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Eleven Three Twenty: My Take on Last Night’s Presidential Debate
October 23, 2020
In yesterday’s column, I wrote that I was looking for 5 key things during last night’s final Presidential debate. Here’s my day-after take on how those five played out.
- President Trump’s Demeanor
Overall, President Trump was much less combative and more controlled than he was during the first debate. But let’s face it — that wasn’t a very high bar to clear, given his behavior in Cleveland three weeks ago.
Was this behavioral change caused by the introduction of the mute button? Or did the President finally listen to his advisors, who had urged him to be “less hot” during the debate? We’ll probably never know. What we can say is that the President, his supporters, and his campaign advisors had to be happy about his demeanor last night.
Having said that, I still think he came across as lacking in empathy a number of times — especially during the Covid-19 and Immigration topics, allowing former Vice President Joe Biden to land some memorable lines. Also, about an hour into the debate, the President started to interrupt more and became combative again. However, he didn’t go over the top — so we’ll see if this behavioral change swayed any opinions in the post-debate polling.
