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June 28, 2024 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
01:01:50
LIVE WATCH PARTY: TRUMP VS. BIDEN
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Time Text
you you
droid when you look at all of the they took over big chunks of seattle i was
all set to bring in the national guard they heard that they saw them coming in
they left immediately what he said about this whole subject The unselect committee, which is basically two horrible Republicans that are all gone now out of office, and Democrats, all Democrats, they destroyed and deleted all of the information they found because they found out we were right.
We were right.
And they deleted and destroyed all of the information.
They should go to jail for that.
If a Republican did that, they'd go to jail.
Thank you, President Trump.
President Biden, I want to give you a minute.
The only person on this stage who's a convicted felon is the man I'm looking at right now.
And the fact of the matter is, what he's telling you is simply not true.
The fact is that there was no effort on his part to stop what was going on.
Capitol Hill, and all those people, every one of those who were convicted, turned over desks, turned them over statues.
The idea that those people are patriots?
Come on.
When I asked them the first of two debates we had, the debates we had the first time around, I said, will you denounce the Proud Boys?
He said, no, I'll tell them to stand by.
The idea he's receiving...
Will you denounce the Proud Boy?
I'll never denounce him.
It's the people we're talking about now?
You denounce the people who attacked that Capitol?
What are you gonna do?
Will you denounce that, proud boy?
Denounce him now.
A minute, President Trump, for a follow-up question I have.
After a jury convicted you of 34 felonies last month, you said if re-elected you would, quote, have every right to go after, unquote, your political opponents.
You just talked about members of the Select Committee on January 6th going to jail.
Your main political opponent is standing on stage with you tonight.
Can you clarify exactly what it means about you feeling you have every right to go after your political opponents?
Well, I said my retribution is going to be success.
We're going to make this country successful again, because right now it's a failing nation.
My retribution is going to be success.
But when he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon at a very high level.
His son is convicted, going to be convicted probably numerous other times.
He should have been convicted before, but his Justice Department let the statute of limitations lapse on the most important things.
But he could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office.
Joe could be a convicted felon with all of the things that he's done.
He's done horrible things.
All of the death calls at the border, telling the Ukrainian people that we're going to want a billion dollars or you change the prosecutor.
Otherwise, you're not getting a billion dollars.
If I ever said that, that's quid pro quo.
That we're not going to do anything.
We're not going to give you a billion dollars unless you change your prosecutor having to do with his son.
This man is a criminal.
This man... You're lucky.
You're lucky.
I did nothing wrong.
We'd have a system that was rigged and disgusting.
I did nothing wrong.
Thank you, President Trump.
President Biden, you have said... I'm coming right to you, sir.
You... Well, you want to respond?
Go ahead.
I'll give you a minute to respond.
The idea that I did anything wrong relative to what you're talking about is outrageous.
It's simply a lie, number one.
Number two, the idea that you have a right to seek retribution against any American just because you're president is wrong.
It's simply wrong.
No president's ever spoken like that before.
No president in our history has spoken like that before.
Number three, The crimes that you are still charged with, and think of all the civil penalties you have.
How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night while your wife was pregnant?
I mean, what are you talking about?
You have the morals of an alley cat.
Do you have an answer?
I didn't have sex with a porn star.
Number one.
Number two, that was a case that was started at... It's a presidential debate.
I didn't have sex with a porn star.
On the night... It's a staggering level of conversation.
Horrible judge.
Democrat.
The prosecutor were all high-ranking Democrats, appointed people, and both the civil and the criminal.
He basically went after his political opponent because he thought it was going to damage me.
But when the public found out about these cases, because they understand it better than he does.
He has no idea what these cases are.
But when they found out about these cases, you know what they did?
My poll numbers went up way up.
You know that because you're reporting it.
And we took in more money in the last two weeks than we've ever taken in in the history of any campaign.
I don't think any campaign has ever taken hundreds of millions of dollars came pouring in because the public knows it's a scam and it's a guy that's after his political opponent because he can't win fair and square.
Thank you, President Trump.
President Biden, you have said, quote, Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy.
Do you believe that the tens of millions of Americans who are likely to vote for President Trump will be voting against American democracy?
The more they know about what he's done, yes.
The more they know about what he's done.
And there's a lot more coming.
He's got a lot of cases down the road coming out.
He's got a whole range of issues he has to face.
I don't know what the juries will do, but I do know he has a real problem.
And so the fact that... Did you ever think you'd hear any president say that I'm going to seek retribution?
Did you ever hear any president say that I thought Hitler had some good ideas?
What got me involved to run in the first place after my son had died, I decided in Iraq, because of Iraq, I said I wasn't going to run again.
Until I saw what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
People coming out of the woods carrying swastikas on torches, torches, and singing the same anti-Semitic bio they sang back in Germany.
It's weird, isn't it?
Because what it becomes is watching people stewarded between really peculiar talking points, looking to bring up really emotive issues, bringing up scurrilous and scandalous events from people's past.
I can't imagine that, like this is the first time I've ever watched one of these presidential debates live.
Well, they always like this.
Good thing Hitler's gone, that's what he said.
This guy has no sense of American democracy.
President Trump?
Jake, both of you know that, sir, has been totally wiped out.
Because when you see the sentence, it said 100% exoneration on that, sir.
He just keeps it going.
He says he ran because of Charlottesville.
He didn't run because of Charlottesville.
He ran because it was his last chance.
He's not equipped to be president.
You know it, and I know it.
It's ridiculous.
We have a debate.
We're trying to justify his presidency.
His presidency, he's...
Without question, the worst president, the worst presidency in the history of our country.
