Sudden Civility: The Final Presidential Debate

[0] Hey folks.

[1] Mr. Burns.

[2] How are you?

[3] I'm all right.

[4] Good.

[5] We're actually starting at a reasonable hour.

[6] 1140.

[7] It's very civilized, like almost everything else tonight.

[8] This is our last debate of 2020.

[9] Are you going to miss this?

[10] The short answer is no. So, Alex, the first...

[11] Sorry, can you hear me?

[12] My phone, my computer keeps muting itself, and I don't know what that is.

[13] Does that have something to do with hijack, Claire?

[14] We're playing a joke on you.

[15] Why are you muting me?

[16] It's a joke about the mute button under the base.

[17] Ah, that's very funny and very mean.

[18] You're muting me. That's brilliant and disruptive.

[19] From the New York Times.

[20] I'm Michael Bobarro.

[21] This is a daily.

[22] Today.

[23] The final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

[24] We watched, as always, with national political correspondent Alex Burns.

[25] It's Friday, October 23rd.

[26] Alex, it feels like the first debate was defined by President Trump's interruptions.

[27] The second debate was canceled because the president refused to participate in it remotely.

[28] And so what were you thinking heading into this third and final debate?

[29] What were your expectations for each side?

[30] Well, for the president, candidly, I didn't know what to expect.

[31] And I don't think anybody else did, including people who work for him, because it was such a question of his own self -control, his own frame of mind, you know, would he have any interest in actually delivering anything resembling a campaign message or just sort of lashing out wildly?

[32] What Republicans were hoping for was that at best, he would deliver a. focused persuasive message for his own reelection and a more focused and disciplined negative case against Joe Biden, that that might give him a little bit more room to take another shot at this in the last two weeks as an underdog.

[33] You know, I think on the Democratic side, there was a real hope either that Trump would blow it on his own and just sort of give it to Biden by default or that failing that, that it would be a somewhat more structured debate that would give Biden the chance to get out more of his message than he did last time.

[34] let's remember that first debate was terrible for President Trump.

[35] It's not like we heard a whole lot of Joe Biden or that he got really much airtime at all to deliver any extended argument for himself.

[36] Good evening from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

[37] I'm Kristen Welker of NBC News and I welcome you to the final 2020 presidential debate between President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

[38] Okay, so let's talk about what actually happens as the debate begins.

[39] So from the very outset, you get a clear signal from the moderator, Kristen Welker, of NBC News, that they're hoping to have a different kind of debate this time.

[40] The debate commission will then turn on their microphone only when it is their turn to answer, and the commission will turn it off exactly when the two minutes have expired.

[41] She reminds the candidates of the rules, that there's going to be a mute button employed to let each of them take some time to give their answers uninterrupted, at least at the start of each question.

[42] But on behalf of the voters, I'm going to ask you to please speak one at a time.

[43] The goal is for you to hear each other and for the American people to hear every word of what you both have to say.

[44] Very, very clear, polite, but firm instruction that let's not do that whole thing again.

[45] And that's kind of what happens.

[46] At least for the first few segments of the debate, we really did see that kind of structured and linear exchange of views.

[47] And we will begin with the fight again.

[48] against the coronavirus.

[49] President Trump, the first question is for you.

[50] The country is heading into a dangerous new phase.

[51] More than 40 ,000 Americans are in the hospital tonight with COVID, including record numbers here in Tennessee.

[52] The first topic was the coronavirus pandemic, and the first question went to President Trump to explain what he would do in the coming months as we see a new surge in cases, and the death toll continues to rise.

[53] If you notice, the mortality rate is down 85%.

[54] The excess mortality rate is way down and much lower than almost any other country.

[55] And we're fighting it and we're fighting it hard.

[56] And what we heard from the president was pretty much what we have been hearing from the president, which was a just trust me, happy days or almost here again kind of message.

[57] There was a very big spike in Arizona.

[58] It's now gone.

[59] And there are some spikes and surges.

[60] other places.

[61] They will soon be gone.

[62] We have a vaccine that's coming.

[63] It's ready.

[64] Promising a vaccine was right around the corner and saying that, you know, the most important thing was that the country not be locked down again.

