I am one of the few people (suckers?) among people I talked to today who watched the whole debate. I should have known after the first question to Biden and interruption by Trump that this was not going to end well. Now I remember why I started referring to Trump as “Bully in Chief” way back in 2017. What a completely rude and obnoxious person!

I did feel sorry for moderator Chris Matthews. I do think he could have been much more forceful about trying to keep some order among the chaos.  I think it would have been perfectly appropriate on several occasions for him to say something along the lines of “Mr. President, you are very much out of line. You have lost your next two-minute opportunity to answer a question.” I would definitely be very much in favor of the moderator having the ability to kill the microphone during particularly inappropriate behavior.

There were fairly low expectations for Biden going into the debate. I think he performed better than Trump because he refused to be pulled down into the weeds on every interaction. Trump clearly wanted to goad Biden into a very un-Presidential outburst. However, it was Trump who stooped so low throughout the whole debate that he came across as extremely un-Presidential. Altogether, not a great night for showcasing America’s democracy. Unless there are major structural changes, I think the audience for the next Presidential debate will be very small.