A tightening the screws on free media the countrys most popular independent news site has been suspended for 3 months following its coverage of antigovernment protests other journalists in belarus have reported being threatened jailed or forced into exile tens of thousands of people have been rallying every week to demand that president Alexander Lukashenko resign. Amin in and as a vision he forces have engaged in a 4th day of heavy fighting over the separatist region of nagornokarabakh thats despite calls by the International Community to cease hostilities dozens of people have been killed in the worst clashes saying in the disputed region in decades. This is data revenues from berlin followers on twitter and instagram and data with the news or visit our website data dot com. It was a televised event that confirmed what many europeans have suspected since donald trump became u. S. President s europes best friend american democracy is at best consumed with itself at worst being consumed by itself for 90 minutes 2 men in their seventys were supposed to debate the future instead joe biden tried to be a deacon of decorum against the bully in chief he was the winner that is being debated who was the loser well that is clear americas democracy and all of us in the free world im burnt off in berlin this is the day. This is the radical left what are you sure as a race and who is on your list you know pretty high profile. This is not as far as im a grandmother heres a damn its about your family. I mean president ial burn down your stores and kill people little trollies adders and he supports it as well as not because you say it is really substantive. B. S. And i want you to give a little you have ended this segment by the move on to the 2nd segment as relates to the justice dept experience discerning this. Also coming up in bill ruse people continue to protest demanding the president resign demanding fair and free elections but the government doesnt want the world to know that foreign journalists are being forced to leave. Getting a new accreditation for extending this thing papers is no longer possible theres no outright refusal just the same excuse over and over again the. In charge they say called get together because of covert. One to our viewers watching on p. B. S. In the United States and to all of your around the world welcome we begin the day with the debate debacle we cannot begin to list all of the adjectives used today to describe tuesday nights u. S. President ial debate many of the words we cant say on television the child friendly headline it reads the worst debate in living memory the debate between u. S. President donald trump and former Vice President joe biden was a success for no one not the candidates and certainly not for democracy voters in the u. S. Today have been lamenting that the 90 minute televised debate revealed a little about where the candidates stand on the most important issues such as the pandemic the economy and Climate Change here in europe americas allies say the debate was a nasty spectacle an embarrassment for american democracy the official reaction in china is a mixture of communist shot with we told you so in a moment well go through what was said and what wasnt said and discuss why it matters to the world but 1st here are the highlights from an event that was not one of americas finer moments the fact is that everything he said so far is simply a lie im not here to call out his lies Everybody Knows hes a liar but you know i just want to play with it i want to make sure as you heard it last night you pleasant 1st that im. I want to make sure as i dont can you let him finish there he dont know how to do that theyre waiting wheres nowaday me off like well ill as joe im you know join and it was the most unpopular i asked to vote im a guy i got rid of id like i did will press that people in an audience moderator of us to say and i would like you to let me ask my question and then you can answer go ahead trent and i laid out again in july what we should be doing we should be providing all the. Protective gear possibly should be providing the money the house has passed in order to be able to go out and get people the help they need to keep their businesses open open schools that cost a lot of money you should get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap and get in your golf course and go in the oval office and bring together the democrats republicans and fund what needs to be done now to save lives so you could never have done the job that we did you dont have it in your blood you could have never done that you know i know how to do the job i know how to get the job where you dont do very well in swine flu the h one n one you were a disaster your own chief or it stands out as it is there are 200000 people died not 200000 we have no there are economic recession are you made up a already let us know or just made a point by now. We can say thats the under thats this is the end of that ballot count when i dont leave a day or 2 i ought to be continued as in more debates as we go on President TrumpVice President biden its been an interesting hour and a half i want to thank you both for participating while we want to dive into that debacle tonight to do that im joined here in the studio by julian fundal our strategy and Campaign Consultant who worked with the obama campaigns in 200820125 Jeremy Shapiro hes Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations he joins us tonight from london gentlemen to both of you did evening jeremy let me start with you in the u. S. Many are calling it the worst president ial debate in living memory or in u. S. History what a bell on this side of the atlantic what did you think. Yeah ive never seen anything a status that in any kind of debate i think its a sort of symptom of the way that trump has essentially degraded the state of american democracy i think i sort of felt for biden he had no choice but to respond in kind and it its a demonstrates that by politicians or in trying to respond to trump. If you dont come down to his level you cant respond but if you do your degrading democracy you know thats a good point judy as youve been front and center at president ial debates before