[65] I can tell you from personal experience that I was in the hospital.

[66] I had it.

[67] And I got better.

[68] And he invoked his own a hospitalization.

[69] This happened, of course, right after the first presidential debate as sort of a case study in why things are getting better, that there are therapies that didn't exist, never mind the fact that most Americans obviously can't get the kind of health care that he got.

[70] Okay, former Vice President Biden, to you, how would you lead the country out of this crisis?

[71] You have two minutes uninterrupted.

[72] Two hundred and twenty thousand Americans dead.

[73] From there we go over to Joe Biden, and it's just a totally different reality.

[74] The expectation is we'll have another 200 ,000 Americans dead.

[75] be timed between now and the end of the year.

[76] If we just wore these masks, the President's own advisors had told them we could save 100 ,000 lives.

[77] That no, normalcy is not right around the corner and that in order to get us there, there needs to be a much more robust federal response on the virus on a number of levels.

[78] I will take care of this.

[79] I will end this.

[80] I will make sure we have a plan.

[81] And I think we see in this exchange, Biden delivering, I think, his most, direct, his bluntest critique of the night against the president, just saying anybody who presides over this many American deaths can't be reelected.

[82] You also said a vaccine will be coming within weeks?

[83] Yes.

[84] Is that a guarantee?

[85] No, it's not a guarantee, but it will be by the end of the year.

[86] During these exchanges, unlike in that first debate, the president never interrupts Joe Biden.

[87] Let's talk about schools.

[88] President Trump, you...

[89] Well, I think we have to respond if I might.

[90] Please, and then I have a follow.

[91] Thank you.

[92] And I appreciate that.

[93] And I'm curious, what's your understanding?

[94] understanding of what's behind that change in tone from the Trump campaign?

[95] Is it possible the president's poll numbers were pretty bad after that first debate?

[96] Was there an instruction he received from his advisors?

[97] Do we think that he needed to stop that particular kind of behavior, that it was alienating voters?

[98] What was happening?

[99] Really, all the above.

[100] You know, the president came out of that first debate thinking he did well and was sort of steadily, I don't know that he was fully disabused of that notion, but there was really a mood of panic across.

[101] the Republican Party after that first debate.

[102] And look, the president has not been delivering a focused campaign message on the trail.

[103] He has not been making a strong affirmative case for his reelection.

[104] But he has been hearing from his advisors and from other Republicans that if he takes it to Biden, while coloring inside the lines a little bit more in terms of the basic rules of the debate and the basic parameters of what Americans like to see from a president, that maybe his message would be more effective.

[105] Mm -hmm.

[106] And part of that focused message seemed to involve a little bit of unexpected humility from the president.

[107] He took responsibility for the coronavirus in an exchange.

[108] And that threw me a little bit.

[109] Are we dangerous?

[110] You tell the people it's dangerous now.

[111] What should they do about the danger?

[112] And you say, I take no responsibility.

[113] It threw me, too.

[114] And I think it was a little bit of rhetorical acrobatics from the president in that he said, Excuse me, I take full responsibility.

[115] I take responsibility.

[116] It's not my fault that he came here.

[117] It's China's fault.

[118] And you know what?

[119] It's not Joe's fault that it came here either.

[120] It's China's fault.

[121] And then immediately said, basically this is on China.

[122] But you're right, that we haven't heard him even use those words before, even in this, you know, somewhat evasive intent.

[123] Mm -hmm.

[124] And on this question of tone, I think everyone, was waiting for Donald Trump to go after Biden very early and very hard on this very controversial reporting that's come out in the New York Post about Biden's son, Hunter, how he made his money overseas.

[125] But interestingly, it was not Trump who really initiated that discussion.

[126] That's right.

[127] This was an interesting moment at the beginning of the second section of the debate, which was...

[128] All right.

[129] We're going to move on to our next section.

[130] which is national security.

[131] Focused on foreign interference in American elections.

[132] This question goes to you, Mr. Vice President, what would you do to put an end to this threat?

[133] You have two minutes uninterrupted.

[134] I made it clear, and I asked everyone else to take the pledge, I made it clear that any country, no matter who it is, that interferes in American elections, will pay a price.

