For 7 years I coached middle school and high school students in speech and debate. I was a judge for many speech and debates tournaments.
At the first competition, I was amazed that a student could give a clear and concise speech to an impromptu question. It was if they knew what the topic would be. Later I learned that the best prepared students had 5 to 10 stories which could be adapted to cover most topics. For them it wasn’t really impromptu.
Students would debate the same resolution throughout the season. They often faced the same opponent and would offer the same arguments and counter arguments.
In short, the best prepared students would do the best.
Too Prepared To Be True?
At Tuesday night’s debate between President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Harris was superbly prepared. She had an immediate and polished response to every question which sounded good regardless of whether or not she answered the question.
As we watched the debate I told my wife, “She must have been given the questions. No candidate can provide an immediate answer to every question without even pausing to take a breath.” This was her first debate in this election not the third where she’s heard all these questions before.
The other theory is that the Harris campaign gave the questions to ABC News. Who knows. I remain skeptical.
We know Harris has done exactly one interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee six weeks ago. No press conferences, no primary debates, no other interviews. Yet she aced this debate.
On the other hand, Trump seemed under prepared and missed an opportunity to break into a commanding lead in this election race.
For instance, the very first question to Harris was on whether people are better or worse off than they were four years ago. Harris’ response was to talk about being raised in a middle-class home by her mom.
She didn’t answer the question. Yet Trump did not say in response, “Notice she didn’t answer the question because she knows Americans are doing far worse than they were under my administration four years ago.”
Fact Checking
In high school debates, the two debaters fact check each other. In this case, the ABC News moderators fact-checked Trump a half a dozen times and never for Harris.
Oh well, the folks on X (formerly Twitter) have done a lot of fact checking in the past two days. Here’s a sampling:
Post Debate Fact Checking: Abortion Limits
One notorious fact check by the ABC News moderator was that, “no one supports abortion in the 9th month.”
In this video, a legislator answers questions about proposed abortion restriction changes which would allow abortion “through the 3rd trimester.” It took some repeat questioning but she finally admits that this means through the 40th week.
Kristan Hawkins on X “Fact checking THREE ABORTION LIES that were said during the @ABC debate.
Any woman with a younger sounding voice can do what this gal did:
In the debate, Harris and ABC News claimed that no babies are killed as a post-birth abortion. This article reveals that at least 5 such deaths occurred in Minnesota in one year.
Reminder: In just one year, at least 5 babies were born alive after failed abortions in Minnesota. They were left to die.
Tim Walz signed one of the most radical abortion bills in the nation, stripping protections from babies who would be born alive after failed late-term abortions.
During the presidential debate, Kamala and ABC claimed this is not happening.
But according to Minnesota’s own Department of Health reporting, at least 5 babies in 2021 survived late-term abortions and were left on the table to die with no life-saving medical care.
Trump Fact-checked over claim that crime is up.
His claim is true according to a report by John R. Lott. “New Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Just Released: Violent crime (Rape, Robbery, and Aggravated Assault) Soaring Under Biden-Harris.”
Post Debate Fact Checking: Haitian Migrants Eating Cats in Springfield Ohio?
Springfield Ohio is a city of 60,000 people who have been inundated by 20,000 Haitian migrants. During the debate, the ABC News moderator said that ABC called the Springfield City Manager who said, “there is no credible evidence” of people eating cats.
Jack Poso reported on X that “Haitian immigrant daughter confirms what Trump said about Springfield, Ohio.” The woman said the “majority on the island do practice voodoo. They eat cats because Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.”
Ohio Senator J.D. Vance responded to a question about Haitians taking over Springfield Ohio in this exchange:
I always encourage people to go to city council and county commissioner meetings to make public comment. Here are two from Springfield about how the migrants are affecting the community:
Greg Price reports that a “Springfield, Ohio homeless advocate tells the city council that landlords are kicking people out of their homes and replacing them with Haitians and that the Biden-Harris government is paying them to do it.”
Anther report on X a few days ago: “This was very heartbreaking to watch this Springfield Ohio resident who has lived in their home for 45 years pleading with the Springfield City Commission to protect them and says that her husband said it’s time to pack up and move because it’s killing both of them mentally😢.: “… It’s so unsafe in my neighborhood anymore… I have men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me, throwing mattresses in my front yard, throwing trash in my front yard and I can’t… defend myself if I had to… Who’s protecting us, if we’re protecting them, who’s protecting me?… I want out of this town. I’m sorry. Please give me a reason to stay.”
Harris Claimed Her Policies would be better for the economy
Goldman Sach’s CEO David Solomon said today, “That report came from an independent analyst… The report looked at a handful of policies issues that have been put out by both sides and it tried to model their impact on GDP growth and the differential was 2/10 of one percent. This blew up into something that’s bigger than intended.”. He added that there is no assurance that any of the proposed policies would be enacted into law.
It was just reported by Collin Rugg that a former top Clinton advisor has called for an investigation of ABC News for rigging the debate.
JUST IN: Former top Clinton adviser calls for an internal probe of ABC for rigging the debate against Trump.
Former adviser to Bill & Hillary Clinton Mark Penn says ABC needs to launch an investigation to search for an effort of “rigging the outcome” of the debate.
“I actually think they should do a full internal investigation, hire an outside law firm. I don’t know how much of this was planned in advance,” Penn said to @jsolomonReports, “I don’t know what they told the Harris campaign.”
“I think the day after, suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate.”
“I think the situation demands nothing less than that.”
Post-debate polling said that the debate didn’t change many minds. We’ll see as both campaigns continue toward November 5th.
Richard Emmons is the Publisher and Editor of the Oregon Eagle.