Do debates have winners — or just losers?

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met for the first time in Pennsylvania at the presidential debate on Tuesday. ABC moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, notably live fact-checked both candidates on topics of immigration, the economy, and foreign policy. Harris was pushed to address her shift on fracking and gun buybacks. Meanwhile, Trump was put on the spot about his plan to end the war in Ukraine. The Left, Right, and Center panel examines where the candidates stand in voter’s minds post-debate. Were either able to sway undecided voters?

Justice is a foundational tenet of America — does anyone believe in it anymore? A judge pushed the date of Trump’s sentencing — for falsifying business records — from mid-September to November 26. Trump’s lawyers had argued that the earlier sentencing could interfere with the presidential election. Was this special treatment because of who Trump is? Does the justice system have different rules for a president versus everyone else?

On Tuesday night, Trump reiterated unsubstantiated claims of migrant Haitian communities abducting pets in Springfield, Ohio. He similarly mentioned Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado. Both stories have been debunked. The underlying concerns of gang violence in Colorado have always existed, but are now being used to spread racist rhetoric in the city. As part of our 50 states series, the panel asks: How can legislators respond to valid concerns without giving into dangerous disinformation?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Left, right and center, everybody.
0:03.0	I am your host David Green.
0:04.8	Well, this week we got our first look at Donald Trump
0:08.0	and Kamala Harris, side by side.
0:10.7	On a debate stage, the debate was hosted by ABC. They had never met in person before and we now know that they
0:16.7	shook hands at the beginning. It was quite a moment in the debate. I think we saw quite the contrast between the two candidates, but with some time now to reflect,
0:26.0	I want to talk about today, if anything we saw on that debate stage, was all that surprising or changed the race in any fundamental way.
0:35.0	And fortunately we have our left right and center panel here together in the house,
0:40.0	Sarah Isker, Moelathie.
0:42.0	And I often ask you both for your reactions first, but I am going to take the
0:49.3	liberty of offering a few thoughts to start with if that's okay because I there's been so much made since this debate about
0:58.2	whether the the moderators from ABC news were doing more aggressive fact-checking of Donald Trump than
1:05.2	Kamala Harris. And I just want to say in my view when there is one candidate
1:11.0	who lies far more often than another there's going to be a lot more
1:17.2	fact-checking of that candidate and I'm okay with that. What I was concerned about was more the aggressive pushing the candidates to answer questions.
1:26.9	And I think Donald Trump was pressed in a few cases when it came to Ukraine, when it came to January 6th to answer questions, and he should
1:36.0	have been pressed.
1:37.9	There was a moment when I wish Vice President Kamala Harris had been pressed harder to answer a question and here it was.
1:45.0	Vice President Harris, in your last run for President you said you wanted to ban fracking, now you don't.
1:50.0	You wanted mandatory government buyback programs for assault weapons.
1:53.4	Now your campaign says you don't.
1:55.6	You supported decriminalizing border crossings.
	...

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