Correspondent. Thank you so much for being here. I am going i am going to read the opening paragraph of your fantastic column in todays paper who said no one alive has ever seen a president ial debate like tuesday night between President Trump and former Vice President biden. 90 minutes of invective it was an insult to the public and a set example of the state of american democracy five weeks before the election. Go on. We know what happened last night. The president of the United States decided to come in and destroy the format of the debate he had agreed to the terms of. Debate the tone for this he set the tone for this debate. It was not that surprising even though it was farther over the top one might have expected. Vice President Biden came to expect a somewhat more traditional debate. I think he knew he was in for a night in which the president would be hectoring, but probably not to the extent that he did, and he was grappling with it. He was more focused on the president then the president on the message he wanted to deliver. It turned into chaos. , i have respect for as a moderator, was not in large part able to keep control because the president was not willing to be brought under control. You had 90 minutes of just a terrible mess of a debate and one that reflects poorly on the presidency of the United States and to some extent our democracy. Guest on the host on the question of chris were wert there any there any effective ethical ways to rain the President Trump under control. Control cut his mic or go to break. It that even possible . Guest i do not think so. Have beene mic would almost possible because there was so much crosstalk. If anybody would have tried to control the mic, they would have been zapped, and zap, zap. That would have been a disservice to viewers. If you would not have been able to hear much of anything. I do not know what a moderator can do in that situation. For these general election debates, the moderators, as Chris Wallace and set ahead of time generally try to stay out of it. The format is designed with six theix segments, and then candidates can mix it up at the moderator in a normal debate can sit back to some extent, followup when necessary but let the candidates do it. What we saw last night was if you have one candidate in particular who is willing to simply bulldoze everything, there is not a lot you can do. She kept leaving with the president , pleading with the president at first in a more polite tones and later in total exasperation. I do not know what he could have done or what any moderator could have done. Guest let host lets pretend that this was a normal debate as much as we can, and i am going to ask you normal debate questions, and that is, for each candidate, what was their strongest moment and what was their weakest moment . Start with President Trump. Guest i think for President Trump the strongest moment was when she went after biden on law and order issues. Sustainedis most statement about an issue that he thinks will be valuable to him and trying to bring the collection in his direction, which he has not been able to do. I think his worst moment was obviously at the end when we got into the discussion, the ballots, mailin voting, white supremacy, proud boys. That was as low a moment as one can imagine in a debate, and a low moment even for a president known for going low in moments like that. Wasought bidens strongest when he was speaking to the heera, to the voters, when was turning away from the president and to some extent the moderator to make a direct pitch to basically say you know what this president is like. You know you cannot trust him. You know he does not know what he was talking about but here is what you should be thinking about. Clearly, that was part of the debate prep. Q knew that was a way to try to elevate outward what was an otherwise mess of a debate. I thought his weakest moments was when he kind of lost his own temper. You can understand why somebody in his situation would finally ,ust say, will you shut up, man as he did. I do not think in the great scheme of things that was necessarily great. You cannot measure this debate in a symmetrical way. We know where the responsibility lies for how this debate unfolded. Host one of the things i have also seen people say both on twitter and also on television this morning, raising the question, should joe biden even show up at the next two debates, because last night was such a spectacle . What did jake tapper call it last night. A hot mess inside a Dumpster Fire inside a train wreck. Guest database using words we should not use your on washington journal journal. Host do you think the next two debates should go on . Guest i think that is up to the candidates. I cannot imagine what the next two debates will be like given what happened last night. The Biden Campaign said last night she will show up for the next two debates as he promised to do before this debate happened. There are a lot of people, including any number of democrats who think he ought not to do that. I think we will have to wait and see what the president s reaction is, with the president s Team Reaction is. They are on the books. They are tradition, but after what happened last night, i think everybody will approach this with trepidation. Host if i remember correctly, the less debate is supposed to be a Town Hall Forum style, so there will be citizens asking the candidates questions. Do you think that last nights performance will play in a town hall format . Guest no, absolutely not. All candidates ahead of those town hall debates are prepped to be even more respectful than they might otherwise be to avoid some of the contentious exchanges that might occur in a debate simply with a single moderator. They are told that this