Photo courtesy of Adam Schultz, Flickr
The final presidential debate was not nearly as exciting and heated as the first, but it definitely contained moments that were worth watching.
President Donald Trump again left many important questions unanswered. We as the American people deserve answers on his plan for health care, specifically how he plans to replace Obamacare while allowing people with pre-existing conditions to be protected. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, on the other hand, said, “People deserve to have affordable health care, period. Period, period, period,” and “the Bidencare proposal will provide for that.”
In my personal opinion, Joe Biden did a much better job in this debate than his opponent. Of course, neither candidate was perfect, but one answered the important questions and one simply did not.
Fact-checkers reported that President Trump told more lies than anything in the final debate. If you were to look up what the fact-checkers had to say about Trump in this debate, the best quote was from Jake Tapper of CNN: “He didn’t set himself on fire tonight as he did at the first debate. [But] I mean, he did lie like Pinocchio.”
One thing that I took away from the debate was how, when referencing the children who were living in dirty cages with inadequate care and an unknown chance of being reunited with their parents, Trump claimed they were “so well taken care of.” The hypocrisy of this statement honestly disgusted me.
It seems like Trump’s entire strategy was to lie and turn questions back to Biden, rather than answer them himself.
Time and time again I found myself frustrated while watching the debate. The one saving grace would be the fact that the debate commission stated they would turn off the microphones when the candidate was finished speaking to prevent interruptions. In my own words, this equated to them trying to stop Trump from steamrolling the debate with constant interrupting. I was very happy at the lack of interruptions this time around.
I honestly find it somewhat humorous that it had to get to this point, where the microphones would need to be turned off, but it was a necessary move. I think this was the right call by the debate commission and helped make the debate as smooth sailing as possible.
I think that the moderator did a relatively good job of keeping both candidates on task and on track to answer the questions. I think that if there is ever another candidate who is similar to Trump, this tactic should be used again.
With the election being less than a week away, stress levels are high, but hopefully undecided voters got their last taste of both candidates and will be able to make an informed decision as to who the better candidate is.
agiampag@ramapo.edu