me can you explain what happened last night well i think it was a reflection of where the debate in the campaign overall stands right now i mean everyone is yelling and the whole political discourse in the United States is just yelling over one another theres no real debate and so its just people yelling at each other but theyre not actually connecting or you know listening and talking about the issues you know i dont think many people are talking with each other talking past each other there are several key moments that we want to take a look at tonight the 1st is when Moderator Chris Wallace asked the president would he be willing to denounce White Supremacists and militias such as the Group Proud Boys want to take a listen what he said give me a name give me a White Supremacy thats unlikely to route grow as a son right proud of my boys stand back and stand by but ill tell you what ill tell you what somebody has got to do something about anti fair and the left because this is not a right is else is a levy. Are no trumps stand by com it was music to the ears of right wing the right wing group for boys you see right there joe bidens twitter feed captured some of the euphoria before it was deleted see right there. Standing by sir that was the reaction after they heard the president say stand by me julies what what would you have advised by their what should have been his response to join me it goes back to charlottesville and you know what happened back then remember the press conference that trump gave later after those events took place and he was asked specifically about the proud boys and he said back then you know theyre fine people on both sides he was present at the opportunity to clearly did now its White Supremacy and he passed on it twice yesterday and so i think its just pretty clear where he stands but i do think that it goes back to the strategy of dollar show where he has a clear base plus strategy where he says i want to excite the base as much as i can because i know i cant reach those swing voters and right now theres still 12 percent of the american electorate which is undecided and so i think hes saying i cant reach those voters let me turn up the volume on my own base and expand my trump base the maga the make America Great again base and i think thats clearly a sign of what the strategy is for the Trump Campaign germy youve got a u. S. President who kills militias and right wing groups to stand by i mean this must be like manna falling from the skies for were right wing movements here in europe. Yeah i mean i suppose i think at this point its not even really fair to say that trump has a strategy on this its just sort of the only thing he knows how to do. And so i think that the right wing movements in europe are are a little bit less inspired by trump than and they used to be because he seems to be flailing about so much im not really sure. You know julius its its fine to say that theres 12 percent undecided im not really convinced of that i think that a lot of. A lot of the a lot of those 12 percent have really decided theyre just arent telling the polls and i think that what that trump is trump is who he is and so none of his Political Consultants are telling him to give a fillip to the proud boys but hes doing it because its the only thing he knows how to do and in the moment hes very interesting and exciting his base im not really sure that at this point that represents any kind of strategy that the european right wing glom onto something thats interesting lets talk about joe biden and what he was criticized for last night and that was his response to the question would she as u. S. President stack the u. S. Supreme court add more justices to rebalance between liberal and conservative judges take a listen to what he said vote and let your senators know how you get on are you feeling that vote now that in fact they sure you in fact let people know senator im not going to answer the question that he. Says the radical left would you should point out who is on your list joe. Johns i think this is. Going to get all right jim let me ask you what is the lesson there for those of us outside the United States watching. Well i mean i think it reveals a sort of dilemma that the democrats have even if they should win the presidency which is how much are they going to be sort of take the lesson from the Trump Presidency and particularly from the last 2 Supreme Supreme Court fights over america and over the current one whether theyre going to decide that they want to be norm shatters as well and if they get control are they going to pack the Supreme Court which is constitutional but not something thats been done in in many many decades in fact hundreds of well over 100 years and so it would be it would be a real Nuclear Weapon in the political battles and it would sort of reduce the United States yet further into the partisan miasma that its in but i think quite a few democrats and certainly the Democratic Base feels that there are the in that and theyre already fighting that battle theyre just losing it and so now they have to they want to do that i think its not surprising that joe biden is unwilling to commit to that because its a little bit its damaging before the election but he wouldnt be willing to dissuade his space and out it so theres no way he should answer that question i think he should have answered the question i think he should have said very clearly i will not back the court i mean were talking about right here is backing the court adding justices to the Supreme Court turning d. C. Potentially in a state with and i told votes that is what theyre talking about and Chuck Schumer was asked about and he said you know everything is on the table and i and i think this goes back to the strategy of a chum campaign that ive just mentioned where you know trump wants to say look there is a radical left element whether thats true or not is a different question but thats what hes talking about when hes trying to excite his own base saying look the democrats want to stack the court they. Want to take away your guns they want to pretty much roll back everything that we have fought for over decades and you know joe biden is not willing to commit if i