vox--2020-10-23--A second Trump term would mean severe and irreversible changes in the climate

This piece was originally published August 27 , and has been lightly updated .
During the final presidential debate Thursday night , both candidates were asked how they would combat climate change and support job growth .
President Donald Trump offered few specifics , merely saying that that , “ We have the Trillion Trees program .
We have so many different programs .
I do love the environment.
” But let ’ s be clear : If Trump is reelected president , the likely result will be irreversible changes to the climate that will degrade the quality of life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with millions of lives harmed or foreshortened .
That ’ s in addition to the hundreds of thousands of lives at present that will be hurt or prematurely end .
This sounds like exaggeration , some of the “ alarmism ” green types are always accused of .
But it is not particularly controversial among those who have followed Trump ’ s record on energy and climate change .
“ As bad as it seems right now , ” says Josh Freed of Third Way , a center-left think tank , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ II would be much , much worse.
” The damage has not primarily been done , and won ’ t primarily be done , by Congress , except through inaction ( which is no small thing ) .
Under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell , the Senate has effectively abdicated its duty as a legislative body ; it now mostly exists to approve far-right judges to the federal bench .
In what follows , I ’ ll assume that if Trump wins , Republicans keep the Senate — and that the situation remains as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , unable to pass major legislation or effectively restrain Trump .
( It is possible that Trump wins and Democrats take both houses of Congress , but thinking about that breaks my brain . )
I ’ m going to do a quick review of Trump ’ s record so far on climate and energy .
By necessity , it is not comprehensive .
The amount of damage done , not only on high-profile issues but through unceasing daily efforts to weaken and degrade the federal bureaucracy , could fill volumes .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with a focus on what Trump wants to do and is more likely to get away with in a second term .
First , though , let ’ s talk about the main thing , which is that a Trump victory would make any reasonable definition of “ success ” on climate change impossible .
More Trump will ensure the continued escalation of global temperatures We know from the latest IPCC report that the climate target agreed to by nations — no more than a 2° Celsius rise in global average temperatures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threshold at all .
Going from 1.5° to 2° means many more heat waves , wildfires , crop failures , migrations , and premature deaths .
We know that every fraction of a degree beyond 2° means more still , along with the increasing risk of tipping points that make further warming unstoppable .
Hitting the 1.5° target would require the world to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050 .
Doing so would require industrial mobilization beginning immediately .
Even hitting 2° would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no longer any time for delay ; this is the last decade in which it is still possible .
We know that the US doing its part to reach net zero by 2050 would not be enough , in itself , to limit global temperature rise .
By the same token , we know it is wildly unlikely that the rest of the world will be able to organize to meet that goal without US leadership .
And in the face of active US undermining and opposition , it will be all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but in the end , it comes down to replacing everything powered by fossil fuels with zero-carbon alternatives , and we know beyond any doubt that the Trump administration is devoted to the interests of its allies in the fossil fuel industry .
Everything the administration has done since taking office reflects a single-minded zeal to release fossil fuel industries from regulatory restraints and to subsidize them through public policy .
US carbon emissions have been declining , down roughly 12 percent since 2004 .
That ’ s almost entirely due to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ electricity sector , a trend that analysts expect to continue .
The Trump administration disingenuously takes credit for it .
But it won ’ t be enough , on its own , to reduce emissions fast enough to stay on track for net zero by 2050 .
Not even close .
The US needs to completely transition off electricity generated by coal and natural gas , vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel , and buildings heated by natural gas and oil — and quickly .
Everything Trump has done pushes in the opposite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , backed by a Republican Senate , will mean a heavy drag on global efforts to control carbon .
Progress on decarbonization will slow in the US , and the example America sets will slow other nations ’ progress as well , making the aforementioned 10-year mobilization all but impossible .
That is a difference that will reverberate for centuries .
Now let ’ s look at his record .
“ When I think about the horrors of a Trump term two , I think about lock-in of domestic policies , ” says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ buttressed — and in places even made permanent — by his continuing to stack the courts.
” In his first term , Trump has blocked , weakened , or rolled back 100 environmental , public health , and worker safety regulations .