We shouldn't be having a debate about it.
There's nothing to debate.
He made up the Charlottesville story.
And you'll see it's debunked all over the place.
Every anchor, every reasonable anchor has debunked it.
And just the other day, it came out where it was fully debunked.
It's a nonsense story.
He knows that.
And he didn't run because of Charlottesville.
He used that as an excuse to run.
And debunked.
It happened.
All you have to do is listen to what was said at the time.
And the idea that somehow that's the only reason I ran.
I ran because I was worried a guy like this guy could get elected.
If he thought there were good people coming out of that forest, Kerry knows there were good people coming out of that forest.
Will you condemn the Proud Boys?
Who are these people coming out of the forest?
Like, watching it from the United Kingdom, somewhat delirious at 3am, You have that almost extraterrestrial perspective of, is this what's actually determining the outcome of how an entire nation, the world's most powerful nation, is going to be managed and presided over for the next four years?
It's really sort of astonishing.
You're right back with more from the CNN presidential debate.
Nice to have a little commercial break.
And one of the things that's really weird, I think, is watching Joe Biden's face when Donald Trump is talking.
So he has to sort of like kind of reaction faces that are a little rigor mortis ridden, aren't they, as well.
He has to sort of move between various commedia dell'arte masks of shock and horror.
And also what's strange is how it moves between really sort of personal point scoring And the most terrifying issues you can imagine, like the brinkmanship around nuclear war, to, you were sleeping with a porn star, your son's a felon!
It's, like, difficult to conflate it.
Even with the managerial and technical control of CNN, you're, like, watching something that's kind of modern art.
I'm watching a Ribena commercial now.
This almost makes more sense to me.
Okay, so there are Ribena berries.
Okay, what are these guys going to achieve?
They surely don't want to go into the Ribena jug.
Well, they're looking forward to that.
No, I don't think so.
You fools!
You fools!
You're voting for your own death!
Maybe the Ribena commercial is providing us with the perfect allegory.
without some kind of significant institutional change what we're
ultimately experiencing is a system that's turning us into a cordial beverage
i need to tell you something It's about my moolah rice.
I want it.
That's the other thing as well, isn't it?
In a way, television is just a table that commercials are placed on.
But this is really the message.
The message is, eat moolah rice.
Eat moolah rice and try and make sense of all of this.
Alright, so how much presidential debate remains after this?
Is it a 90-minute show?
It's like an hour-long debate.
We've breezed through the horrors of the Middle East.
We've tried to approach January 6 in Ukraine.
So far the thing that's made most sense to me is that Ribena berries seem to be willing participants in their own desecration.
So I think when we come back from the break we're going to see I suppose closing remarks and wrap up.
Thank you.
So we've touched a little bit upon the laptop.
It's kind of, for me, I don't know if it's just because I'm extremely tired, bewildering to watch.
And occasionally when you zoom out, A kind of, it's difficult to be optimistic about anything at all, I think, watching it.
But we'll be back, and I guess a lot of people are saying that maybe it's gonna run a little bit over, so...
Thanks very much for joining us.
It's worth watching with the subtitles on, by the way, because then you get to sort of see how the people doing the subtitles translate some pretty incoherent announcements.
Let's talk about persistent challenges you both faced in your first terms, and you'd certainly face again in a second term.
President Biden, while black unemployment dropped to a record low under your presidency, black families still earn far less than white families.
Black mothers are still three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, and black Americans are imprisoned at five times the rate of white Americans.
What do you say to black voters who are disappointed that you haven't made more progress?
I acknowledge you made a lot of progress, number one.
The fact of the matter is there are more small black businesses than have been started in any time in history.
Number two, the ways... Don't worry about those mothers.
There are small black businesses cropping up everywhere.
Also, it has their typical political trope of Politicians just persuading you to deny the evidence of your own eyes that you're existing in a failing and terrifying system.
And just to accept their talking points, their rehearsed talking points, either he's got some notes.
The choice that black families have to make relative to childcare is incredibly difficult.
When we did the first major piece of legislation in the past, There certainly is.
to reduce black child care costs, cut them in half, in half.
We've got to make sure we provide for child care costs, we've got to make sure because when
you provide those child care protections you increase economic growth because more people can be in
the in the job market. So there's more to be done, considerably more to be done, but we've done a
great deal. So it certainly is even these kind of categories don't belong in a debate in 2024 do they?
Voters who are disappointed with the progress so far.
I say I don't blame you for being disappointed.
Inflation is still hurting them badly.
For example, I provided for the idea that any black family first-time homebuyer should get a $10,000 tax credit to be able to buy their first home so they can get started.
I made sure that we're in a situation where all those black families and those black individuals who provided had to take out student loans that were baloney, that if they were engaged in nursing,
and anything having to do with volunteerism, if they paid their bills for 10 years,
their student debt, all the rest was forgiven after 10 years.
Millions have benefited from that.
And we're going to do a whole lot more for black families.
Thank you, President Trump.
And he caused the inflation.
He's blaming inflation.
And he's right.
It's been very bad.
He caused the inflation and it's killing black families and Hispanic families and just about everybody.
It's killing people.
They can't buy groceries anymore.
They can't.
You look at the cost of food where it's doubled and tripled and quadrupled.
They can't live.
They're not living anymore.
He caused this inflation.
I gave him a country with no, essentially no inflation.
It was perfect.
It was so good.
All he had to do was leave it alone.
He destroyed it with his Green New Scam and all of the other, all this money that's being thrown out the window.
Gave you a perfectly good country.
You broke it already.
The fact is that his big kill on the black people is the millions of people that he's allowed to come in through the border.