would have been joe biden i would have said clearly look i am a traditional democrat i am not looking to win he said i am the Democratic Party that is what he said but it did commit to not just doesnt have the base well. They say he needs to avoid he needs to avoid berating that base and i think that base. Because im part of it is very tired of. Not responding to the republicans and kind so i think the bad i do not see that take democrats lets stay home just because biden were to say i will not extend Supreme Court justices to 11 or 13 all right let me go on here before we run out of time but there does seem to be consensus that the debate still deeply into the gutter when dolly trump began attacking joe biden sons i want you to take a listen to that fiery and Emotional Exchange why sun was in iraq he spent a year there he got through he got the bronze star he got a Conspicuous Service medal he was not a loser he was a patriot and the people left behind there were heroes really and i resent it took it like you know youre going to talk it out my son beau biden your top dont know i dont know bow i know what you did all grown hunter got thrown out of the military he was thrown out dishonorably just you know its not true as its already in use and he didnt have a job until you became Vice President what you gonna do that president he made a fortune in ukraine in china and mas that is simply an area not of the playgroups he my son which in general my son and he didnt have a giant son like a lot of people like a lot of people you know at home had a drug problem hes overtaken hes hes hes fixed it hes worked on it and im proud of him. I was out of that 1000000 all right he wasnt gay rights and. Biden could have attacked trumps family at that point but he did. I thought it was a strong this moment of joe biden in that entire debate you saw raw emotions and he was on the stand and the stand the bully upset about what trungpa just said i mean i think i could see a politician actually saying to Chris Wallace hold my coat and let me walk over there he didnt fortunately but i thought it was affective i thought we saw clear motions and i thought he connected with voters watching at home jimmy do you think it was that the moment when. Biden emerged as the winner of this debate yeah i guess i agree i think that. What he managed to do in that moment was both show emotion and show control and its always a difficult thing for a president ial candidate you want to show that you care deeply that youre emotionally in touch with these things that you feel things like other people feel things but also that your emotions dont get control of you and that you are able to sort of process them in a way which will be you know amenable to being a leader and i think biden showed that in that moment it was a key moment weve got about one minute left and well as both of you the commission on president ial debates has announced this evening that its going to be changing some things adding tools to maintain order for the next 2 debates jeremy you 1st will that fix this problem. I hadnt heard that im not exactly sure what what rules theyre going to change but my guess is that they will never be able to control and. Probably enough ive read this on twitter i think David Axelrod made the point they should add a mute button for the moderators just. That would be one thing but maybe you know in the last couple debates they had on several occasions new multiple moderators maybe that would change something but i think as long as the sides to continue to run in the republican primary with the bullfight that hes putting on there i dont think theres a way to control them well well see if they if they do go with the mute button itll be interesting to see the ways this is an excellent discussion gentleman. Veteran of the obama campaigns in 20082012 in london Jeremy Shapiro a Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations the votes of you gentlemen thank you very much. It is what autocrats and dictators do when they dont like the message they shut down or get rid of the messengers and that is exactly what is happening now in bill rubes the coverage of mass protests has gained traction and attention globally to the dismay of president lukashenko the result is now is not good news for foreign journalists connelly joins me in just a moment he was just forced to leave bella ruse but 1st his report on efforts to get the media and what that means for the for chess move. Weeks of protests capturing imaginations around the world colorful symbols charismatic leaders. Its often turned ugly Security Forces cracking down brutally on peaceful protests and when it did photographers and journalists were there to report. People here tell you one thing time and time again knowing that the world is watching makes them feel safer. They show the outside attention acts as a restraint on the government. But journalists are facing increasing intimidation 2 photographers spent 15 days in jail for quote organizing an illegal protest they had taken pictures of a demonstration an editor who published an interview in which a victim of torture named his torture also ended up in jail and tire news outlets now stand to lose their media licenses without them their journalists could face arrest at any time. Foreign journalists like me havent so far been subjected to this kind of treatment very soon there may not be any of us left 10. 