Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh says he was frustrated by Tuesday’s presidential election debate because moderator Chris Wallace and Democrat Joe Biden were “ganging up on Trump.”
Other commentators have complained that Wallace, a Democrat, was biased against the president, and Limbaugh said that while he likes and respects Wallace, that was evident.
He said President Trump “wanted to debate … it was obvious and clear.”
The president’s strategy likely was to “rattle” Biden, Limbaugh said, and then “facilitate whatever they thought might happen with the mental deficiencies that the candidate has exhibited.”
But Wallace “kept interrupting.”
“The moderator and the questions. And just – get out of the way. You got a debate starting. You got a debate raging. Let them go at it,” he said.
“It was rather obvious to me that Biden did not want to debate. He wanted to mumble a bunch of facts he wrote down and he wanted to make sure he articulated them before he forgot ’em. But Trump wanted a vigorous exchange. He was thwarted every time a debate nearly broke out. You know, part of a free flowing debate is to measure strength and tenacity, assertiveness. Those are all Trump strengths, as well as his record and his accomplishment,” Limbaugh said.
“But there was micromanagement of this debate going on, as though the questions mattered more than what the candidates were naturally evolving in and to as the debate unfolded. And excuse me, but it seemed like a number of times, it looked like somebody thought that Biden needed to be rescued. And so the life raft was thrown. But the audience last night was denied the ability to judge the candidates in a meaningful way because they were interrupted,” Limbaugh said.
“We don’t need the participants of a debate treated like this is Romper Room and they are violating some of the school rules and they’re gonna be punished by being sent to the corner. Trump wanted to debate. He desperately wanted to debate. Instead we got a scolding, ‘Tsk-tsk-tsk, you’re not listening to the questions,’ moderated kind of debate, and it was just frustrating,” he said.
Trump also, he said, “seemed surprised that Biden would slander him. He seemed surprised that Biden would lie. I can’t believe he was surprised by it, but the way things changed after the first five minutes I just had to wonder — and I had some regrets too.”
He said Biden actually “was in the process a number of times of melting down.”
“He was in the process of forgetting what he was saying. He was in the process of losing his place in his mind, his train of thought, and Trump saved him. And the reason Trump saved him was Trump has got so frustrated over the lies that Biden was saying that he just couldn’t resist jumping in and correcting what Biden was saying, which stopped Biden’s meltdowns dead in their tracks.”
He also pointed out that Wallace brought up the false claim that Trump called the neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the Charlottesville riot “very fine people.”
“And it was dredged up by the moderator. But what was not dredged up? What Biden told my old Buddy Charlamagne tha God, ‘Hey! Hey! If you ain’t voting for me, you ain’t black.’ That didn’t come up, and then we had to listen to the moderator lecturing Trump on butting in. We had to listen to the moderator lecturing Trump on interrupting. But Biden didn’t get lectured for interrupting,” said Limbaugh.
“Biden wasn’t lectured for calling Trump names. That’s the one thing that Trump did not do. Trump did not engage any personal attacks last night, unless you want to say that it was a personal attack to say, ‘Joe you and the word ‘smart’ don’t go together in the same sentence.’ But Biden was the one with mean-spirited personal attacks. They weren’t called out.”
Limbaugh cited the assessment from actor James Woods on Twitter: “President Trump crushed his opponent Chris Wallace head to head in the debate. There was also another fellow wandering around muttering to himself.”