is something that can turn people off. ,or President Trump especially this holds potentially great peril, but he obviously does not worry about that. We are trying to judge him by the tradition of the way candidates approach these debates, and you will have to wonder what he thinks about this. The idea that he could say the things he said all through the debate, particularly at the end about the proud boys and have any hope in that campaign that they will be able to win over female voters in the suburbs is folly. I think the president s team will have to think about, what are we hoping to get out of these debates if these debates go forward . Host hopefully, you will come back after the next debate and we can talk about whether that was a hot mess inside a Dumpster Fire inside a train wreck. Dan, we have got to go. Thank you so much for coming on a look this morning. Guest thank you, jonathan. Opinion side the of the Washington Post. Hughibuting columnist hewitt. Thank you so much. Guest good morning. Host i will start with you. Who do you think one last nights debate. . Was there a winner of the debate . Guest Amy Coney Barrett one last nights debate. I am a little tired. I did four hours of debate and i just finished a three hour show, 86 callers. I have thought trump won. Everyone have thought joe biden went. Everyone thought Christopher Wallace lost. They need to have people who will not interject. They have two just let them go at each other and not try and directed, because it really hurt Chris Wallaces standing with the public. Host let me continue with you on that line, this question about the debates. , should thebetter moderator have had the ability or commission to either cut the to have a to break reset or is that not even possible . Guest it helped us with the cnn ding,s when we heard that ding, ding at that had that audible thing but the only solution is for you and me to audiencebecause the came away with the distinct impression that the president was debating two people, not one. I want to give ruth guest i think Chris Wallace in the past has done as good a job as any interviewer of holding the president to account and following up with questions, but i think even Chris Wallace could not contain the raging beast that was President Trump last night, and i think the notion aat he failed and it was it was not his failure. It was a failure of the format in the context of dealing with trauma. Wasnotion that his problem he was to interject soonest and to assertive too assertive and trying to regain control of the debate format with all due 180to my friend opposite reality. We needed to figure out a way if it was possible, just very difficult to do more to get the president to follow the rules he agreed to use. Maybe the next debate moderator needs to be a preschool teacher. Host [laughter] i am going to stick with you and then ask you the same question. The strongest moment at the weakest moment for the president and the Vice President. Start with the president. Guest i think some of the strongest moments for the president was when he put difficult questions or the moderator put some difficult questions to Vice President biden that he did not answer, so , the president s strongest moments were pressing the Vice President on law and order and saying what Law Enforcement groups back to you . Pressing him on being clear on ,hether she would tax the court oppressing him on his position on the green new deal. , i would say incorporate just absolutely everything that dan says. Those moments for him were so few and far between. Eally outrageous moments i have a list here. Particularly, one thing respecting Election Results, the proud boys standby. One thing dan i think it did not mention it was the grotesque assault on joe biden by saying i did not know beau biden and shifting to this attack on hunter biden. It was beneath even donald trump. Should yoution hugh . Guest strongest moment was the same. That should have been allowed to go its course. The Vice President has no answer because he has no support among Law Enforcement. It would have been telling Chris Wallace cut it off. The strongest point for the Vice President was talking about beau biden. Just weakest point was serial dinar denial of hunter biden. He stepped on his own lines repeatedly. Is anyone who has talk to them knows, she will not stay on subject long enough to follow through. On the lockdown, key stored scored significantly because there is a huge divide in america. The most important moment of the debate, the Vice President is advised obliged to answer if you will stack the Supreme Court. That is a republican threatening move. That is a destabilizing undermining of the rule of law. Kamala harris dodged it twice after the debate. The Vice President says i will not answer it because it was controversial. That until i got a question answered because the American People deserve to know if the republicans going to be undermined by the next president. Host a republican threatening threateningrepublic was the president telling the proud boys to standby instead back and casting doubts on what the Election Results could be on election night. I am just going to put that out there. On another question, one thing that came to mind, the children. President trump spent a lot of time going after hunter biden. Joe biden did not return the favor and go after trumps own children, who according to published reports are doing a lot of things that are lets say questionable. Should joe biden as gone after the trump children . Guest no, i do not think getting in the muck with President Trump get you anything except for being mucky. Deserves anhat hugh answer to the question he posed. The question of how you think about the future of the court and whether you would