1. John Harris: An Epic Moment of National Shame: The Debate Was an Embarrassment for the Ages

At frequent intervals on Tuesday night, the natural human reaction—lower the sound, wince and look away—took over, and the first presidential debate of the 2020 general election became nearly unwatchable.

Those who did persist in watching were rewarded, in a perverse way: They witnessed history in the making. The proceeding was an epic spectacle, a new low in presidential politics, a new high watermark in national shame.

The stain will be visible for many years to come. It will serve as a reminder of the night the dam broke, and currents of contempt that have been building in public life for many years flooded the stage with tens of millions of Americans viewing President Donald Trump, Democratic nominee Joe Biden and an overwhelmed moderator on live television. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/30/presidential-debate-national-shame-423521

2. Dan Balz: Trump sets the tone for the worst presidential debate in living memory

No one alive has ever seen a presidential debate like Tuesday night’s unseemly shout fest between President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden — 90 minutes of invective, interruptions and personal insults. It was an insult to the public as well, and a sad example of the state of American democracy five weeks before the election.

The tone of the debate was established by Trump in the opening minutes, and it never changed to the end of the evening. The president constantly ignored moderator Chris Wallace’s repeated pleas to maintain order as he took every opportunity and more to verbally hector Biden, throw his rival off balance and take up as much space as possible. This was the Trump who lives on Twitter, not someone who occupies the highest office in the land. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-biden-stage-the-worst-presidential-debate-in-living-memory/2020/09/29/9cdbeb56-027e-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html

3. Walter Shapiro: The Desperation of Donald Trump

I am old enough to have watched—as boy and man—every fall presidential debate since John Kennedy went up against Richard Nixon and his five o’clock shadow in 1960. And never have I witnessed a guttersnipe, bully-boy performance like Trump’s on the debate stage.

I grieved for American democracy Tuesday night. And I am frightened by the specter of two more presidential debates as moderators insist on playing by rules of civil discourse in the face of Trump the Termagant.

This was the Fyre Festival of presidential debates. Moderator Chris Wallace repeatedly lost control of the proceedings—and has been rightly faulted for not doing more to restrain Trump. But in Wallace’s defense, even a lion tamer with a whip and a chair would have had a hard time dealing with Trump, who seemed, for much of the evening, to be auditioning for a starring role in Raging Bull. https://newrepublic.com/article/159540/desperation-donald-trump

4. Susan Glasser: “This Is So Unpresidential”: Notes from the Worst Debate in American History

What does the worst debate in American history look like? It looks like the debate that took place on Tuesday night between President Donald Trump and the former Vice-President Joe Biden. It was a joke, a mess, a disaster. A “shit show,” a “dumpster fire,” a national humiliation. No matter how bad you thought the debate would be, it was worse. Way worse. Trump shouted, he bullied, he hectored, he lied, and he interrupted, over and over again.

To the extent that there was a substantive headline, it was Trump’s refusal to disavow white supremacy—after, it should be noted, claiming that he has been great for African-Americans—and his continued campaign to undermine public confidence in the upcoming election by baselessly asserting that ballots will be interfered with. “This is not going to end well,” he said, of the election, showing once again that his plan is to attack the very idea of voting itself. He then repeated it, as if for emphasis. “This is not going to end well.” It sure sounded like a threat. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/this-is-so-unpresidential-notes-from-the-worst-debate-in-american-history

5. Karen Tumulty: The debate was a nightmare, and a fitting summation of Trump’s presidency

The nightmare that played out Tuesday evening on a debate stage in Cleveland served at least one useful purpose. It encapsulated, in a single 98-minute span, the entire presidency of Donald J. Trump.

All of the impulses that drive Trump were unleashed: The lying. The rage. The bluster. The incoherence.

It is hard to imagine that anyone but the most obdurate of partisans could have watched the spectacle and thought, Gee, wouldn’t it be great to have four more years of this? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/30/debate-was-nightmare-fitting-summation-trumps-presidency/

6. Thomas L. Friedman: Trump Sent a Warning. Let’s Take It Seriously.

President Trump has made it unmistakably clear in recent weeks — and even more crystal clear at the Tuesday debate — that there are only two choices before voters on Nov. 3 — and electing Joe Biden is not one of them.