They're taking black jobs now.
And it could be 18.
It could be 19 and even 20 million people.
They're taking black jobs and they're taking Hispanic jobs.
And you haven't seen it yet, but you're going to see something that's going to be the worst in our history.
Thank you, President Biden.
There was no inflation when I became president.
You know why?
The economy was flat on its back.
15% unemployment.
He decimated the economy.
Absolutely decimated the economy.
That's why there was no inflation at the time.
There were no jobs.
We provided thousands of millions of jobs.
I suppose what a debate essentially is, is two people trying to present you with a version of reality and we as the participants, the passive participants, have to accept one of those versions of reality.
It's difficult to imagine that this will be an advance of actual reality rather than a doubling down on reality.
Your personal acceptance of yeah, I'm already on board with this reality and this person's advocated for it in a way that I like rather than a kind of presentation of potential political solutions or an attempt to Reconcile a nation that, when you listen to this, increasingly you have to acknowledge is in incredible trouble.
And I say that as an external observer to the United States of America.
You feel like, oh no, the centrifugal force of global politics is quaking and dividing tectonically.
2023 was the hottest year in recorded history and communities across the country are confronting the devastating effects of extreme heat, intensifying wildfires, stronger hurricanes and rising sea levels.
Former President Trump, you've vowed to end your opponent's climate initiatives, but will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?
Let me just go back to what he said about the police.
How close the police are to him.
Almost every police group in the nation, from every state, is supporting Donald J. Trump.
Almost every police group.
And what he's done to the black population is horrible, including the fact that for 10 years he called them super predators.
We can't, in the 1990s, we can't forget that.
Super Predators was his name, and he called it to them, and they've taken great offense at it, and now they see it happening.
But when they see what I did for criminal justice reform and for the historically black colleges and universities where I funded them and got them all funded and the Opportunity Zones with with Tim, as you know, Tim Scott was incredible.
He did a great job.
Great senator from South Carolina.
He came to me with the idea and it was a great idea.
It's one of the most successful economic development acts ever in the country.
Opportunity Zones.
And the biggest beneficiary are blacks.
And that's why we have the best numbers with them in maybe ever.
They're saying ever.
I read this morning where ever the best numbers he's lost much of the black population because he's done a horrible job for black people.
He's also done a horrible job for Hispanics.
But when you see these millions of people pouring into our country and they're going to take the jobs and it's already started and you haven't seen anything yet.
It's a disaster.
38 seconds left, President Trump.
Will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?
So I want absolutely immaculate, clean water.
And I want absolutely clean air.
And we had it.
We had H2O.
We had the best numbers ever.
And we did.
We had H2O.
We had that.
Now the molecules are broken.
And yet, during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever.
And my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage, actually.
I don't know where the hell he's been.
Told you, he was backstage just moments ago.
That's true.
I've passed the most extensive, most extensive climate change legislation in history.
In history.
We find ourselves, and by the way, black colleges... That's not necessarily a good thing, is it?
Because it's, even by their own reckoning, an escalating issue that wouldn't have required legislation.
Like the Greeks or the Aztec populations wouldn't have been required to address that.
Any black student is capable in college of doing any way a student can do.
Also man, if you're just watching this stuff like relatively independently if not objectively you realize how contentious race is and how valuable the subject of race is and that's really disheartening isn't it because you feel like Sometimes I feel like, are these categories even still necessary?
Aren't we looking, actually, to create a cultural climate where these ideas aren't so divisive and explosive, rather than trying to calcify those ideas to create further polarity?
And he didn't do a damn thing about it.
He must undo all that I've done.
The Paris Accord was going to cost us a trillion dollars, and China nothing, and Russia nothing, and India nothing.
It was a ripple.
Don't you say that about the Paris Accord.
And I ended it because I didn't want to waste that money because they treat us horribly.
We were the only ones.
It was costing us money.
Nobody else was paying into it.
And it was a disaster.
But everything that he said just now, I'll give you an example.
I heard him say before, insolent.
I'm the one that got the insulin down for the seniors.
I took care of the seniors.
What he's doing is destroying all of our medical programs because the migrants coming in, they want everybody.
And look, I have the biggest heart on the stage, I guarantee you that.
And I want to take care of people.
But we're destroying our country.
They're taking over our schools, our hospitals, and they're going to be taking over Social Security.
He is destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The idea is that we in fact, we were the only ones of consequence who are not, who are not members of the Paris Accord.
How can we do anything?
We're not able, the United States can't get this under control.
One of the largest polluters in the world, number one.
We're making significant progress.
By 2035 we will have...
Don't touch your nose.
We have made significant progress and we're continuing to make progress.
We set up a climate corps where thousands of young people will learn how to deal with climate,
just like the Peace Corps.
And we're moving in directions that are going to significantly change the elements of climate.
Right, so it's just a television program where you galvanize your existing audience.
Biggest heart up here and he's really concerned about pollution and about climate.
I've not seen any indication of that.
And by the way, with regard to prescription drugs, one company agreed that they would reduce the price to $35,
which I was calling for one voluntarily.
I make sure every company in the world, every pharmaceutical company cannot have to pay.
Thank you.
And by the way.
So every day.
And by the way, wait for it.
It's coming.
Jake, actually, Jake, you handle this one.
Critical lifeline.
President Biden, if nothing is done to Social Security, seniors will see their benefits cut in just over 10 years.
Will you name tonight one specific step that you're willing to take to keep Social Security solvent?
Yes, make the very wealthy begin to pay their fair share.
