like, “I didn’t say that.” Their presence was completely superfluous.
User deleted comment
9d
That and I don't think they properly prepped Biden for what he had to do.
Biden had to listen to the shit Trump was saying, and try to form a rebuttal.
He actually tried to parse through that shit, and he clearly sucked at it and it tripped him up. It didn't help that Trump wasn't answering the questions, and so Biden had to figure out how to respond to Trump (because you can't just ignore what he said), and then answer the question too.
I wouldn't be surprised if the debate prep had his faux opponent actually answer questions, and Biden respond to that style of debate. I don't think their debate prep faux opponent did anything like what Trump did last night.
Biden had to listen to the shit Trump was saying, and try to form a rebuttal.
No, he did not. That is, in fact, what Biden did wrong. He should have stuck to his script
Why does Biden have to rebut Trump when Trump literally never rebutted Biden (except about golf)?
I remember both parties agreeing on live fact checking. As a matter of fact if you review the footage CNN even mentions having 2 minute segments for fact checking when reviewing the form. What likely happened is that either a) The policies changed at the very last minute and Biden went through with it anyway or b) CNN Decided to change things at the very last minute and told no one
This was a shitshow, moderators could not keep either candidate on topic, pretty much every new topic started with the questioned candidate instead talking more about the last topic.
Isn’t the owner of CNN a Trump supporter?
CNN’s oversight of this debate was horrific!
We all know CNN is compromised.
It's bad enough it was held at 9PM - a time when most folks, especially older folks are tired after a long day. But just coming into prime time rage posting time for Trump.
If they held it at 9AM, Biden would have been fresh and Trump would have been falling asleep at his podium.
“It was past his sleepy time” is not a ringing endorsement for a presidential candidate.
This debate really shouldn't have been a needle mover. Trump being full of it and Biden being in cognitive decline is not news. Unfortunately the Democratic strategy was to deny this point, hoping he could get through a few debates. Now those that were on board with that strategy are disillusioned in a situation where the focus could have easily been on fact-checking Trump
To be fair, how much lower could CNN go? Are the few loyal viewers going to abandon them now?
Shouldn’t an opponent be able to combat lies?
They got what they wanted. And might have guaranteed themselves to have great ratings over the next 4 years.
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