The president has told us in innumerable ways that either he will be re-elected or he will delegitimize the vote by claiming that all mail-in ballots — a time-honored tradition that has ushered Republicans and Democrats into office and has been used by Trump himself — are invalid.

Trump’s motives could not be more transparent. If he does not win the Electoral College, he’ll muddy the results so that the outcome can be decided only by the Supreme Court or the House of Representatives (where each state delegation gets one vote). Trump has advantages in both right now, which he has boasted about for the past week.

I can’t say this any more clearly: Our democracy is in terrible danger — more danger than it has been since the Civil War, more danger than after Pearl Harbor, more danger than during the Cuban missile crisis and more danger than during Watergate. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/opinion/trump-election-fraud-2020.html

7. Jonathan V. Last: The President Is a Sociopath. And 60 Million Americans Like It.

The Cleveland debate was a miniature, 90-minute version of the last 4 years: depressing, exhausting, full of craziness and lies.

Who won? I don’t know. Honestly: I cannot understand how anyone with an IQ over 80 could have watched this disgrace and not come away understanding that the president of the United States is a sociopath.

Donald Trump dominated the debate. Utterly and completely. He was a doughy, orange honey-badger, yelling, shouting, cajoling, needling and—this is the important part—never shutting up. He kept ploughing ahead, no matter what. He bulldozed Chris Wallace. He bulldozed Joe Biden. He turned every question into what he wanted to talk about. He hit all of the notes he wanted: Burisma, stock market, shutdowns, Pocahontas.

If you are a fan of the Trump lifestyle brand—if you have a Trump flag on your boat and wear a MAGA hat because you love pissing off the brown girl with the nose ring at Starbucks—then I suspect that you thought this was the greatest performance by any debater in the history of debates. https://thebulwark.com/the-president-is-a-sociopath-and-60-million-americans-like-it/

8. Rex Huppke: Trump’s toxic debate performance was 90 minutes of disqualifying noise and cruelty

Like most Americans who have not spent the past decade broiling their brains in Fox News and right-wing radio, I watched President Donald Trump’s noisily toxic performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate and wondered: Which gods have I angered, and how might I appease them?

It was a concussive 90 minutes. Trump’s relentless, snarling interruptions and refusal to abide by even the rough outlines of the debate’s rules created as disgraceful a display of public behavior as we’ll ever — hopefully — see from a U.S. president.

That wasn’t a leader prepared to debate policy knowledge and instill confidence in his steady hand. That was a red-faced, snot-nosed kid in the third-row seat of someone’s minivan throwing a wailing temper tantrum, the kid we see in the parking lot and think, “Man, I’m glad that’s not my child.”

But for those less inclined to chaos, it was a grotesque spectacle, one that left me and I’m sure many others slack-jawed, wondering how anyone — anyone! — can watch Trump angrily blather and not see an incompetent, cruel narcissist. https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-debate-trump-biden-presidential-white-supremacy-2020-huppke-20200930-3mce4p3nvbejfo3yvdkhnwwine-story.html

9. Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial: Trump won’t commit to a peaceful transition of power, so it’s up to us to save democracy

One of the ongoing challenges of the Donald Trump presidency is that there are so many alarms set off by his troubling tweets, dubious claims, and unfounded statements that it is hard to know which alarms should be taken seriously. A number of reports over the past week suggest we are watching a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume American democracy.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he believes the result of the upcoming presidential election will “end up in the Supreme Court.” Avoiding a tie vote in this instance is one reason for his rush to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat ahead of Election Day. While there is precedent for election results to go before the Supreme Court (the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore), it is unprecedented for anyone, including the sitting president, to publicly assume the results will require litigation before a single ballot has been cast.

Later that day, when asked whether he will commit to a peaceful transition of power after the election, Trump responded, “We’re going to have to see what happens,” and repeated unsubstantiated concerns over mailed ballots.

Having a president who is so dismissive of the very foundation of democracy — the peaceful transition of power — is frightening enough. That fear becomes exponentially greater when he is backed by a party that is willing to use any tool in its arsenal to bypass the will of the people.https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/trump-peaceful-transfer-power-pennsylvania-2020-election-20200925.html

10. Washington Post Editorial: Trump’s contempt for truth leaves a toxic legacy around the world

Democracies cannot function if ideological differences are compounded by the circulation of conspiracy theories and falsified data; established facts are the foundation for policymaking and legislative compromise. Mr. Trump has greatly accelerated what was already a drift by elements of the Republican Party toward rejection of science and other hard reporting. His incessant lying — from inflation of the crowds at his inauguration to the course of the coronavirus pandemic — has led many of his followers to beliefs that are provably false and, in some cases, are the product of disinformation campaigns by hostile powers.