Right now, everybody making under $170,000 pays 6% of their income, of their paycheck, every single time they get a paycheck from the time the first one they get when they're 18 years old.
The idea that they're going to... I'm not proposing that.
Everybody, they pay...
The millionaires pay 1%.
1%.
So no one after... I would not raise the cost of Social Security for anybody under $400,000.
After that I began to make the wealthy begin to pay their fair share by increasing from 1% beyond to be able to guarantee the program for life.
So you still have 82 seconds left.
Are there any other measures that you think that would be able to help keep Social Security solvent?
Or is just is that one enough?
Well, no, that one enough will keep it solvent.
But the biggest thing I'll do if we defeat this man, because he wants to get rid of Social Security.
He thinks there's plenty to cut in Social Security.
He's wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare both times.
And if you look at the program put forward by the House Republican Caucus that he supports, he's in fact wanted to cut it as well.
The idea that we don't need to protect our seniors is ridiculous.
It's weird that he's talking about protecting seniors as if it's not something that he actually, to a degree, requires.
And on the ACA, as I said, you're in a circumstance where 400,000 people, I mean, 40 million people
would not have insurance because they have a pre-existing condition. Only allows them to
have that insurance is the fact that they in fact are part of the ACA. And by the way,
the other thing is, we're in a situation where I talk about education for Black communities.
I've raised the number, the amount of money for Pell Grants by another $8,000.
So anybody making under $70,000 a year can be able to get $15,000 towards the tuition.
I don't know what he's talking about.
Thank you, President Biden.
President Trump.
So I've dealt with politicians all my life.
I've been on this side of the equation for the last eight years.
I've never seen anybody lie like this guy.
He lies.
I've never seen it.
He could look you in the face.
So I've got so many other things, too.
And we mentioned the laptop.
We mentioned Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
Everything he does is a lie.
It's misinformation and disinformation.
The losers and suckers story that he made up is a total lie on the military.
It's a disgrace.
But Social Security He's destroying it because millions of people are pouring into our country, and they're putting them onto Social Security.
They're putting them onto Medicare, Medicaid.
They're putting them in our hospitals.
They're taking the place of our citizens.
What they're doing to the VA, to our veterans, is unbelievable.
Our veterans are living in the street, and these people are living in luxury hotels.
He doesn't know what he's doing, and it's really coming back.
I've never seen such anger in our country before.
President Biden?
The idea that veterans are not being taken care of.
I told you before.
By the way, when I said suckers and losers, he said he acknowledged after that he fired that general.
That general got fired because he's the one who's acknowledged that that's what he said.
He was the one standing with Trump when he said it.
Number one.
Number two, the idea that we're going to be in a situation where all these millions and millions, the way he talks about it, illegal aliens are coming into the country and taking away our jobs.
There's a reason why we have the fastest-growing economy in the world.
The reason why we have the most successful economy in the world.
We're doing better than any other nation in the world.
And by the way, those 15 Nobel laureates who talked about being phony, those 15 Nobel laureates, economists, they all said that if Trump is re-elected, we're likely to have a recession, and inflation is going to increasingly go up.
And by the way, worst president in history, 159 presidential scholars voted President Biden, thank you so much.
Let's turn to the cost of child care, which many American families struggle to afford.
President Trump, both you and President Biden have tried to address this issue, but the average cost of child care in this country has risen to more than $11,000 a year per child.
For many families, the cost of child care for two children is more than their rent.
In your second term, what would you do to make child care more affordable?
Just to go back, the general got fired because he was no good.
And if he said that, that's why he made it up.
But we have 19 people that said, I didn't say it.
And they're very highly respected, much more so than him.
The other thing is he doesn't fire people.
He never fired people.
I've never seen him fire anybody.
I did fire a lot.
I fired Comey because he was no good.
I fired a lot of the top people at the FBI, drained the swamp.
They were no good.
Not easy to fire people.
You pay a price for it, but they were no good.
I inherited these people.
I didn't put him there.
I didn't put Comey there.
He was no good.
I fired him.
This guy hasn't fired anybody.
He never fires.
He should have fired every military man that was involved with that Afghan, the Afghanistan horror show, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.
He didn't fire.
Did you fire anybody?
Did you fire anybody that's on the border, that's allowed us to have the worst border in the history of the world?
Did anybody get fired for allowing 18 million people, many from prisons, many from mental institutions?
Did you fire anybody that allowed our country to be destroyed?
Joe, our country is being destroyed as you and I sit up here and waste a lot of time on this debate.
This shouldn't be a debate.
He is the worst president.
He just said it about me because I said it.
But look, he's the worst president in the history of our country.
He's destroyed our country.
Now, all of a sudden, he's trying to get a little tough on the border.
He came out with a nothing deal, and it reduced it a little bit.
A little bit, like this much.
It's insignificant.
He wants open borders.
He wants our country to either be destroyed or he wants to pick up those people as voters.
And I don't think, we just can't let it happen.
If he wins this election, our country doesn't have a chance, not even a chance, of coming out of this rut.
We probably won't have a country left anymore.
That's how bad it is.
He is the worst in history by far.
Thank you President Trump.
President Biden?
We're the most admired country in the world.
We're the United States of America.
It's amazing.
The question was about child social care, wasn't it?
And like Donald Trump's done some of his classics about firing people, like doing sort of apprentice hits.
Joe Biden's claiming he's the worst president in history.
Trump's claiming he's the worst president in history.
At least Trump there acknowledged that the debate is kind of a waste of time.
Conditions have been created that make it difficult for Trump to do the thing that's at least amusing and I think even within quite managed circumstances you still see that Joe Biden struggles actually to communicate.