[135] Then the first question goes to Biden, and he uses it to issue a warning to foreign countries like Russia, like Iran, to say, if you meddle in our elections, you will pay a price for it.

[136] But the point is this, folks, we are in a situation where we have foreign countries trying to interfere in the outcome of our election.

[137] His own national security advisor told him that what is happening with his buddy...

[138] And then he goes a little bit further, and he alludes to information that is being spread around in the U .S. and to the presidents, he refers to him as the president's buddy, Rudy Giuliani.

[139] Rudy Giuliani has been one of the key people involved in stoking these stories in places like the New York Post that are purportedly sourced to private emails that Giuliani claims to have obtained.

[140] But of course, we know that Rudy Giuliani spent time earlier this year in Eastern Europe, sort of seeking information there from questionable sources.

[141] And so, you know, Biden starts to bring up Giuliani.

[142] Well, I won't goshing.

[143] Oh, I will.

[144] His buddy, Rudy Giuliani, he's being used as a Russian pawn.

[145] You see him kind of catch himself as though he realizes, you know, ah, that's your rebuttal.

[146] That's not something you're supposed to do preemptively.

[147] But then he decides to go ahead with it and says, you know, that Giuliani is potentially being used as a Russian pawn.

[148] Well, let me respond to the first part as Joe answered.

[149] Joe got $3 .5 million from Russia.

[150] And it came through Putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of Moscow.

[151] And it was the mayor of Moscow's wife.

[152] And you got $3 .5 million.

[153] Your family got $3 .5 million.

[154] million dollars.

[155] And the president essentially seizes an opening that he was obviously waiting for or perhaps would have tried to create on his own to then spend much of the next segment of the debate just poking and prodding at these allegations about Joe Biden's son.

[156] But now with what came out today, it's even worse.

[157] All of the emails, the emails, the horrible emails of the kind of money that you were raking in, you and your family.

[158] And Joe, you were vice president when some of this was happening.

[159] And it should have never happened.

[160] Right.

[161] This was clearly one of the most anticipated subjects of this debate.

[162] And Trump does seize on it, like you said, but in what for him felt like oddly polite terms.

[163] He takes a sort of insinuating approach rather than the sort of double -barreled smear that is so characteristic of the way he does politics, sort of outlining what he says or these questions that have just surfaced.

[164] You know, of course, Of course, he does not acknowledge what the sourcing is and the questions about the providence and the reliability of the reports and the involvement of his personal allies, but he says, And I think you owe an explanation to the American people.

[165] Why is it?

[166] Somebody just had a news conference a little while ago who was essentially supposed to work with you and your family, but what he said was damning.

[167] And regardless of me, I think you have to clean it up and talk to the American people.

[168] Maybe you can do it right now.

[169] You know, Joe, you need to explain yourself.

[170] You know, why do you have these foreign entanglements?

[171] And he says several times, and we have no reason to believe this is the case that Biden personally profited from his son's business dealings, which is something that Biden has consistently denied in the past and denied again in the debate this evening.

[172] But, you know, I agree with you that it clearly was in both parties.

[173] It was seen by advisors of the president as one of his worst moments in the first debate when he went after Hunter Biden in an effort to just humiliate the former vice president.

[174] and talked, you know, not just about Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings, but about his battles with substance abuse, about his discharge from the military, in a way that was just seen, you know, I think even by people who were not going to vote for Joe Biden as just mean spirit and low.

[175] And it did seem like there was at least some sensitivity tonight that, you know, if you're going to try to smear Joe Biden on, you know, thin ethical attacks, that there are limits even to what you can do there.

[176] We're going to talk about immigration.

[177] We're going to talk about immigration now, gentlemen.

[178] So then the debate returns, and for the most part, remains pretty focused on substantive policy discussion like immigration.

[179] But the United States can't locate the parents of more than 500 children.

[180] So how will these families ever be reunited?

[181] This to me is maybe one of the most interesting moments that we have seen from Joe Biden, not just in the debates, but in the entire general election.

[182] there is just obviously a massive gulf separating these two candidates on the issue of immigration.

[183] And where they start is the issue of family separation at the border and the more than 500 kids who are separated from their parents.

