Will There Be a Second Trump vs. Biden Presidential Debate? (POLL)
The next presidential debate is scheduled to happen in two weeks, but will it after the widespread criticism of the first (on Tuesday, September 29)?
President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden faced off on issues including the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, and race at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, while Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace served as moderator (or at least tried).
It was widely-panned in press roundups and on social media during and after a night of interruptions and clashes. The second debate is set for Thursday, October 15, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, with C-SPAN political editor Steve Scully as moderator — but should they move forward with it? (A third is set for a week later, on October 22, at Belmont University in Nashville, with NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker moderating.)
It seems like they’re still planning on it. “Joe Biden’s never going to refuse to talk to the American people and have any opportunity that he can to speak directly to American families and speak about the issues, speak the truth, and address the facts of where we are now but also address the hopes and dreams of the American family in terms of where we can be and Joe’s got a plan for dealing with those hopes and those aspirations as well,” Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, told CNN Tuesday night.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, echoed that sentiment to reporters after the debate. “I don’t know how many different ways we can say it. Yes, we are going to do the debates,” she said. “I would imagine there will be some additional conversations [with the Commission on Presidential Debates]. But yeah, we are committing to attending the debates.”
But it is a valid question to ask, considering the reactions. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called it “a disgrace, a low point in American debate history” on Twitter, adding, “There is no reason, not one, that Joe Biden should participate in another debate.”
On CNN, both Jake Tapper and Dana Bash slammed the debate. “That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a trainwreck,” Tapper said, pointing to President Trump’s interruptions and disregard of the rules. “That was the worst debate I have ever seen. In fact, it wasn’t even a debate. It was a disgrace.” Furthermore, no matter who won, “the American people lost.” Bash agreed, adding, “that was a s**tshow,” a word that she said she was hearing used from people on both sides.
“All across America, people are ready to take a shower,” journalist and news anchor Dan Rather tweeted after the debate.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos called it “the worst presidential debate I have ever seen.” Over on NBC, Chuck Todd too used the word “trainwreck” and Lester Holt said he was “at a bit of a loss for words here to describe what we’ve just witnessed.” “If you showed up looking for a food fight, you got a brawl between these two men, language that we have rarely heard from candidates in a political debate, name-calling that went to a new level,” he said.
Over on Fox News, Laura Ingraham said it was “a raucous night.” And as you can see in the video above, CBS’ Norah O’Donnell asked after, “Can we really have two more of these debates with the type of behavior that was displayed tonight?”
What do you think? Should there be another debate? Vote in the poll below.
