And that is like my favorite thing about a campaign, whether i was on a Campaign Staff or a candidate. So im really excited to talk about this today. Im going to give you a little bit of history here, so president ial and Vice President ial, general election debates have become really the highlight of the Campaign Season and something we just expect to happen. That has not always been the case. Its also common in other races, particularly highprofile races, so when was the first president ial debate . Heres a trivia question, historical trivia. Anyone know . Give you a hint . No one recognizes those people . This is a false hint. Thats lincoln and douglas. A lot of time people think, you hear the famous Lincoln Douglas debates and they ran against each other for president in 1860. Actually, their debates is when they were both running for the u. S. Senate in illinois in 1858 and had numerous debates around the state of illinois. And so quite an odd situation, they ran against each other for u. S. Senate. Douglas was elected by the legislature at that time, the legislature wanted them as senators and two years later they were on major part of campus against each other but the debates in 1858 were published and circulated a lot in 1816. The issues have not really changed a whole lot. The real first president ial debate was between john kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. And now at this point Richard Nixon had been Vice President for eight years, much better known than kennedy, who was a fairly junior u. S. Senator. So his family was somewhat well known and he wasnt totally unknown and he was not as well known. Nixon made a lot of his political career, had taken advantage of television in his career, believe it or not, and was also known as a very effective and fierce debater. So the Television Networks decided television was now kind of mainstream. Everyone had one and they decided to sponsor a series of debates. I think nixon was very confident and more than willing, even though he was the frontrunner, to engage in these debates because he knew so much more and was such a good debater. He could totally put kennedy in his place. The consensus was these debates helped cost nixon the election, which was a very close election. First of all, it elevated kennedy immediately because now theyre on an even level. The senator and Vice President , also his appearance was much better, much more handsome, better photogenic. There have been studies at the time, people who listened to the debates, especially the first four debates, they were really boring back then. Had really long answers. They were like two hours long. Theyre more interesting now, i believe. But those who listened to the first debate on radio thought nixon won. Those who watched it on tv, felt kennedy won. So the appearances were really important. So after that, there were no more president ial debates for a while. Part of it was something called the fairness doctrine that says if a station licensed by the federal Communications Commission gives a candidate time on the air, they have to give their opponent equal time. And so in 1964, Lyndon Johnson was not anxious to debating. He had a huge lead. He didnt really want to debate Barry Goldwater and they could rely on this fairness doctrine to say theres no way to do it. Theres ten people running for president. You have all of the Minor Party Candidates and so forth, and its just not practical. So he was able to dodge it successfully. In 1968 when nixon was running again from his experience in 1960, he was not too anxious to debate now. He kind of learned his lesson. In 68 and 72, nixon was on the top of the ticket for the republicans. And so this kind of stopped president ial debates. It looked like maybe 1960 was a oneoff, that it was never going to happen again. But 1976 gerry ford, gerald ford was the president , who took over for nixon when he resigned, he was trailing his opponent by as much as 30 points that summer. And found away around the fairness doctrine, which is if a third party i think any 76 it was the league of women voters, later became the commission on president ial debate, but if the third party held an event and the networks decided to cover it, it wasnt networks giving the candidates a form, they were just covering him, you see how lawyers work, they find a way around it we can do these debates the way we want, major party candidates, without having 20 people on the stage. So being behind, ward was like more than willing toic that the chance and to debate. And so since 1976 weve had president ial and Vice President ial debates every election season. Usually three president ial and one Vice President and one president ial debate. It used to be questions why a panel and panel of reporters, four reporters asking questions. More recently theyve gone to a single moderator asking questions. And encouraging a lot more interaction between the candidates. Up through the i would say at least 1980s, maybe even 1990s, answers from candidates were pretty much well prepared and pretty much stock answers and not a lot of interaction. But there have been some times when there was quite a bit of interaction between the candidates. Now, most of the time, by the time of the debates, most voters had made up their minds. I dont know, whats the polling now on trump versus biden . How many undecided are there . Anyone know . Somebody will hurry and look it up. I would guess 5 or 6 say theyre undecided. Now, it may be more than that because there may be people who say one way or another but theyre a little squishy, they can sort of go either way. 11 . Really, wow, surprised. But anyway, youve got 89 and made it to nine. Youve got some voters up for grabs. Television tends to magnify the performance and the personality of the candidates. One observer gave this advice. He said, he liked be liked, be liked. The emotion content of the debate will remain in the viewers memories for longer than the ideas being expressed. So how the candidates come across will make much more of an impression than the words they say typically. There are always exceptions. Tv coverage magnifies mistakes or triumphs. When a mistake is made, what happens on the news . 