He's still saying that.
Why did they ever vote on who's the worst president in American history?
That's a fact. That's not conjecture.
He can argue they're wrong but that's what they voted.
The idea that he is knowing...
Why did they ever vote on who's the worst president in American history?
That's like a poll on opinions.
Should significantly increase the child care tax credit.
We should significantly increase the availability of women and men, of single parents, to be able to go back to work.
And we should encourage businesses to hold, to have... Thank you, President Biden.
President Trump, the question was about what would you do to make child care more affordable, if you want to take your minute.
Just so you understand, we have polling, we have other things, that they rate him the worst, because what he's done is so bad.
We actually got another poll.
People are arguing about which poll is more reliable.
And if I'm given another four years, I will be the best.
I think I'll be the best.
Nobody's ever...
created an economy like us, nobody ever cut taxes like us.
He's the only one I know, he wants to raise your taxes by four times.
He wants to raise everybody's taxes by four times.
He wants the Trump tax cuts to expire.
So everybody, including the two of you, are going to pay four to five times.
Nobody ever heard of this before. All my life I've...
Wait, what?
Me?
It's gonna start affecting me?
Wait a second now.
Cut taxes.
As I said, we did more business.
Apple and all these companies, they were bringing money back into our country.
The worst president in history by far, and everybody knows it.
President Biden? Look, fact of the matter is that he's dead wrong about he's increased the
tariff. He's increased. He will increase the taxes on middle class people. I said I'd never
raise the tax on anybody making less than four and a thousand dollars. I didn't. But this tariff
is 10 percent tariff. Everything coming into the country.
You know what the economists say?
That's going to cost the average American two thousand five hundred dollars a year more
$2,500 a year more because they're going to have to pay the difference in food and all
because they're going to have to pay the difference in food and all the things that are important.
the things that are important.
Number two, he's in a situation where he talks about how he has not raised.
Number two, he's in a situation where he talks about how he has not raised, he's somehow
helped the middle class.
The middle class has been devastated by you.
Now you want a new tax cut of $5 trillion over the next 10 years, which is going to
fundamentally bankrupt the country.
You have the largest deficit of any president in American history.
Number one.
Number two, you have not in fact made any contact, any progress with China.
We are the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010.
Thank you, President Biden.
Thank you, President Biden.
Let's discuss an epidemic impacting millions of Americans that both of you have made a
top priority in your first term, the opioid crisis.
And for both of you, the number of overdose deaths in this country has gone up.
Under your term, it went up.
Under your term, it has gone up.
It's a subject I know a little bit about, the opioid crisis that was induced by corruption and deception, practiced as you know already by the Sackler family and Perdue in particular, which is said to have escalated due to the availability and accessibility of opioids, which Trump will relate to the border and border control.
But What I would look at is that opioids are a means for addressing pain, deep social and spiritual pain.
And when you watch these two men trapped in these two boxes and trapped in these peculiar conditions, it's difficult to recall that what we're actually talking about is a pretty pervasive spiritual crisis.
And I don't think that either of these representations of reality include the kind of solutions that we ought to be discussing and could be discussing.
And perhaps a presidential debate is never going to do that.
You're going to actually just deal with two people trying to steer the conversation into areas that they're comfortable with.
And in a way, it becomes like a sporting event, doesn't it?
Just maybe Trump will say some funny stuff, maybe Biden will make his way through a sentence successfully.
But actually, when you talk about the opioid crisis, You touch upon the reality of a nation and potentially a planet in incredible decline that requires pretty radical solutions.
It's tough.
And it was the drugs pouring across the border where it started to increase.
We got great equipment.
We bought the certain dog.
That's the most incredible thing that you've ever seen, the way they can spot it.
We did a lot.
Got, got dogs now!
Very low numbers.
Very, very low numbers.
Then he came along, the numbers, have you seen the numbers now?
It's not only the 18 million people that I believe is even low, because they, the gotaways, they don't even talk about gotaways.
But the numbers of, the amount of drugs and human trafficking in women, coming across our border, the worst thing I've ever seen, at numbers that nobody's ever seen under him, because the border's so bad, But the number of drugs coming across our border now is the largest we've ever had by far.
President Trump, thank you.
President Biden?
Fentanyl and bi-partisan fentanyl went down for a while.
And I wanted to make sure we use the machinery that can detect fentanyl.
These big machines that roll over everything that comes across the border.
And it cost a lot of money.
That was part of this deal we put together.
This bi-partisan deal.
More fentanyl machines, more to be able to detect drugs, more numbers of agents, more numbers of all the people at the border.
And when we had that deal done, he called his Republican colleagues and said, don't do it.
It's going to hurt me politically.
He never argued it's not a good bill.
It's a really good bill.
We need those machines.
We need those machines.
And we're coming down very hard in every country in Asia in terms of precursors for fentanyl.
And Mexico is working with us to make sure they don't have the technology to be able to put it together.
That's what we have to do.
We need those machines.
Thank you, President Biden.
President Trump, and again, the question is about Americans in the throes of addiction right now struggling to get the treatment they need.
This, because this does pertain to it.
He ended Remain in Mexico.
He ended catch-and-release.
I made a catch-and-release in Mexico, not catch-and-release here.
We had so many things that we had done.
Hard negotiations with Mexico, and I got it all for nothing.
It's just like when you have a hostage.
We always pay $6 billion for a hostage.
Every time we say it's a hostage.
Now we have a hostage, a Wall Street Journal reporter.
I think a good guy.
And he's over there because Putin is laughing at this guy, probably asking for billions of dollars for the reporter.
I will have him out very quickly.