Among them are virtually all the steps Obama took to address climate change , from the Clean Power Plan for the electricity sector to tighter fuel economy standards for transportation , emissions standards on methane for oil and gas operations , efforts to integrate a “ social cost of carbon ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuel leasing on public land , and energy efficiency standards on light bulbs .
( Trump also wants to go after toilets and showerheads . )
Every one of those decisions would have the effect of increasing greenhouse gas emissions .
Environmentalists have sued over all of them , and thus far , Trump has lost more cases than he has won .
Many of the rule changes pushed through by his agencies are being rejected by courts for being rushed and shoddy .
Given another term , Trump ’ s agencies will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arguments and resubmit those rules ; almost any rule can be justified eventually .
Meanwhile , the federal bench will be packed with more sympathetic Trump appointees ready to rubber-stamp those rules .
And if federal judges object , the administration can appeal the cases to the Supreme Court , where Trump will almost certainly have had the opportunity to replace a justice or two .
With a solid 6-3 or 7-2 majority on the Court , virtually anything the administration wants will end up being approved .
For example , Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama ’ s 2016 rules limiting methane emissions from oil and gas operations on public land ; the court recently rejected the attempt , calling it “ defectively promulgated ” and “ wholly inadequate.
” Given time and a friendlier court , the rule would be doomed .
( Here ’ s a comprehensive tracker of all the rule changes so far , and their status . )
The administration is also going after other methane rules on oil and gas operations , and in the process , trying to change the EPA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regulations more difficult .
That brings us to a key point .
The Trump administration is stacking the deck to advantage fossil fuels Aside from all the rules the administration has eviscerated , is eviscerating , and plans to eviscerate , it is also pushing several changes to agency procedures that will make it more difficult to regulate in the future .
Under administrator Andrew Wheeler , the EPA has proposed to alter the way it does cost-benefit analysis to exclude consideration of a rule ’ s “ co-benefits ” — reductions in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect of reducing targeted pollutants .
( A coalition of environmental groups has opposed the change , which violates EPA precedent , statutory intent , and common sense . )
If the change goes into effect — as it surely will given another term and friendlier courts — all future air quality rules will be weakened .
The EPA has also promulgated a “ secret science rule ” that would exclude from consideration a wide swath of studies demonstrating the danger of air pollution ( including its danger in helping spread Covid-19 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , justifying public health regulations would be more difficult going forward .
The EPA ’ s own independent board of science advisers said the change would “ reduce scientific integrity ” at the agency .
Speaking of independent science advisers , starting under Pruitt , the EPA began pushing out science advisers who had received grants from the agency ( which includes most of them ) and replacing them with fossil fuel cronies .
Amusingly , even a science board packed with Trump appointees has said that three of the agency ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face of established science .
Still , given another term to finish the job , Wheeler could effectively eliminate independent scientific review at the agency .
The administration has also gutted the National Environmental Protection Act ( NEPA ) , which requires the federal government to rigorously assess the effects of its actions on the environment and local communities , and is one of the principal avenues through which communities of color and other vulnerable communities communicate their interests to the federal government .
In July , the White House Council on Environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dramatically limit the range of federal agency actions to which NEPA applies , limit consideration of cumulative and indirect impacts ( like climate change and environmental justice ) , and curtail public involvement in the decision-making process and judicial review .
Given another term to see the change through , the White House could shape every major federal agency decision going forward .
The administration is also trying to revoke California ’ s waiver under the Clean Air Act , which allows the state to set its own ( typically more ambitious ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it would sabotage not only California ’ s standards but those of the 13 states ( and Washington , DC ) that have adopted them .
And it won ’ t be the only way a vindictive Trump could go after his perceived enemies .
“ Blue states will be starved of federal funding , which means massive cuts that inevitably lead to a degradation in environmental enforcement and investment in cleaner energy , ” says Freed , “ but also likely big reductions in mass transit funding and aid to cities that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more emissions.
” Over at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ( FERC ) , Trump appointees have pushed through a Minimum Offer Price Rule ( MOPR ) .
It ’ s quite technical ( I explain it here ) , but the net result is that state policies meant to support clean energy will be cancelled out in regional energy wholesale markets .
It would cost consumers billions of dollars and prop up uneconomic coal power plants .