12 one and done . Its replayed constantly, so now 24hour news is constantly replayed. The comments of the commentators, who did well, who won, who lost, who had a big night, bad night, whatever, they actually can change public opinion. So Polling Research shows after mistakes have been replayed, the Public Perception of the debates as to who won or lost can actually change. Heres a few examples. After the first 1984 Reagan Mondale debate, a slight majority of viewers thought reagan had won about 3 , who won. And an hour after negative reviews, the lead switched to mondale by one point. Two days later polls showed voters thought mondale won the debate by a margin of 49 . So went from reagan winning to pretty even to within a couple of days mondale winning hugely. And the challenge for reagan in that first debate, who at that time was the oldest candidate. Year now breaking records this year, he seemed a little confused and muddled and maybe hes getting too old for the job. He was the incumbent president running for reelection but his age kind of became an issue. Another famous gaff was in 1976 in one of these first redo of debates in 1976 between ford and carter. Now, this was long before the fall of the iron curtain, if you remember that phrase. Its when the soviet union had puppet stakes in Eastern Europe and soviet union controlled Eastern Europe. And ford misspoke. He meant to say the people of Eastern Europe do not feel like they are dominated. They dont accept soviet domination in their hearts but clearly they were dominated. But anyway, he misspoke and he declared Eastern Europe was not under soviet domination. At that point ford had pulled up from 30 points behind to being even or maybe slightly ahead in the race. He stubbornly refused to correct this mistake for several days. And so right after the debate, polls showed ford won the debate by about 1 . After news reports of the debate carried on for several days, 62 said carter had won the debate. So it was this mistake in magnifying. He didnt help himself and would have gone out and said if thats what i said but meant this, he probably would have eliminated a lot of that damage to himself. Okay, so i will show a couple of clips. This first one is kind of a little recap on president ial debates that cnn did before 2012. Okay. Just make sure that doesnt feed back. September 26, 1960, the first televised president ial debate, signaling a new era where appearances matter more than ever and gaffs, however small, are magnified. John kennedy, a young senator from massachusetts, facing off against Vice PresidentRichard Nixon, known to be a fierce debater. But on screen kennedy looks cool and calm, while nixon looks uncomfortable, sweating profusely under the hot studio lights. I think i better shave. Nixon clamors under television in all four debates and kennedy goes on to win the election. In 1976 gerald ford makes this line during the debate there was no soviet domination of Eastern Union and there never will be under a ford administration. The remark became a theme of carters campaign. In 1980 Ronald Reagan was repeatedly attacked by president carter for his stance on Public Health care. Governor reagan began your career stam speedipeding agains medicare. But reagan wins by staying cool. There you go. Four years ago president reagan again uses humor to handle the attacks on stage with his debates with walter mondale. I want to let you know also im not going to make age an issue for this campaign. Im going to exploit for political purposes my opponents youth and inexperience. In the next election democratic candidate Michael Dukakis was asked this controversial question during the debate with Vice President ial candidate george bush. Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable Death Penalty for the killer . No, i dont, bernard, and i think you know i opposed the Death Penalty during all of my life. The public sees his answer as cold and dispassionate and that very night the pool numbers drop. During the 1988 president ial debate, dan quayles comparison of joan f. Kennedy elicited this response from his opponent senator, youre no jack kennedy. Body language pays a lot too. When youre looked at and voters see it disrespectful. It had issues between al gore and george w. Bush as well. Gore sighs over and over again and bush, the underdog, surprised by winning the debate and election. Governor romney and senator obama are seasoned leaders and both prone to major gaffs but if there is one thing that history taught us, when it comes to president ial debates, expect the unexpected. All right. Well, there are a few more. They are not advancing now. There we go. I thought we ought to show a little bit from 2016, right, just to remind us how we got to where we are in this election today. So this is just a little clip. One of their debates. Let it go maybe five minutes. I want to talk about your position on this issue because the speech you gave in which you paid a Brazilian Bank 225,000, we learned from wikileaks you said this, and i