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has waged a relentless campaign to discredit the institutions that seek to disseminate truth and discredit false stories, especially the U.S. intelligence community and the news media. Thoroughly documented intelligence reports on Russia’s interventions in U.S. politics, including the current election campaign, are, he says, “a hoax” conjured by a “deep state.” Media revelations of corruption and malfeasance in his administration are “fake news.”

Mr. Trump himself recently welcomed the support of QAnon adherents. He also made clear that his campaign to defeat Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the November election will be founded on lies. At the Republican convention, the president and his surrogates repeatedly advanced the false claims that Mr. Biden favors defunding police, that he condones rioting in U.S. cities, and that he and his son were involved in corrupt dealings in Ukraine and China. If he loses, Mr. Trump likely will tell his supporters that it was because of fraud —and many of them will believe him. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/22/trump-contempt-truth-editorial/

11. Bess Levin: White House Doubles Down On Donald Trump’s Vow To Stay In Power No Matter What

Time was, the American people could reliably expect that the loser of the presidential election would accept defeat and, if said loser was the incumbent candidate, vacate the White House without a fight. That was a reasonable assumption because (1) most candidates who’ve made it to the general election have been relatively sane individuals, and (2) we don’t live in a dictatorship. In 2020, however, one of the people running for president is an unhinged maniac with authoritarian tendencies, and so on Wednesday, a member of the press corps actually had to ask him what his plans are vis-à-vis accepting the election results—and his answer was completely terrifying.

“Win, lose, or draw in this election, will you commit here today for a peaceful transferal of power after the election?” reporter Brian Karem asked Donald Trump, who didn’t even attempt to give the impression he cares whatsoever about preserving democracy. “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said. “You know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.” Pressed again to “commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferal of power,” Trump responded, “Get rid of the ballots and...we’ll have a very peaceful—there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. You know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know better than anybody else.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/donald-trump-get-rid-of-ballots-wont-leave-white-house

12. Eric Lutz: The Trump Campaign Is Reportedly Plotting An Election Coup To “Bypass” A Biden Win

Citing the president’s baseless claims of fraud, Team Trump could ask GOP-controlled state governments to choose electors, completely ignoring an unfavorable or uncertain popular vote, state and national Republican sources told Gellman.

“The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power,’” a Trump campaign legal adviser explained to the Atlantic. “‘We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state.’”

Does completely ignoring the will of the voters seem anti-democratic? Unconstitutional? Impossible? One would think. But as Gellman points out, however authoritarian this kind of end-around may seem, the Constitution doesn’t forbid such a move, and it’s something the Trump campaign could pull off. Indeed, state Republican leaders have already casually indicated that they’d be all too happy to enable this kind of power grab. “I’ve mentioned it to them, and I hope they’re thinking about it too,” Lawrence Tabas, chairman of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, one of the swing states on which the 2020 race could hinge, told Gellman. “It is one of the available legal options set forth in the constitution.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/trump-campaign-election-coup-bypass-biden-win

13. Evan Osnos: The TikTok Fiasco Reflects the Bankruptcy of Trump’s Foreign Policy

Trump’s approach to TikTok and WeChat, like much of his foreign policy, is a gesture of defeatism camouflaged as strength. From his earliest days in politics, he has stood for the closure of the American mind, and the withdrawal of American power and confidence. He exited the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, and the Iran nuclear agreement; he ordered American troops in Syria to abandon the Kurds and other American allies, a move that James Mattis regarded as so disloyal and imprudent that he resigned as Secretary of Defense. In the present case, Trump would rather wall off Americans digitally and philosophically than establish guidelines on privacy, free speech, and data collection.