As soon as I take office, before I take office, I said by literally as soon as I win the election, I will have that reporter out.
He should have had him out a long time ago.
But Putin's probably asking for billions and billions of dollars because this guy pays it every time.
We had two cases.
We paid $6 billion for five people.
I got 58 people out, and I paid essentially nothing.
Thank you, President Trump.
Dana?
Let's turn to concerns that voters have about each of you.
President Biden, you would be 86 at the end of your second term.
How do you address concerns about your capability to handle the toughest job in the world well into your 80s?
Well, first of all, I spent half my career being criticized as being the youngest person in politics.
I was the second youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I'm the oldest.
This guy's three years younger and a lot less competent.
I think that just look at the record.
Look at what I've done.
Look how I've turned around the horrible situation he left me.
As I said, 15 million new jobs, 800,000 manufacturing jobs, more investment in America, Over a million, billions of dollars in private investment in enterprises that we are growing.
By the way, we brought off a lot of people the whole idea of computer chips.
We used to have 40% of the market.
We invented those chips and we lost it because he was sending people to find the cheapest jobs overseas and to bring home a product.
So I went to South Korea.
I convinced Samsung to invest billions of dollars here in the United States.
And guess what?
Those fabs they call to build these ships, those fabs pay over $100,000.
You don't need a college degree for them.
And there's billions, about $40 billion already being invested and being built right now in the United States creating significant jobs for Americans from all over the world.
President Biden, you have 40 seconds left.
Would you like to add anything?
Yeah, I would.
The idea that somehow we are this failing country.
I've never heard a president talk like this before.
We're the envy of the world.
Name me a single major country president who wouldn't trade places with the United States of America for all our problems and all our opportunities.
We're the most progressive country in the world in getting things done.
We're the strongest country in the world.
We're a country in the world who keeps our word, and everybody trusts us, all of our allies, and those who he coddles up to from Kim Jong-un, who he sends love letters to, and Putin, etc.
They don't want to screw around with us.
Thank you.
Former President Trump, to follow up, you would be 82 at the end of your second term.
What do you say to voters who have concerns about your capabilities to serve?
Well, I took two tests, cognitive tests.
I aced them, both of them, as you know.
We made it public.
He took none.
I'd like to see him take one, just one, a real easy one, like go through the first five questions.
He couldn't do it.
But I took two cognitive tests.
I took physical exams every year.
And, you know, we knock on wood, wherever we may have wood, that I'm in very good health.
I just won two club championships, not even senior.
Two regular club championships.
To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way.
And I do it.
He doesn't do it.
He can't hit a ball 50 yards.
He challenged me to a golf match.
He can't hit a ball 50 yards.
I think I'm in very good shape.
I feel that I'm in good shape.
I am very good at golf.
About 30 years ago, actually, I'm probably a little bit lighter.
But I'm in as good a shape as I was years ago.
I feel very good.
I feel the same.
But I took — I was willing to take a cognitive test.
And you know what?
If I didn't do well, I aced him.
Dr. Ronnie Jackson, who's a great guy, when he was White House doctor.
And then I took another one, a similar one.
And both — one of them said they'd never seen anybody ace him.
Thank you.
President Biden?
You can see he is 6'5 and only 223 pounds.
Or 235 pounds.
Well, you said 6'4, 200.
Well, anyway, that's what you... Anyway.
Oh my god, they're arguing about height and golf scores and then talking about border crises and opioid crises.
It's astonishing how it has to vacillate between personal point scoring and attacks on golf.
He's talking about his golf.
I'm happy to play golf.
You can carry on.
I'll play you at golf.
Let's settle this thing with golf.
We can't rely on the voting machines.
Golf is the way to solve this.
I was an eight-handed cap there.
Eight.
I've seen your swing, I know your swing.
Get his mind down!
He's attacking his swing!
To a specific concern that voters have about you, will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted, that you will accept the results of this election regardless of who wins, and you will- Regardless of who wins?
Legal violence in any form is unacceptable.
Well, I shouldn't have to say that, but of course I believe that.
It's totally unacceptable.
And if you would see my statements that I made on Twitter at the time, and also my statement that I made in the Rose Garden, you would say it's one of the strongest statements you've ever seen.
In addition to the speech I made in front of, I believe, the largest crowd I've ever spoken to.
And I will tell you, nobody ever talks about that.
They talk about a relatively small number of people that went to the Capitol.
And in many cases were ushered in by the police.
And as Nancy Pelosi said, it was her responsibility, not mine.
She said that loud and clear.
But the answer is, if the election is fair, free, and I want that more than anybody.
And I'll tell you something.
I wish he was a great president because I wouldn't be here right now.
I'd be at one of my many places enjoying myself.
I wouldn't be under indictment because I wouldn't have been his political opponent, you know, opponent because he indicted me because I was his opponent.
I wish he was a great president.
I would rather have that.
I wouldn't be here.
I don't mind being here.
The only reason I'm here is he's so bad as a president.
That I'm going to make America great again.
We're going to make America great again.
We're a failing nation right now.
We're a seriously failing nation.
And we're a failing nation because of him.
His policies are so bad.
His military policies are insane.
They're insane.
These are wars that will never end with him.
He will drive us into World War III.
And we're closer to World War III than anybody can imagine.
We are very, very close to World War III, and he's driving us there.
And Kim Jong-un and President Xi of China, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, all of these are Putin.
They don't respect him.
They don't fear him.
They have nothing going with this gentleman, and he's going to drive us into World War III.
You want a World War III, let him follow and win and let Putin say, do what you want, NATO.
Just do what you want.