The MOPR is also under litigation from multiple groups .
Again , given four more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will probably stick .
And FERC ’ s Republican commissioners have said they want to expand its use .
FERC also recently pushed through reforms to PURPA ( the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act ) that would disadvantage small-scale clean energy projects .
And it has long pushed an argument for ending net-metering programs ( which incentivize rooftop solar ) nationwide ; that and other steps against distributed energy resources will likely feature in a second term .
At least in this term , the administration chose not to go directly after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which classifies greenhouse gases as pollutants subject to the Clean Air Act .
Rumors abound that the administration will go after it in a second term , given a friendlier Supreme Court .
That would take one of the only major existing regulatory tools against greenhouse gases in the US off the table .
Speaking of the Supreme Court , an emboldened conservative majority is likely to go after the Chevron doctrine , which gives federal agencies wide latitude in interpreting congressional directives .
“ I don ’ t think it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be overturned , ” says Lori Lodes , executive director of Climate Power 2020 , “ just a matter of what case gets them to do it.
” Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch have recently been making noise about radically limiting the ability of federal agencies to regulate at all , under a hyper-conservative interpretation of the “ nondelegation doctrine.
” “ It ’ s impossible to exaggerate the importance of this issue , ” my colleague Ian Millhiser writes .
“ Countless federal laws , from the Clean Air @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lay out a broad federal policy and delegate to an agency the power to implement the details of that policy .
Under Kavanaugh ’ s approach , many of these laws are unconstitutional , as are numerous existing regulations governing polluters , health providers , and employers.
” There may already be five conservative votes on the court for this radical lurch backward .
If Trump gets another two SCOTUS appointments , it is all but a certainty .
Land , water , and wildlife are also getting the shaft I ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energy , but Trump ’ s damage is omnidirectional .
Earlier this year , the administration gutted Obama ’ s Waters of the US ( WOTUS ) rule , removing pollution protections from a wide swathe of wetlands and streams .
Over at the Department of Interior , Trump ’ s first appointee , Ryan Zinke , went on an industry-friendly bender , weakening land and species protections , ramping up oil and gas leasing on public land , and purging senior staff and 4,000 jobs .
He eventually resigned amid a hail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York Times had to put together a guide — and some are ongoing .
Zinke was replaced by oil lobbyist David Bernhardt , who managed to get as far as rolling back a bunch of wildlife protections before also coming under investigation for conflicts of interest .
He has held on so far , though , and has a long wish list ( there ’ s a tracker here ) , with almost every proposed change devoted in one way or another to weakening wildlife protections and expanding oil and gas drilling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ term will almost certainly see a renewed push for more offshore oil and gas drilling , expanding on the recent opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge .
A plan to open virtually all the nation ’ s coastal waters to drilling was put “ on hold ” after pushback from courts and coastal communities last year , but it will return , as will further delays for offshore wind projects .
Bernhardt also moved the headquarters of DOI ’ s Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction , Colorado ( a fossil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff 30 days to decide whether to follow .
Predictably , and by intent , the move resulted in an enormous brain drain , as about half of the experienced staff left .
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue did something similar , moving the USDA ’ s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture — research agencies investigating , among other things , lower-carbon regenerative agriculture — to Kansas City .
Critics saw the move as an obvious bid to make filling positions and coordinating with other federal researchers more difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , carbon-intensive industrial agriculture .
There is no telling how many more agencies Trump could gut given four more years .
Many staff , at EPA and other agencies , have been holding on to hopes of a new president .
If Trump is reelected , there ’ s likely to be a huge exodus of knowledge and talent from the federal government .
Trump ’ s foreign policy is entirely devoted to fossil fuels Promoting fossil fuels has been one of the few consistent themes of Trump ’ s foreign policy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ flurry of misinformation , that the US would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement .
( That decision will go into effect on November 5 . )
Though some State Department staffers are still attending international climate meetings and participating in lower-level dialogues , top US leadership has spurned the entire process and shows no sign of reengaging .
Instead , Trump is trying to manage oil prices by making deals with cartels , bullying other countries to buy US oil , seeking to export liquid natural gas to India , and jostling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the melting Arctic .