expand the size of the court in the wake of what i would consider to be the stealing of two Supreme Court seats is a legitimate question and a legitimate question for Vice President biden to be pressed on, and i completely understand why he does not want to give an answer. That is the normal give and take. I do think and i want to disagree with something that dan said, and it goes to the question of whether Vice President biden should have gotten in the muck and got the president s children the way president drop what after bidens children. I think under normal second circumstances calling the sitting president of the United States a clown and telling him to shut up would be alarming and breathtaking and a very big mistake. I think under the circumstances, it was warranted, and i think people were looking for some andgy and some pushback some fierceness from the Vice President , and i was in the context of not normally in favor of instability, but in this country instability incivility where do we come out in this debate . What is the outcome . Going into the debate, president. Rump was on his heels the trajectory of this election is not going well for him. The dynamic of this election is not going well. He did not do anything to change that dynamic last night. If his hope was he would press the Vice President into making a terrible mistake and having gaps that could be used gaffes she could use, he had a few but he did not fundamentally rattled the Vice President for people looking at this debate and the president would be able to put it away so we could all get some sleep in the next several weeks. We are not going to get to sleep either. [indiscernible] host i want you to say what you were going to say, but in your response, i want you to follow up on something that ruth said about Vice President biden and calling it the president a clown and telling him to shut up and saying you are a racist. A lot of democrats looked at wantand thought, yes, they some fight. They want their candidate to fight back. Colors on the program this morning said they thought joe biden won the debate. With that one of the reasons . Guest no they thought he won the debate because the president lost it. Polite people hated that debate. You are polite. Ruth is polite. I am polite. Polite people hate that. My disagreement with dan, the debate reflected the country. We are all going to go to lunch Like Washington post opinion writers will do and chuckle at each other. Is deeply country divided. Social media reflects that. The debate last night reflected that. There is no getting around it that we are at a turning point for whether or not we are going to go toward freedom or toward socialism. I do not mean that as a pejorative about socialism. I mean the european model, the aoc model, the Kamala Harris model or back toward the reagan model. It donald trump is an imperfect messenger of freedom, but what we saw last night very perfectly reflected 100 conversations i have had it with old friends. They do not stay civil because the country is talking about deeply rooted First Principles and it is going to get a hot. Guest can i just jump in and so vehemently disagree with high the decision facing the country. It is about freedom and the destruction of democracy, a president who cannot condemn white supremacy, a president who cannot pledge as every previous president as to respect the results of the election and to commit to a peaceful transition and his attempt to conjure and transform joe biden, a moderate democrat into some kind of socialist aoc bogeyman maybe it is all republicans have you argue with, but it is simply inaccurate, and as he said last night. Everyone changes over time and the Democrat Party i will acknowledge is shifted toward the left, but joe biden is who joe biden is. He is not aoc, and attempts to paint him that way are not going to succeed are going to succeed as well as his attempt to paint him as we saw that last night. Host when you pushed on this, when challenged that he is afraid of the progressives and he will be a puppet of the progressives, she said i had the Democrat Party right now. Beingden is nowhere near a farleft socialist candidate. He beat both in the race against them who are part of that wing of the democratic party. Why even go down that route . Guest that is the official benefit of being true. If someone will not reject Court Packing, if someone will not reject the abolition of the legislative filibuster, they are setting up the country for what was in essence the last 70 years of the roman republic, and increasing disruption of the mores, not the rhetoric for which we are very familiar from 1968, but with the principles about how we govern. When you say he is not aoc and bernie sanders, i think you are wrong. If you are denying the reality of what Court Packing means. Court packing will be the number one issue for republicans, other than the lockdown, which some people out there in america are saying my kids have to go to school and joe biden wants to lock us down. To me, it is this Court Packing issue and he is as radical as anyone else because you will not denounce it. Disagreeing about the size of the court and disagreeing about the legislative filibuster, which is not in the constitution and neither is the size of the court does not turn you into an anticonstitutional socialist. I would love to have conversations about the size of the court and the role of the court. I really doubt that will be the rising issue for folks out there who are worried about the ability to have their kids return to school or are worried about their jobs and getting their jobs back, are worried frankly about what they saw on the Television Screens last night. I do not think there are a lot of moms and pops talking about