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In his final debate appearance, Donald Trump lied his face off about the pandemic, spoke fondly of family separations, and wandered out into the furthest reaches of the Fox News conspiracy universe, but he didn’t interrupt as much, so let’s call it a tie.
- Asked about his coronavirus plan, Trump instead trotted out the claims that way more people could have died (if the country had done nothing at all), that he himself recovered (thanks to treatments nobody else has access to), and that a widely-available vaccine is just weeks away (it’s not). “We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” said the president, as the country recorded its second-highest daily increase in new cases since the pandemic began, and hospitalizations rose in 38 states. Joe Biden opened with a simple message: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States.”
- Trump was asked to answer for the 545 migrant children who still haven’t been reunited with their parents after his administration separated them at the border, and showed zero remorse. He falsely claimed that the children had been brought into the country by smugglers, and argued that they had a terrific time sleeping on concrete floors in unheated cages: “They are so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that were so clean.” Trump put his inherent cruelty on full display as he defended the administration’s immigrant detention policies with the outrageous lie that only immigrants with “the lowest IQ” show up for court proceedings.
- While the president regaled a baffled Joe Biden with Extremely Online conspiracy theories and executed an interesting pivot from health care to fracking, Biden showed up with strong rejoinders on Trump’s foreign financial entanglements, Republicans’ failure to pass coronavirus relief, the need to raise the federal minimum wage, and the argument for transitioning away from fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy. Please also enjoy Biden following Trump’s claim of being “the least racist person in the room” with the joke “Abraham Lincoln over here,” and his probably accidental but very good new nickname for the Proud Boys, “the Poor Boys.”
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Thanks to a combination of skillful moderation by Kristen Welker and new mute rules to accommodate our large, infantile president, Thursday’s debate was not the unmitigated shitshow we endured in September.
- Trump’s less-feral performance inspired pundits to fire up the New Tone machine for (hopefully) one last ride, praising his ability to spout lies and racist nonsense with less cross-talk, this time. Normal people were less easily impressed: 53 percent of viewers in CNN’s snap poll said Biden won the debate, next to 39 percent who called it for Trump. That said, Trump searched out a couple of Twitter polls saying he won, so once again we’re gonna have to call this one a draw.
- So, will it change the race? There’s a first time for everything! All we can say for sure is that Trump had one last opportunity to define his opponent and lay out a plan for a second term, and he did neither. (Thank you, GOP Twitter, for clearing up those second term priorities. Wait ‘til everybody in the ICU hears about MoonTown!) The closing statements made that fundamental deficit clear: Trump used his time to ramble about “your 401(k)s will go to hell,” while Biden offered a vision for the future: “I represent all of you, whether you voted for me or against me. And I’m going to make sure that you’re represented. I’m going to give you hope…Decency, honor, respect, treating people with dignity, making that sure that everyone has an even chance. And I’m going to make sure you get that.”
We have now made it through all 15 (!) debates of the 2020 presidential election cycle, and if we play our cards right, we could be in the last New Tone news cycle we’ll ever have to roll our eyes at. Take a deep breath, commit to volunteer shifts this weekend, and let’s run through the tape. 11 days.
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You’re voting, you’re volunteering, you’re going above and beyond. You deserve a discount. Now through October 30th, all Vote Save America T-shirts are 20% off at the Crooked Store. Grab one and suit up for the big day → crooked.com/store
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A Boogaloo Bois member was responsible for burning and shooting up a Minnesota police precinct during May protests following the police killing of George Floyd, according to federal prosecutors. Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old who traveled from Texas, allegedly opened fire on Minneapolis Police Third Precinct with an AK-47-style rifle, and screamed “Justice for Floyd” as he ran away. Hunter also looted and helped set the building on fire, and texted with fellow Boogaloo member (and charged murder suspect) Steven Carrillo a few hours later. Republican leaders (including the president) and the right-wing media repeatedly used rioting in Minneapolis to discount Black Lives Matter protests and drum up fear around Antifa; now that it’s been exposed as the work of far-right extremists using the protests as cover, we look forward to a solemn mea culpa from Tucker Carlson any minute now.