00 getting a new credit station or extending this thing papers is no longer possible theres no outright refusal just the same excuse over and over again the commission in charge they say called get together because of coverage this in a country where the man in charge president Alexander Lukashenko who claims to have won the disputed election downplays the dangers of the coronavirus he has said that a visit to the sauna is the best treatment for the disease. Has independent media here vanishes protesters fear a future in which there is no one left to document what the government does to its opponents. And with me here the big table is the w. s very young that connally that just got off the plane from ments niggas good to see you talk to me about what has happened here basically you have. The choice right you had you had to leave the country you didnt have your accreditation anymore well just me this is something thats affected basically all the Foreign Press i happened to have this paperwork from last year it was running out and every time i tried to renew it i was told unfortunately the commission in charge calls me as a coded not a very convincing argument in a country where the president says go to the soul and if you have coded or write attracted to make yourself healthy again so thats something an excuse thats been peddled is to not just us but to the Main International media and basically in a few weeks on theres going to be no one left with right good theyre just letting everyones accreditation run out and then there be no foreign journalists left that is the plan. What about the local journalists there that you know that youve worked with the mean are they in are in danger and are they going to be able to make a living with this crackdown wide the way it is theyre very definitely in danger i was at one of the womens much as just last weekend and one of the local belarusian journalist was taken in she had an accreditation she was working clearly identifying herself as a journalist wearing a. Jacket and she was given 15 days in jail for quote organizing a patient in an illegal demonstration and for not cooperating the police she was a big fine and essentially shes going to lose her accreditation she will be banned from working in her own country the countrys biggest news service to buy has been taken off basically has been blocked for now for 3 months thats got a warning shot across the bows and basically its going to be a situation where its going to be state media in the country and the media will be forced into exile as already happened with several outlets were you seeing the pressure here me did you did you feel unsafe. I didnt feel unsafe personally i think as a foreigner we are privileged in a situation i think its kind of difficult to complain when weve seen much worse stuff happen to locals who have a lot more at risk and to the need to carry on living this country and would have potentially face exile if this continues i definitely felt that i was being watched we had people walking past making their presence felt just to kind of give us a sense that we were being what i was filmed multiplications and that was definitely a stretch to make us feel like we werent. In a free situation to do what we wanted got about a minute left i want to ask you leaders of the opposition. Theyve left the country now weve got Media Coverage that means stopped i mean looks like. Hes not giving an inch definitely he doesnt see anything in it for him to engage in any kind of dialogue but im not sure its totally up to him he has become a liability for the russians the optics are just too toxic at the moment they have him where they want and hes been forced to make concessions in the senshi give up by the russians 70 in return for Russian Support against his own people but i think for me the most going member will thing was the police with all the weapons at their disposal all their massive superiority in terms of power they would not willing to stand on the streets and protect the regime without as soon as the protesters came and ripped it off they ran away from the protests that they are not willing to show their face and put their face to that regimes i think he has problems brewing for now he might be safe but he definitely. Has problems and is going to pay a price for this Russian Support well were glad youre safe nic we appreciate your reporting that you come in and tell us about it tonight let the flight was safe tonight is will they calmly thank you dick. Well the fact that our correspondent in belarus was forced to leave the country illustrates a sobering truth the free world has not won the free world is still in a fight for survival sadly that includes the United States the world watched the president ial debate on tuesday descend into something that i cannot say on the air i mean the word is cluster followed by a word that rhymes with luck cluster luck if you will and that is supposed to be american democracy last night the leader of the free world us president refused to denounce White Supremacists instead he told them to stand by he cant even say yes when asked will you accept the results of the november election today the german lawmaker andreas nick described the debate as an embarrassment and he said it is disturbing not only for voters in the us but also for the friends and allies of america its a different story for the free worlds rivals today chinas Main International newspaper an arm of the communist party described the chaos of the debate with unusual glee beijing sees what is happening in washington europeans do as well tonight the atlantic has never seemed so vast america never so distant even if joe biden wins the election there is a debate about whether or not he can repair the damage already done however there is a debate taking place the same cannot be said about american democracy tonight. Well the days almost done the conversation it continues online youll find us on twitter either at the w. News or you can follow me of went golf t. V. And remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day well see you then ever bought. Was gems machos in college its time for democracy. And our us will not back down in the face of Police Violence propping up people for a terrorist regime. They continue to demonstrate on to mom before socratic president step down now fox gets women buses to look. At some cars on her. On d. W. Come. He pushed. Her out of the way right now climb a tree different story. Basis much less he went on just one week. How much work to really get. We still have time to work im going. To subscribe like. This some dope story stubborn rice farmer from time. His problem. Is credo no chemical. Step. Training successful. Starts october 1st. W. Hello and welcome to focus on europe thanks for joining us the day europes last remaining strongman is clinging to his seat there are o. C. And Alexander Lukashenko is doing everything he can to remain in power although the e. U. Doesnt recognize him as the legitimate leader of the country