the size of the Supreme Court. Hugh. Go ahead, guest i disagree with that because i talk to them this morning and they worry about joe biden dodging that issue because they know what it means. Host i want you to stick on the Supreme Court since we have a little bit of time left. I know you have to go in four minutes. Lets talk about the Supreme Court nominee, justice any Amy Coney Barrett. Guest you just said justice. Her theam not putting job before she actually gets this. You called itout, destruction of the republic to pack the court. To ruths point, the president as still out two seats on the Supreme Court. What will it say about the court and the independence of the when Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed as the third justice to the Supreme Court by President Trump. Ruth, you start . You isfor me, and she hugh is going to bristle at the notion, i think the president , if you were going to stress to the court like Court Packing, which i am not sure i would call it a threat to the court, talk about threats to the court by a president who talks about the importance of having a justice on the court who is going to vote his weight in an election kid seems determined to dispute if he loses it as seems likely, that is an assault on the integrity of the court as serious as expanding the size of the court. They are one and the same. Host i would like everybody to go get guest i would like everybody to go get ruths book. It is about 230 year battle for the Supreme Court. Every side has taken every advantage they have for 30 years. We lost proposed that particular round, let us blow up the court. I am convinced that if we change the number of the Supreme Court, it will unleash the hounds and it will change again and again and again. That is what i mean by undermining the rule of law. I think ruths book perfectly summarizes how invested america is in the stability of the court , and it must remain so invested, and to politicize it as joe biden and Kamala Harris is doing is so deeply responsible, it makes Donald Trumps rhetoric appear as a footnote in their of america. Host i was going to give you the last word but ruth you will go ahead. America the hounds of unleashed when as people were voting when a justice dies, the president having backed and Mitch Mcconnell backed denying the incumbent president the ability to fill the scalia seat is now rushing through the appointment of, and, yes, she is going to be just as barrett, a justice was going is takeoverementing that for decades to come, so the hounds are out and the way the loss ofspond to those two seats, i have a hard e and i have written this i have a hard time arguing against finding some temporary way to remedy that outcome the route may be a temporary expansion of the size of the courts coupled with other institutional changes. It thisnot one side with clean hands. On the part of the republican on these vacancies. Host i do respect for your time, we have got to go. We are out of time. Thanks so much for coming on the Washington Post life first look at the first 2020 president ial debate. I will put that in air quotes. Thank you so much for coming on. Guest i would like to do this all day long. Host i am not letting it happen. Thank you, guys, and thank you for watching. We will be back at 11 00 a. M. Eastern today for a special program of the Digital Divide featuring congressman rogers. Join us for the first and a special series on the election we are calling voting matters. Our guests will be the secretary of state from colorado and washington as well as tory burch about their efforts to turn out the vote in november. Once again, i had jonathan gayheart, a pretty writer for the Washington Post. The commission on president ial debates says it is considering possible changes to its format following the first president ial debate in cleveland. The nonprofit Nonpartisan Organization to the following statement. On president ial for the benefit of the american electorate. Tuesdays debate made clear additional structures should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues. The commission it will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and we will announce those measures shortly. And joeresident trump biden meet again for their second debate, the commission will be hosting the Vice President ial candidates. We will have live coverage of Vice President pence and senator Kamala Harris wednesday, october 7 at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. You can also watch online at cspan. Org were listed on the cspan radio app. With the ongoing Global Pandemic and many people shifting to online learning, youon cspan student know like to engage in a national conversation. We are asking Middleton High School students to prepare a documentary exporting the issues they most want the president a new congress to impress and 2021. Justice, or conformity. [indiscernible] including those as shown in [indiscernible] inequality in this world. When youth are given the opportunity to become informed ,oters and engaged citizens results because democracy muscular. [indiscernible] 28 tumultuous pathway to citizenship whose parents were born here but his parents were not legally here. This year we are awarding 100,000 in total cash prizes, including a grand prize of 400,000. January 20th,s 2021. For more information, go to our. Org. Te, studentcam here is a look at our live coverage thursday. On cspan, the house is back at 9 00 a. M. Eastern for general speeches before turning to legislative business at 11 00. Members may consider a coronavirus economic aid package that provides another round of direct payments and emergency funding for state and local governments, schools, small businesses, the airline industry, and covid19 testing. At