There's a thing called Article 5, an attack on one... I wish that Joe Biden stuck with the golf score stuff after that and his swing.
Like, in a matter of minutes, we've gone from whether or not he has a golf handicap into the potential for actual Armageddon.
It's like having the bends, isn't it?
plumb such extraordinary depths of horrific possibility and then talk about
incredible trivia all in the same conversation.
And again, you want to have a war, just let Putin go ahead and take Kiev, make sure they move on,
see what happens in Poland, Hungary and other places along that border.
Then you have a war.
President Trump, as I come back to you for a follow-up, the question was,
will you accept the results of this election regardless of who wins?
Just to finish what he said, if I might.
Russia, they took a lot of land from Bush.
They took a lot of land from Obama and Biden.
They took no land, nothing, from Trump.
Nothing.
He knew not to do it.
You're not going to play games with me.
He knew that.
I got along with him very well, but he knew not to play games.
He took nothing from me.
But now he's going to take the whole thing from this man right here.
That's a war that should have never started.
It would have never started, ever, with me.
And he's going to take Ukraine.
And, you know, you asked me a question before, would you do this?
He's got us in such a bad position right now with Ukraine and Russia.
Because Ukraine's not winning that war.
He said, I will never settle until such time.
They're running out of people.
They're running out of soldiers.
They've lost so many people.
It's so sad.
They've lost so many people, and they've lost those gorgeous cities with the golden domes that are a thousand years old, all because of him and stupid decisions.
Russia would have never attacked if I were president.
President Trump, the question was, will you accept the results of the election, regardless of who wins?
Yes or no, please.
If it's a fair and legal and good election, absolutely.
I would have much rather accepted these, but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous.
And if you want, we'll have a news conference on it in a week.
Or we'll have another one of these in a week.
But I will absolutely, there's nothing I'd rather do.
It would be much easier for me to do that.
Then I'm running again.
I wasn't really going to run until I saw the horrible job he did.
He's destroying our country.
I would be very happy to be someplace else, in a nice location someplace.
And again, no indictments, no political opponent stuff, because it's the only way he thinks he can win.
But unfortunately, it's driven up my numbers and driven them up to a very high level, because the people understand it.
Let's see what your numbers are when this election is over.
Let's see.
You're a whiner.
When you lost the first time, you continued, you appealed and appealed to courts all across the country.
Not one single court in America said any of your claims had any merit, state or local, none.
But you continue to provoke this lie about somehow there's all this misrepresentation, all this stealing.
There is no evidence of that at all.
And I tell you what, I doubt whether you'll accept it because you're such a whiner.
The idea, if you lose again, you accepted anything, you can't stand the loss.
Something snapped in you when you lost the last time.
We'll be right back with more from the CNN presidential debate live from Georgia.
It's a really weird televisual experience to watch the presidential debates live.
Do you remember in previous iterations of the same debate that the Constitution adorned the backdrop?
And I remember looking at the purility and the spats and the backchat and the broad cruelty and the vacillation between important subjects ...and petty squabbling.
And in the background is this incredible document that enshrines amazing principles.
Now, though, the backdrop just says CNN.
And what you have is a carefully managed event, technologically, that still seems to be extraordinarily chaotic.
I suppose because of the chaotic conditions that we're living within.
Donald Trump will assert his version of reality.
Joe Biden asserts his version of reality.
And all of us have to just glom on to a version of reality that's somewhat more appealing.
I feel like what you're witnessing is what happens when media meets a kind of tectonic shift that we're all grappling with now.
The ability for all of us to contemplate and consider what democracy could really be evolving into.
Institutions could alter to become if they were more responsive, more open, more transparent, a better reflection of the technology we have, a better reflection of the way that we're evolving as people.
I think as long as we have these kind of conditions, we're going to remain mired in this sort of peculiar, paradoxical scenario where one minute you're talking about a global apocalypse, the next minute you're talking about golf scores and golf swings, and all the while you have someone at a sound desk at CNN muting one opponent, muting Joe Biden, muting Donald Trump, muting Jake Tapper.
It's a really peculiar thing to watch.
Most of all, I would say that this is kind of a pinnacle in terms of spectacle and an odd sort of circus of trivia and unconsciousness in loads of ways.
There are points, I thought, where Donald Trump's bringing up stuff that's really significant and you get to see him say, look, of course I'll accept the result of the election if it's free and fair.
You get to hear those kind of statements being made and then ignored.
You get to see in real time Joe Biden's plain inability to be reliably cogent for the entirety of a sentence.
But it makes me wonder, really, what is the point of the debate?
And in a way, it's to reiterate a spectacle, isn't it?
Because you think about it, when we breezed through the war in the Middle East, or even when we dwelt somewhat in the Ukraine and Russia conflict, Can't really make out the shadows and spectres of the real people everywhere that are having their lives decimated.
When you talk about domestic issues and it's oddly categorised into black voters or middle-class voters or rich people, you ultimately, I think, lose the sense of humanity.
In the moment where we talked about the opioid crisis, it's difficult for people to accept that That is a clearer example as any of how the ineptitude and corruption of powerful corporations wreaks havoc upon populations.
To see everything politicised and weaponised in the way that it plainly is being tonight isn't heartening, is it?
I think whoever you support, even if you're a Biden supporter, if you're a Trump supporter, it's difficult to feel like, oh this is good, we're moving in the right direction.
We've made significant progress from the debacle that was left by President Trump in his last term.
We find ourselves in a situation where, number one, we have to make sure that we have a fair tax system.
I ask anyone out there in the audience, or anyone out watching this debate, do you think the tax system is fair?