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- The Trump administration shut down a vaccine-safety office last year, which should be no big deal unless anybody’s in a huge rush for a safe vaccine at the moment.
- Hold onto your butts: Donald Trump is not the devoted philanthropist he claims to be. Trump’s tax records reveal that the lion’s share of his charitable tax deductions came from agreeing not to develop land—donations he may have inflated for a bigger tax break, according to the New York attorney general.
- A 19-year-old with a van full of guns plotted to assassinate Joe Biden, according to federal authorities.
- Protesters in Waukegan, IL, are calling for a federal investigation into the police killing of Marcellis Stinnette, a 19-year-old Black man who was fatally shot earlier this week.
- GOP House candidate Madison Cawthorn created a racist attack website in which he accused a journalist of going “to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males running for office.”
- The Trump campaign has been videotaping voters as they drop off ballots in Philadelphia, which likely amounts to illegal voter intimidation.
- The Trump campaign has also, along with Nevada Republicans, filed a lawsuit to block Nevada election officials from counting early votes in the state’s largest and most Democratic-leaning county. A coincidence, to be sure.
- A California appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Uber and Lyft must treat drivers as employees. That decision raises the stakes of Prop. 22, the ballot measure that seeks to keep drivers classified as contractors, which gig companies have spent a record-breaking $185 million to support, in order to avoid paying out employment benefits and covering drivers’ expenses. (Uber is now also facing a class-action lawsuit for coercing its drivers to support the measure.)
- While announcing a peace deal between Israel and Sudan, President Trump tried to get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to disparage “Sleepy Joe,” but Bibi has seen some polls: “Uh, well, Mr. President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America.”
- Mitch McConnell is, um, changing color?
- A NASA spacecraft picked up too much asteroid rubble and got jammed open and now it’s leaking precious rubble bits all over space. We have all been there with popcorn, and wish this struggling spacecraft the best.
- If your WiFi is currently working, welcome to the Deep State.
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The news side of the Wall Street Journal found no evidence that Joe Biden played any role in Hunter’s business dealings in China, after the opinion page hyped the story. Former Hunter Biden business associate and unseen debate guest Tony Bobulinksi made some (honestly very confusing) allegations that Joe Biden knew details about a failed Chinese investment venture he pursued with Hunter Biden, while Joe Biden was a private citizen. The opinion side of the Journal spent much of Thursday trying to make the story into a Thing, only to be debunked hours later by the paper’s actual reporters—the latest dispute in a long-standing feud between the opinion section and newsroom. President Trump never even mentioned Borbaloney during the debate, so go ahead and throw this one on the Failed October Surprise pile.
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Two weeks. That's all we have left until the most consequential Election Day in America's history. And it's the most dangerous time in the 2020 election season because we know that many politicians will stop at nothing to hold on to power – including doing everything they can in these final weeks to callously suppress the vote and force voters to choose between their health and their fundamental right to cast a ballot.
The ACLU has been at the forefront of pushing back against discriminatory voter suppression tactics, but in these final weeks we're all going to have to dig a little deeper to keep up the fight to protect our voting rights and our safety in this crucial election. The stakes could not be higher. Combating voter suppression is an all-hands-on-deck fight – we cannot do this critical work, or any work to defend civil liberties, without action-takers like you with us. Click here to add your name and help ACLU teams across the country as we kick our fight against voter suppression into high gear. Visit the ACLU website to get started today.
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots in the state can’t be rejected because of signature comparisons.
A federal judge has thrown out the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against New Jersey over its mostly mail-in election.
South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison raised another $22 million in the first two weeks of October, and *Lou Dobbs* is out here telling people not to vote for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Jennifer Aniston posted a photo of herself voting and urged her followers not to vote for Kanye West, which is both a fascinating fan overap to consider and an energy we can get behind.
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