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Kristen Welker
If you have a little déjà vu about today's newsletter, that's because we are taking the rare step of naming NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker our Media Winner two days in a row.
Welker earned the honor yesterday for keeping her cool as she was subjected to a relentless smear campaign by President Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media. As we noted then, Thursday's debate was likely to "put Welker to the real test" -- and she passed with flying colors. Moderating the final debate between the president and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden required an intense amount of focus and a backbone of steel, and Welker exhibited both.
Welker kept the debate ticking along, pressing the candidates for more information with tough follow-up questions and forcing topic changes to cover all the issues on her list.
Praise poured in for Welker from pundits and journalists on the right and left, who highlighted her "thoughtful" questions and her "crisp and fresh" tone. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow said that Trump owed Welker an apology and the country owed her congratulations.
Trump isn't one for apologies but both candidates did laud her performance. "I respect very much the way you are handling this," said Trump to her during the debate. Speaking to reporters shortly after the debate, Biden added his own compliments for Welker's management of a "much more rational debate than the first one."
The moderator of that first debate, Fox News' Chris Wallace, complimented Welker for a "good, substantive debate" and added that he was "jealous."
America is facing serious challenges right now and the voters deserve to hear serious answers from the candidates. Welker did a stellar job helping make that happen. |
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 | MEDIA LOSER:
Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum battled with his fellow CNN commentator Van Jones after the Thursday's debate, and, well, the former Senator and presidential candidate got schooled.
Santorum defended Trump's performance, saying that he had "completely skewered" Biden, but Jones was unconvinced, calling out Trump’s “shocking lack of humanity” in his response to children at the border separated from their parents, saying, “No apology. I mean, a human being just would’ve said, ‘Hey, I can’t sleep at night just thinking about those kids. I’m doing everything I can for those kids.’ For him to get up there and lie and say that they’re being treated well was horrific, it was inhuman.”
“We’re not keeping kids in cages anymore,” Santorum said.
“Where are their parents?” Jones asked.
Santorum credited the president for asking “who built the cages,” but Jones shot back, “And who used them in horrific, barbaric ways?”
We're not keeping kids in cages anymore isn't a great argument, especially mere days after news reporters confirmed that 545 children remain in American custody by federal officials who admit they are unable to locate their parents.
It was a bad moment at the debate when Trump defended the separation policy by arguing that the facilities where they are being held are "so clean," and it wasn't much better when Santorum tried to defend it on CNN later.
“Parents, their kids were ripped from their arms and separated,” said a clearly incensed Biden when this topic was discussed at the debate. “Now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone, nowhere to go, nowhere to go. It’s criminal! It’s criminal!”
Santorum's efforts to spin the president's answer here wasn't criminal, but it wasn't a winner either. |
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| A more substantive debate, but still a circus The second and final debate between Trump and Biden managed to be more functional than their first battle, and at least this time we had better assurances that neither candidate was bringing the coronavirus to the podium with them, but that doesn't mean there weren't still some sparks and wild moments.
Trump again promised a vaccine super soon, by the end of the year, and got pushback from both Biden and moderator Welker. Biden also slammed him for the 220,000 and counting Americans who have died from Covid-19.
The president also went after Dr. Anthony Fauci again, saying he thought he was a Democrat and that his predictions were wrong.
Trump made multiple attempts to attack Biden with accusations about the laptop allegedly belonging to his son Hunter Biden. Biden denounced the accusations as "not true," and slammed Trump for "bringing up all this malarkey" when American families were hurting due to the economy and pandemic.
Biden also smacked back with questions about Trump's secret Chinese bank account and his ongoing refusal to release his tax returns.
Mediaite founder Dan Abrams did a detailed dissection of Trump's claims later that night on ABC News, concluding that most of them just didn't pass muster.
There was also a bizarre debate over whether Trump was or was not comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln and his repeated insistence that he was the "least racist person in this room."
Unsurprisingly, the discussion of immigration got heated. Trump defended the child separation policy by saying the children were being well taken care of, in facilities that were "so clean." Biden was unconvinced and attacked the policy as "criminal." Trump also said that only immigrants with the "lowest IQ" followed the law and showed up to their hearings.
The two candidates also battled over energy policy, allowing Trump to continue his ongoing War on Windmills. They "kill all the birds," according to Trump.
Biden had an awkward moment where he was caught looking at his watch. And Kid Rock was apparently in the audience, but -- oops! -- caught not wearing a mask. All the hot, hot, hot takes
If a presidential debate happens without Twitter to react and mock it, did it ever even really exist? Forgive us the hyperbole, but of course the reviews of the debate are a big part of the story in our Extremely Online era.
The CNN Instant Poll after the debate declared Biden the victor, 53% to 39%, and a panel of undecided voters they assembled in North Carolina was even more lopsided, with zero saying Trump won.
A roundup of other polls found most saying Biden won -- but of course the Trump campaign found several of the wildly unscientific and easily-gamed Twitter polls that managed to show the opposite result.
Jake Tapper said Trump "behaved more like a normal person" at this debate, noting that he had lied a lot but "didn't set himself on fire." Tapper later excoriated Trump for his tactics running the "single most negative, sleazy campaign in American history."
CNN's S.E. Cupp was unwilling to give Trump credit for merely not acting "crazy" in this debate, saying that the "bar was so low it's on the floor."
Gayle King was similarly unimpressed with Trump's declaration that he was the "least racist."
Megyn Kelly praised Trump for a "well-tempered" debate performance, getting a retweet from the president himself, an interesting flip from the very first general election debate during the 2016 election, after which Trump made his infamous "blood coming out of her wherever" attack on Kelly. Wall Street Journal vs. Wall Street Journal It's one thing when a media outlet debunks a story published by one of their competitors. It's a whole different ball o' wax when a newspaper smacks down something that was published on their own pages, but that's just what happened at the Wall Street Journal this week regarding the kerfuffle over that Hunter Biden laptop story. Mediaite Editor-in-Chief Aidan McLaughlin breaks it all down here.
Haven't we had enough, 2020? The murder hornets have officially arrived. The first nest in the United States was spotted on Friday. Entomologists with the Washington Department of Agriculture took some video of the nest, which you can see here. 6.5.0 |
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| Criminal, creepy, or comitragic? Rudy Giuliani's appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat sequel film has been generating a slew of headlines and a bazillion mocking tweets and memes.
In case you have spent the past few days in some blissful, peaceful place where there is no internet access, the short story is that the young female actress playing Borat's daughter in the film pretends to be a reporter, and gets Giuliani to meet her alone in a hotel suite for an interview. They adjourn to the bedroom for a drink, and hidden cameras show Giuliani patting her on the hip, asking for her contact information, and lying back on the bed as he puts his hands down his pants -- right before Borat himself bursts in the room.
After days of speculation, the film finally dropped on Amazon Prime Thursday night (a little clever counterprogramming to the debate, perhaps?) and the full scene in all its awkward glory is now available.
What did America's Mayor think was going to happen? What would have happened, if Borat (dressed in a truly bizarre outfit that we'll let you see for yourself) hadn't burst in the room? Giuliani says he was tucking in his shirt. Twitter was unconvinced.
Mediaite's Colby Hall is questioning whether the editing was misleading, noting past history of Cohen's projects and other comedy films. And our Charlie Nash has a more detailed review of the film, noting some entertaining moments but criticizing Cohen's "unfortunate preference for punching down" to get cheap laughs. |
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