quote, my brain is a hemispheric Common Market with open trade and open borders. So i thats the question, please, quiet, everybody, is that the open boarder . If you went on to read the rest of the sentence, i was talking about energy. We trade more energy with our neighbors than we trade with the recht of the world combined. And i do want us to have an electronic grid, an Energy System that crosses borders. I think that will be a great pen fit to us. But you are very clearly quoting from wikileaks. And whats really important about wikileaks is that the russian government has engaged in espionage against americans. They have hacked american websites, american accounts of private people, of institutions, and then they have given that information to wikileaks for the purpose of putting it on the internet. This has come from the highest levels of the russian government, clearly from putin himself, in an effort as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed he influenced our election. So i actually think the most important question of this evening, chris, is finally will donald trump admit and condemn the russians are doing this, and make it clear that he will not have the help of putin in this election, that he rejects russian espionage against americans, which he actually encouraged in the past. Those are the questions we need answered. We never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before. That was a great pivot off the fact she wants open borders, okay. How did we get to putin . Hold on, folks. This is going to end up getting out of control. Lets try to keep it quiet, so for the candidates and for the american people. Just to finish on the borders, she wants open borders. People are going to pour into our country. People are going to come in from syria. She wants 550 more people than barack obama, and he had thousands and thousands of people there, no idea where they come from. Youll see, were going to stop radical islamic terrorism in this country. She wont even mention the words, and neither will president obama. So i just want to tell you, she wants open borders. Now we can talk about putin. I dont know puten. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If russia and the United States got along well and went after isis, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president. And ill tell you what, were in very serious trouble because we have a country with tremendous numbers of Nuclear Warheads, 1,800 by the way. They expanded and we didnt. 1,800 Nuclear Warheads and shes playing chicken. Look from everything i see has no respect for this person. This person. Thats because he would rather have a puppet as United States. No puppet. And its pretty clear youre the puppet. You wont admit that the russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of america, that you encourage espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the putin line, sign up for his wish list, wake up nato, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race. So i think that this is such an unprecedented situation. Weve never had a Foreign Government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing. I think its time that you take a stance russia, china, or anybody else. She has no idea. I am quoting 17 you have no idea. Do you doubt 17 military our county has no idea. I doubt it. I would rather believe Vladimir Putin than the military and civilian intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect us. I find that absolutely she doesnt like putin because putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way. Excuse me. Mr. Trump hes outsmarted her every step of the way. I do get to ask questions and i would like to ask you this direct question. The Top National Security officials of this country do believe that russia has been behind these hacks. Even if you dont know for sure whether they are, do you condemn any interference by russia in the American Election . By russia or anybody else. You condemn their interference . Of course i condemn. I dont know putin. I have no idea. Im not asking that. I think we have a good flavor on it there. Anyway, the 2016 debates, very skirted. I dont think there was any breakout moment that really changed the race one way or the other. Its interesting to watch this, i think, four years later, all the more information thats come out about that election. But anyway, anyone want to make a comment on this . I promised isaac, hopefully youre online, isaac, that i would show you clips. Hopefully youre happy i did, and the rest of you, too. Lets see if i can make this move again. It seems like the video can you take care of that one, seth . All right. So at these debates, the president ial and Vice President ial debates, one of the traditions is that they have a spin room, and this is where you see how crowded it is. This is during one of the primary debates. You see Amy Klobuchar there, where each campaign will have usually surrogates lined up to talk to the media and to put their spin, their take on what just happened. Is there any way to move that box, seth . Do i need to do something . So in a way this has become, i think, sort of a joke. Because its sort of inevitable, whatever bad things happens, the campaign will try to put the best face on it, versus if its a good debate, of course theyll tout that. It reminds me of when klobuchar [ inaudible ] i didnt remember that. Did something similar in one of the other debates. How come im not advancing now . Thats weird. Im going to just do this. Thats weird. Lets see whats going on here. There we go. All right, so a wellprepared candidate uses the debate to