[184] And the government has still not been able to locate the parents.

[185] This was something that most of the country recoiled from just horribly when this happened.

[186] And it's something that the president really had no capacity to defend in the debate.

[187] So what he did was...

[188] Let me ask you a follow question.

[189] Kristen, they did it.

[190] We changed the policy.

[191] Your response to that?

[192] We did it.

[193] We did not.

[194] They built the cages.

[195] You know, attack the Obama administration's record of border enforcement, which was at the time a whole lot more hard line than a lot of Democrats.

[196] Certainly wanted then and certainly more hard line than would be acceptable in the party today.

[197] And that's when we hear Biden do something that he has almost never done as a presidential candidate.

[198] President, the Obama administration did fail to deliver immigration reform, which had been a key promise during the administration.

[199] It also presided over record deportations as well as family detentions at the border before changing course.

[200] So why should voters trust you with an immigration overhaul now?

[201] Because it made a mistake.

[202] And that's to separate himself from Barack Obama.

[203] And he does it in a relatively subtle way.

[204] But he says, look, the administration made a mistake.

[205] And he says, I'll be president of the United States, not vice president.

[206] I'll be the President of the United States, not vice president, which sure seems to suggest that he thinks that he would have handled things differently if he had had the top job during those eight years when he was the vice president.

[207] And certainly that he would not approach the presidency in this one respect the same way Barack Obama did.

[208] And he promises that he will, in his first hundred days, send legislation to the Hill that proposes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

[209] And what do you make of that?

[210] Because he's not in a Democratic primary.

[211] He doesn't need to prove just how liberal he is on the question of immigration.

[212] He's running against Donald Trump, who's quite hard line on immigration.

[213] So why do you think Joe Biden chose to do that 12 days before the election?

[214] I think it's clearly an acknowledgement that the politics of immigration have changed enormously in the last decade, that his own coalition, which depends heavily on Latino voters and other immigrant groups in key states across the country, would not tolerate the kind of mass deportation that went on during the Obama years, and that the country as a whole is more sympathetic to relatively lenient or progressive immigration policies because of the backlash against the way President Trump has done things.

[215] We'll be right back.

[216] All right.

[217] Let's talk about our next section, which is race in America.

[218] And I want to talk about the way...

[219] Alex, in the second half of the debate, the subject of race is explored in considerable depth.

[220] And it ends up feeling like a pretty revealing discussion.

[221] I think it was.

[222] You know, we start out with this question from Kristen Welker asking the two candidates to speak directly to the country, directly to people of color, about what they see in the country's crisis of racism and policing.

[223] Mr. Vice President, in the next two minutes, I want you to speak directly to these families.

[224] Do you understand why these parents fear for their children?

[225] And we hear from Joe Biden a pretty direct answer to the question.

[226] I never had to tell my daughter if she's pulled over.

[227] Make sure she puts for a traffic stop.

[228] Put both hands on top of the wheel and don't reach for the glove box because someone may shoot you.

[229] Conversation moves to President Trump, and he delivers the kind of blustery answers that we have heard from him in the past.

[230] I am the least racist person.

[231] I can't even see the audience because it's so dark, but I don't care who's in the audience.

[232] I'm the least racist person in this room.

[233] Describes himself as the president who's done more for black people.

[234] people in this country than any other president.

[235] With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I've done.

[236] And when Welker pushes him to address his criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, the president basically reduces it to one scene that he claims to have encountered where protesters sort of left a bad impression on him because they were chanting anti -police slogans.

[237] They were chanting pigs.

[238] in a blanket talking about police.

[239] Pigs.

[240] Pigs talking about our police.

[241] Pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon.

[242] I said, that's a horrible thing.

[243] Rather than trying to match Biden's empathy, he tries to attack Biden's record.

[244] And there is a bunch for him to work with when it comes to criminal justice.

[245] And he really takes Biden to task for the 1994 crime bill.

[246] When he did such harm to the black community, this is a bill that imposed, among other things, strict penalties for a whole range of offenses expanded the federal death penalty and what critics of the bill say led to era of mass incarceration.

[247] And the president really pushed Biden to account for that record.

[248] Now, you have done nothing other than the crime bill, which put tens of thousands of black men mostly in jail.