The fact is that, I said, nobody would make it under $400,000 at a single penny increase in their taxes, and will not.
And if I'm re-elected, that will be the case again.
But this guy has increased your taxes because of the deficit.
Number one, he's increased inflation because of the debacle he left after the way he handled the pandemic.
And he finds himself in a position where he now wants to tax you more by putting a 10% tariff on everything that comes into the United States of America.
What I did, when, for example, he wants to get rid of the ability for us to be able to negotiate drug prices with the big pharma companies.
Well, guess what?
We got it down to $35 for insulin instead of $400.
No more than $2,000.
I no longer see moments like that as delightful or an opportunity for ridicule, but as a kind of eerie indication of the senescence at the core of this system, delivered in real time by a failing individual.
We're going to make sure we do something about what we're doing on lead pipes and all the things that are causing health problems for people across the country.
that we have child care, we're going to significantly increase the credits people have for child
care. We're going to make sure we do something about what we're doing on lead pipes and all
the things that are causing health problems for people across the country. We're going
to continue to fight to bring down inflation.
Thank you, President Biden.
President Trump, you now have two minutes for your closing.
Peaked on lead pipes.
Like so many politicians, this man is just a complainer.
He said, we want to do this, we want to do that, we want to get rid of this tax, that tax.
But he doesn't do anything.
All he does is make our country unsafe by allowing millions and millions of people to pour in.
Our military doesn't respect him.
We look like fools in Afghanistan.
We didn't stop Israel.
It was such a horrible thing.
That would have never happened.
It should have never happened.
Iran was broke.
Anybody that did business with Iran, including China, they couldn't do business with the United States.
They all passed.
Iran was broke.
They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah, for terror.
No money whatsoever.
Again, Ukraine should have never happened.
He talks about all this stuff, but he didn't do it.
For three and a half years, we're living in hell.
We have the Palestinians, and we have everybody else rioting all over the place.
You talk about Charlottesville.
This is a hundred times Charlottesville, a thousand times Charlottesville.
The whole country is exploding because of you.
Because they don't respect you.
And they have to respect their president.
and they don't respect you throughout the world.
What we did was incredible.
We rebuilt the military.
We got the largest tax cut in history, the largest regulation cut in history.
The reason he's got jobs is because I cut the regulations that gave jobs, but he's putting a lot of those regulations
back on.
All of the things that we've done, nobody's ever seen anything like it.
Even from a medical standpoint, right to try.
Well, we can try space age materials instead of going to Asia or going to Europe and trying to get when you're terminally ill.
Now you can go and you can get something.
You sign a document.
They've been trying to get it for 42 years.
But you know what we did for the military was incredible choice for our soldiers, where our soldiers Instead of waiting for three months to see a doctor can go out and get themselves Fixed up and readied up and take care of themselves and they're living and that's why I had the highest approval rating in the history of the VA So all of these things we're in a failing nation, but it's not going to be failing anymore.
We're going to make it great again Thank you, former President Trump, President Biden.
Stay with us because we have full analysis of this debate.
Anderson Cooper and Aaron Burnett starts now on CNN.
Well, thank you very much.
That was an extraordinary experience in so many ways, wasn't it?
Firstly, RFK wasn't included in the debate.
Secondly, they were able to stage manage through technology the sort of tone and temper.
The absence of an audience meant that it was kind of drab and extraordinary and almost preternatural at points.
Watching it live, mostly what I feel like is I've awoken from some fever dream and seen a kind of live compilation of what you would anticipate seeing.
Moments of extraordinary hyperbole, moments of concern when it comes to senility, the presentation of two opposing realities, and also I would suppose, it's fair to say, the sort of clear bias that the framing of the debate inhered that really We're being guided towards a second term of Biden.
But in either instance, I don't feel like we're on the precipice of anything particularly optimistic or inspiring for the United States of America.
I think one of the things that I feel would have been a significant improvement would have been the inclusion of RFK.
And in a way, watching it live, to me it seems like What you've got is two Americas vying for supremacy and represented in a way that ultimately becomes a little dispiriting.
Let's see what the CNN analysis says.
They're calling it a historic showdown.
In the sense of CNN, I suppose it remains, like most things, television.
Is that what this all is, really?
It's just television?
But then at the end, even his closing statement was a little halting.
The contrast between the two candidates.
Let me be clear.
None of them, and a lot of Republicans, don't think Donald Trump had a great night.
Donald Trump broke the fact check machine more than I can count tonight.
That will be on the record as we go forward.
He refused to answer some very specific and direct questions about his conduct, about January 6th and what all.
So that will be dealt with out there.
And sometimes there's a parallel universe between The political elites and the American people, be nice to see what the voters say, but I can tell you it started minutes in.
It started with the first couple of answers, and it has continued throughout the night from a, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, to what do we do about this?
And it involves very senior people in the Democratic Party, including elected officials, saying we have a problem.
And just to co-sign what John is saying, I mean, the panic that I am hearing from Democrats is not like anything that I have heard in this campaign so far.
And a lot of it has to do with, first of all, there was a deep frustration about Trump's lies.
I mean, he lied a lot tonight.
Right, so I suppose really what people have come away with is what they went into this with.
Some concern about Biden's senility, some concern about fact-checking around Trump, and I suppose I'm the same.
I'm coming away from it thinking, oh my God, this system's in serious trouble.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm going to try and get some sleep.
We'll clip this up tomorrow.
We'll provide you with the best assessment that we possibly can under the circumstances that we're existing under.
Thanks so much for Thanks for joining us today and we'll see you tomorrow for the show at the same regular time.
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