The TikTok fiasco is a product of cronyism, empty bombast, and nationalism—a political recipe that, historically, America has tended to criticize in its opponents. But, as a Pew survey reported this month, global confidence in the United States, especially among allies, is as low as it has been since the measurements began, nearly two decades ago. In the most damning indicator, Trump inspires less confidence than Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-tiktok-fiasco-reflects-the-bankruptcy-of-trumps-foreign-policy

14. Jeffrey Toobin: There Should Be No Doubt Why Trump Nominated Amy Coney Barrett

There should be no doubt about why Barrett has been chosen. Much of the commentary about her selection will focus on the issue of abortion, and her likely role in overturning Roe v. Wade. During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to appoint Justices who would vote to overrule that landmark, and with his three selections, including Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, he appears to have delivered. Barrett is not only a member of a conservative organization within the Catholic Church; her legal writings, and the views of some who know her, suggest that she would overturn Roe.

It should go without saying that the nomination and the expected confirmation of Barrett in the final days before a Presidential election represent a paramount act of hypocrisy for McConnell and the other Republicans who denied even a hearing to Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, in 2016. But the fact that these Republicans are willing to risk that charge shows how important the Supreme Court is to them. Far more than a senator, a Supreme Court Justice can deliver on the agenda. The war on abortion is just the start. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/there-should-be-no-doubt-why-trump-will-nominate-amy-coney-barrett

15. Dana Millbank: This is not a drill. The Reichstag is burning

“It’s abundantly clear that Trump plans to fabricate an election “emergency.” First, he claimed mail-in balloting, a tried-and-true system, is fraudulent. Now his supporters are trying to harass in-person voters.

When Virginia’s early voting opened this week, Trump supporters descended on a polling station, waving Trump signs and flags, chanting and forming a gantlet through which voters had to walk. When the New York Times reported that this voter intimidation campaign began at a nearby rally featuring the Republican National Committee co-chairman, the Virginia GOP responded mockingly from its official Twitter account: “Quick! Someone call the waaaambulance!”

Let’s be clear. There is only one political party in American politics embracing violence. There is only one side refusing to denounce all political violence. There is only one side talking about bringing guns to the polls; one side attempting to turn federal law-enforcement officials into an arm of a political party. And Trump is trying to use law enforcement to revive tactics historically used to bully voters of color from voting — tactics not seen in 40 years.

Some of what Trump and his lieutenants have been doing is merely unseemly: using the machinery of government to attack previous and current political opponents, likening pandemic public health restrictions to slavery, or threatening to overrule regulators if they question the safety of vaccines.

But embracing violence to resolve democratic disagreement is another matter. Trump embraced the “very fine people” among the homicidal neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. He embraced as “very good people” armed protesters who stormed the Michigan Capitol to intimidate lawmakers. He embraced his supporter who allegedly shot and killed two people at a protest in Wisconsin. He embraced the “GREAT PATRIOTS” who drove into Portland, Ore., hurling paintballs and pepper spray at demonstrators. He embraced officers who kill unarmed African Americans, saying they simply “choke” under pressure.

Now he’s rejecting the peaceful transfer of power. Worse: Most Republican officeholders dare not contradict him. The Times reported that of all 168 Republican National Committee members and 26 Republican governors it asked to comment on Trump’s outrage, only four RNC members and one governor responded.

In Federalist 48, James Madison prophetically warned that tyranny could triumph under “some favorable emergency.” In 1933, Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag to do just that. Trump now, it appears, is aiming to do likewise.

America, this is our Reichstag moment. We have the power to stop it. Don’t let democracy burn to the ground. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/25/this-is-not-drill-reichstag-is-burning

16. Brian Karem: The Question I Asked Trump That Blew Up the Week

We have often even monitored other countries—and in some cases enforced our will on them—to maintain stable governments and assure the peaceful transition of power. Do we now need monitors in our own country to ensure the same?

Trump is again, as he has for four years, sowing the seeds of divisiveness—and there is plenty of speculation as to why.

He has been accused of a variety of nefarious activities that could lead to criminal charges once he is out of office.

He has a boy-band crush on Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been quoted musing and scheming about a possible third term in office because he believes he deserves a do-over for reasons that escape most people with a brain stem.