[249] All right.

[250] Let me ask Vice President Biden.

[251] They remember it because if you look at what's happening with the voting right now.

[252] Let me ask.

[253] I remember that you treated them very, very badly.

[254] Just take a look at what's happening out there.

[255] Vice President Biden, let me give you a chance to respond.

[256] We only hear Biden wrestle with this aspect of his record up to a point.

[257] We know that there are aspects of the crime bill that he remains very proud of.

[258] But he shifts focus away from those.

[259] He doesn't offer a wholesale defense of the crime bill to talking about how the gaps in federal sentencing between different kinds of narcotics that clearly discriminate against.

[260] people of color and black people in particular, that that was a mistake for Congress to have done that.

[261] But he's kind of deflecting the core issue of the crime bill.

[262] But why didn't he get it done?

[263] See, it's all talk, no action with these politicians.

[264] Why didn't he get it done?

[265] That's what I'm going to do when I become president.

[266] You were vice president, along with Obama as your president, your leader, for eight years.

[267] Why didn't you get it done?

[268] You had eight years to get it done.

[269] Now you're saying you're going to get it done because you're all told.

[270] And this is a point in the debate where we see the president wield, to some effect, the argument that, you know, if Joe Biden saw all these problems, he should have dealt with them at some point in his long career in Washington, where the president gives Biden something of an opening to get out of that trap is when he says, why didn't you do it in the eight years a short time ago?

[271] Why didn't you do it?

[272] You just said, I'm going to do that.

[273] I'm going to do this.

[274] And Biden's answer is, We had a Republican Congress.

[275] That's the answer.

[276] Okay.

[277] You've got to talk them into it, Joe.

[278] All right.

[279] You've got to talk them into it.

[280] This is clearly a detour that he doesn't want to spend a whole lot much more time on.

[281] Well, to that point, what do you make of these back and forth and the persistence of Donald Trump's case that Joe Biden didn't do enough when it came to criminal justice reform and race, given that Joe Biden is polling so far above the president on the issue of how he would handle race relations?

[282] I think that there are.

[283] Are the germs there of an argument that might be effective against Joe Biden if the president were seen as more credible on these issues himself, that if the country broadly saw Donald Trump as somebody who was interested in racial equality or criminal justice reform or addressing police brutality, then the notion that those were not priorities for Joe Biden for long phases of his career, you know, would be, I think, a pretty fair criticism.

[284] But when you go directly from saying, you know, essentially, I don't care for Black Lives Matter because I saw this one protest where they were calling police officers pigs to saying, you know, Mr. Biden, if you see all this as problematic, why didn't you do something about it?

[285] It's a little headspinning.

[286] It just doesn't quite gel in the same way when it's snapping back and forth like that.

[287] We're running out of time, so we've got to get on to climate change, please.

[288] So next the conversation turns to the environment and to clean energy.

[289] And Alex, I was sort of surprised a bit by how much time Biden spent focused on clean energy and by implication, suggesting there's a problem with traditional sources of energy.

[290] Climate change and climate warming, global warming is an existential threat to humanity.

[291] I think this is a real signal from Biden of his governing priorities and a sense from him and other Democrats and certainly a hope.

[292] that the politics of energy and climate are really now on their side and that they feel like it can be a big part of an economic recovery package because they do see it as a pathway to creating jobs.

[293] We're going to invest in, for example, 500 ,000, 50 ,000 charging stations on our highways so that we can own the electric car market of the future.

[294] In the meantime, China is doing that.

[295] We're going to be in a position where we're going to see to it that we're going to take 4 million existing billion buildings and 2 million existing homes and retrofit them so they don't leak as much energy, saving hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in the process and creating significant number of jobs.

[296] It is also, at least in the short term, an opening for the president to appeal to segments of his own base and perhaps to some folks in the political middle who are still wary of the idea of turning the page on fossil fuels.

[297] Would he close down the oil industry?

[298] Would you close down the oil industry?

[299] By the way, I have a transition from the oil industry, yes.

[300] Oh, that's a big statement.

[301] That is a big statement.

[302] And you heard the president literally start listing off states with significant fossil fuel sectors.