The world is now aware of what we are up against in the United States as the countdown to the November election continues. https://thebulwark.com/the-question-i-asked-trump-that-blew-up-the-week/

17. New Yorker Editorial: The New Yorker Endorses a Biden Presidency

On November 8, 2016, Donald John Trump, a shady real-estate pitchman and reality-TV host from New York, was elected the forty-fifth President of the United States. The distinguishing features of his character––bigotry, deceit, narcissism––were as evident during the 2016 campaign as they are now. But, though many more voters supported his opponent, the Trump Presidency had to be endured. Contempt has been at the core of his time in office: contempt for the Constitution; contempt for truth and dissent; contempt for women and people of color; contempt for champions of civil rights as great as John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Trump’s contempt for science and the basic welfare of Americans is so profound that, through an enraging combination of incompetence, indifference, and stupidity, he has failed to meet the pitiless demands of a viral pandemic. The national death toll is more than two hundred thousand.

The polls suggest that Joe Biden currently leads the 2020 Presidential race. We suffer no delusions: Trump has on his side demagogic skill and ruthlessness, a willingness to break any norm or law in order to win. Nevertheless, we hope that Biden will displace him by a margin that prevents prolonged dispute or the kind of civil unrest that Trump appears to relish. Ideally, Biden will have an opportunity to govern with Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, which would vastly increase his chances of passing legislation to confront the nation’s array of crises. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/05/the-new-yorker-endorses-a-biden-presidency

18. Catherine Rampell: Trump’s long-hidden tax returns make him look like a terrible businessman, or a cheat. Probably both.

Trump reportedly paid only $750 in federal income in 2016 and 2017, and none at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.

Remember when Mitt Romney was caught on tape condemning the moochers of America, the 47 percent who pay no income taxes? Turns out he was talking about Trump.

Trump claimed no tax liability for so many years because, according to the documents reviewed by the Times, he sustained mindbogglingly huge, chronic losses. The magnitude of these reported losses suggests he has been a thoroughly incompetent businessman or has been cheating Uncle Sam.

Most likely both. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/28/trumps-long-hidden-tax-returns-make-him-look-like-terrible-businessman-or-cheat/

19. Tim Miller:Trump Tax Returns Show He’s a Populist Fraud

You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.” -- Donald J. Trump, The Art of the Deal

Donald Trump’s long economic populist con came to a close on Sunday when the New York Times reported that for most of the past 15 years, while he was living a life of luxury that most Americans can only dream of, he was racked with massive debts and paying no income tax thanks to business write-offs on flamboyant haircuts, consulting fees paid to his daughter, and a summer retreat where his large adult sons liked to ride ATVs and laugh at the poor suckers who had to mow the lawn.

Trump was not the brilliant businessman skilled at tax write-offs that we had been promised. He was a fraud who was paying nothing at all. Literally. https://thebulwark.com/trump-tax-returns-show-hes-a-populist-fraud/

20.  Bridget Read: Trump Wrote Off $70,000 on His Taxes … for Hairstyling

In the New York Times’ bombshell report on Donald Trump’s tax returns, one detail sticks out like a spindly comb-over flapping in the breeze: Trump has spent a whopping $70,000 in personal hairstyling “for television” and wrote it off as a business expense.

The amount is shocking in the context of the rest of the Times report, which reveals that Trump’s reported income was so low that he avoided paying federal income taxes for over a decade and paid only $750 to the IRS after he became president. So while he was purporting to be a genius developer, TV star, and magnate to the public, Trump was declaring huge losses and using them to avoid paying taxes to the federal government. One year, he even received a staggering $72.9 million refund from the IRS. Another tactic he employed: writing off expenditures, like his $70,000 in hairstyling for The Apprentice and air travel between his hotels, as “business expenses.” He wrote off another $100,000 paid to one of Ivanka Trump’s stylists to similarly reduce his tax amount. https://www.thecut.com/2020/09/trump-taxes-trump-wrote-off-usd70-000-in-hairstyling-expenses.html

21. Jonathan V. Last: Like a Rat in a Trap

Cornered

Question: When is the last time the sitting president of the United States accused his opponent of using performance-enhancing drugs and demanded that he take a drug test following a debate?

Obviously, the answer is: Never. Because prior to this moment our country has never had a president who was both psychologically and cognitively unbalanced.

But Trump’s bizarre drug-test demand isn’t just a symptom. It’s an indicator of how desperate he is.

What you have here is a powerful man who is cornered. Who knows that he is cornered. And who knows that we know it, too.

I mention all of this because it suggests to me that the danger for America is increasing, rather than decreasing. The eyewall of this storm is still out to sea. And it’s bearing down on us. https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/like-a-rat-in-a-trap