[303] That's the biggest statement.

[304] Because basically what he's saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry.

[305] Will you remember that Texas?

[306] Will you remember that Pennsylvania?

[307] Pennsylvania, Oklahoma.

[308] Vice President Biden, let me give you 10 seconds to respond.

[309] And you've had after the debate, the Biden campaign walk back or try to walk back some of what he said on oil, that no, he's not trying to shut down the oil industry, he's trying to take subsidies away from the oil industry, which is a pretty mainstream position.

[310] But yeah, in the debate, and I do think realistically in the big picture, if you're promising net zero emissions by 2050, you are talking about winding down the oil sector.

[311] So, you know, the bet on the Democratic side, you know, not just for Biden, but broadly in the party is that there is a broad enough and intense enough recognition in the electorate of the gravity of climate change is a problem.

[312] And there's enough of a recognition of the economic benefits of a clean energy economy that more voters are going to reward you for embracing that version of the future than we'll punish you for turning away from fossil fuel.

[313] It takes everything out of context, but the point is, look, we have to move toward a net zero emissions.

[314] The first place to do that by the year 2035 is an energy production by 2050 totally.

[315] All right.

[316] Is he going to get China to do it?

[317] No, we're finished with this.

[318] We have to move on to our final question.

[319] No, I'm going to rejoin Paris Accord and make China abide by what they agreed to.

[320] This felt like the most progressive version of Joe Biden on the debate stage, at least in the general.

[321] And he was pretty unapologetic in the way he talked about energy, immigration, race.

[322] Is that something perhaps you can only do when the polls show you're doing pretty well in Pennsylvania and even doing relatively well in Texas and in Ohio if you're Joe Biden?

[323] You know, I think we're going to find out.

[324] You know, Joe Biden has run a pretty low -risk campaign as these things go.

[325] This is not a candidate who has sort of gone big.

[326] on a lot of really controversial policy in the general election.

[327] So, you know, I think he is taking these risks advisedly.

[328] And look, when you look at the coalition that he is piecing together, there's a risk if you don't speak to these issues in a more assertive way, that being too cautious on immigration, you know, he badly needs Latino voters and especially young Latino voters to show up on election day.

[329] He needs young people generally.

[330] He needs educated suburbanites who are really sensitive to the issue of the environment every election cycle to, you know, not just reject President Trump, but embrace something that he is selling.

[331] And, you know, the risk for a candidate like Joe Biden, who is essentially running to be a safe harbor as an alternative to President Trump for the largest cross -section of voters available to him is that if you do try to be all things to all people, who ends up really invested in you?

[332] And I do think we heard him try in a couple important ways in that debate to correct for that possibility.

[333] And this first question does go to you.

[334] President Trump, imagine this is your inauguration day.

[335] What will you say in your address to Americans who did not vote for you?

[336] You'll each have one minute, starting with you.

[337] We have to make a country totally successful as it was prior to the plague coming in from China.

[338] So back to the beginning of our conversation.

[339] By the end of this debate, What did you make of the president's decision to not be the candidate of that first debate?

[340] Was it in any way effective in attempting to reset a race in which he is the underdog, as you said?

[341] And did Joe Biden successfully make an affirmative case that justifies his lead and makes it about him, not about the weaknesses of the president in this moment?

[342] You know, the president's approach was clearly more constructive than what he did in the first.

[343] first debate.

[344] And I think you have an enormous sigh of relief from Republicans as we speak that he did not just totally light himself on fire again.

[345] But, you know, where I think the president winds up after this debate is, you know, yes, stylistically, he was more restrained and more conventional for much, though not all, of the debate, but that he was playing a pretty bad hand in a somewhat more disciplined way.

[346] And he was delivering a message that most voters up to this point have not been persuaded by in a more fluent way.

[347] There are probably people out there who are more willing to listen to his message in this debate delivered in this way than in that first debate when he was just all over the place.

[348] But that's a separate question from whether anybody who's not already supporting the president is going to like what they hear.

[349] We are on the road to success, but I'm cutting taxes, and he wants to raise everybody's taxes, and he wants to put new regulations on everything.

[350] He will kill it.

[351] If he gets in, you will have a depression, the likes of which you've never seen.

[352] Your 401Ks will go to hell, and it'll be a very, very sad day for this country.

[353] All right.

[354] Vice President Biden, same question to you.

[355] On the Biden side of this, look, I think he did manage to make more of a case for himself than he did in the way.

[356] the first debate.

[357] He did not win this debate just by default.

[358] The sort of snap polls after the debate suggests that more people liked what he had to say than the president.

[359] And in that respect, he probably managed to keep the race, you know, pretty much within the parameters that it was already in.

[360] And I'm going to say, as I said to the beginning, what is on the ballot here is the character of this country, decency, honor, respect, treating people with dignity, making sure I don't know that there was some big moment of breakthrough for Biden, where we'll all look back on this debate and say, you know, that was the moment that he put it away.

[361] But he did have some moments that I think probably do speak to the electorate in a valuable way.

[362] There were a couple exchanges around the coronavirus, around what he hopes to do in the way of economic support to distressed families and businesses, that if you are a voter who is sitting at home, just worried sick about what's going on right now, probably address your concerns in a more direct way than a lot of the stuff you heard from the president.

[363] And as much as I do think that Biden has needed to clear a certain bar in articulating what he will actually do for the country, the core political assumption of Joe Biden's campaign is the country wants a leader who looks and acts like a president.

[364] And he is that guy and President Trump is not.

[365] You haven't been getting it the last four years.

[366] All right.

[367] I want to thank you both for a very robust hour and a half.

[368] A fantastic debate.

[369] Really appreciate it.

[370] President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden.

[371] Election Day is November 3rd.

[372] Don't forget to vote.

[373] Thank you, everyone.

[374] And have a great night.

[375] Well, Alex, thank you very much.

[376] I'm going to miss these late nights.

[377] Me too.

[378] Wait.

[379] But at the beginning, you said you wouldn't.

[380] I said I would miss the debates.

[381] That's a, you know, the post game is the fun part.

[382] Well, thank you very much.

[383] We appreciate it.

[384] Thanks, Michael.

[385] We'll be right back.

[386] Here's what else you need to know today.

[387] As you know, our Democratic colleagues informed the committee last night that they will not participate to hearing.

[388] That was their choice.

[389] It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee.

[390] On Thursday, the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney -Barrid, during a session that was boycotted by the committee's Democratic Democratic.

[391] members.

[392] The Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee did not have the votes to defeat Judge Barrett in committee.

[393] At that point, there was no further reason to participate in a committee process that has been used to rush this nominee forward.

[394] During a news conference in front of the Capitol, those Democrats said they refused to participate in a process that violated Senate Republicans' own promise not to confirm a Supreme Court justice in an election year.

[395] They broke their word to finish a confirmation process has become a caricature of illigerency.

[396] The vote moves Connie Barrett's nomination into the full Senate, where she is all but certain to be confirmed by a narrow party -line vote on Monday.

[397] And the Times reports that Russia has conducted a series of hacking operations over the past few days that have given it access to state and local computer networks within the U .S. Those hacks, intelligence officials fear, could potentially allow Russia to meddle in the November 3rd election on behalf of President Trump.

[398] The officials believe that Russian hackers may seek to disable or deface government websites.

[399] or release selective voter information in order to raise doubts about the results, especially if the race is too close to call.

[400] The Daily is made by Theo Balcom, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Custer, Lindsay Garrison, Annie Brown, Claire Tennisketter, Page Count, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Chum, Stella Tan, Alexandra Lee Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Kruppke, Mark George, Luke Vanderplute, Kelly Prime, Sindhu Yana Samundun, M .J. Davis Lynn, Austin Mitchell, Nina Pawtuck, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Daniel Gimed, Hans Butoh, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoit, Bianca Gaver, Astha Chothervedi, Rochelle Bonja, Elise Spiegel, Diana Wynne, Marion Lozano, Caitlin Roberts, and Leslie Davis.

[401] Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

[402] Special thanks to Sam Doolmec, Michaela Bouchard, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Nora Keller, Mahima Chiblani, and Des Ibuquois.

[403] That's it for the daily.

[404] I'm Michael Babarro.

[405] See you on Monday.