In a second term , Trump is unlikely to rejoin Paris ; he ’ s much more likely to remove the US from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entirely .
It is an open question whether the Paris framework could survive that at all .
Four more years of Trump would leave democracy , and hope for a safe climate , in tatters The above constitutes a highly selective list , a small portion of the damage Trump has done to climate and energy progress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are plenty of other examples to cite , including his beloved trade wars , which he will undoubtedly expand in a second term .
A recent analysis found that his solar tariffs to date have cost 62,000 jobs in the solar industry and blocked 10.5 gigawatts of new solar from coming online .
( If you can stomach a more comprehensive list , check out this piece from the Global Current . )
The main bulwark against Trump ’ s changes so far has been the courts , but that bulwark will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more years to bolster its legal cases and appoint sympathetic judges .
Under Trump and McConnell , the Senate has already appointed 200 federal judges , almost a quarter of the total number .
If McConnell keeps the Senate , the next four years could see half of federal judges being Trump appointees and a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court .
That would likely mean a rapid return to pre-New Deal jurisprudence , radically curtailing the reach of foundational environmental laws .
Trump — or , more precisely , the Federalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And that ’ s not even accounting for the possibility that Trump could simply ignore court judgments he doesn ’ t like , which seems to be the logical next step for an administration that has faced so little accountability for its law-breaking .
In a second term , especially if Republicans keep the Senate , there would be few tools left to use against Trump ’ s march into the fossil fuel past .
Big businesses and financial institutions might exert some influence .
The EU might impose a border adjustment tax @ @ @ @ @ @ @ direct activism .
Yet activism is only going to get more difficult , as it tends to under authoritarian states .
“ It ’ s impossible to separate the massive , vicious assault on democracy and civil rights Trump would prosecute in a second term from the actions he would take on climate and energy , ” says Freed .
Many states have been passing laws ramping up the scope and severity of penalties for direct activism , increasingly being redefined as “ domestic terrorism.
” Trump ’ s use of federal forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a preview of a much more extensive crackdown on civil disobedience in a second term .
Some environmental groups are already having serious discussions about how to prepare their members .
There ’ s no sugarcoating it : If Trump wins the election and Republicans keep the Senate , democracy in America might not survive .
At the very least , any hope of public policy to rapidly decarbonize the US is off the table .
The US will push actively in the opposite direction .
I often think about this passage from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( signed by 22 noted climate scientists ) : Trump ’ s damage to the climate is not like his damage to the immigration system or the health care system .
It can ’ t be undone .
It can ’ t be repaired .
Changes to the climate are , for all intents and purposes , irreversible .
They will be experienced by every generation to come .
It is a cliché by now to call this the most important election of our lifetimes , but even that dramatic phrasing doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perspective of the human species as a whole , the arc of its life on this planet , it may be the most important election ever .
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This piece was originally published August 27, and has been lightly updated.
During the final presidential debate, both candidates were asked how they would combat climate change and support job growth. President Donald Trump offered few specifics, merely saying that that, “We have the Trillion Trees program. We have so many different programs. I do love the environment.”
But let’s be clear: If Trump is reelected president, the likely result will be irreversible changes to the climate that will degrade the quality of life of every subsequent generation of human beings, with millions of lives harmed or foreshortened. That’s in addition to the hundreds of thousands of lives at present that will be hurt or prematurely end.
This sounds like exaggeration, some of the “alarmism” green types are always accused of. But it is not particularly controversial among those who have followed Trump’s record on energy and climate change.
“As bad as it seems right now,” says Josh Freed of Third Way, a center-left think tank, “the climate and energy scenario in Trump II would be much, much worse.”
The damage has not primarily been done, and won’t primarily be done, by Congress, except through inaction (which is no small thing). Under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate has effectively abdicated its duty as a legislative body; it now mostly exists to approve far-right judges to the federal bench.
In what follows, I’ll assume that if Trump wins, Republicans keep the Senate — and that the situation remains as is, with Congress divided and gridlocked, unable to pass major legislation or effectively restrain Trump. (It is possible that Trump wins and Democrats take both houses of Congress, but thinking about that breaks my brain.)
I’m going to do a quick review of Trump’s record so far on climate and energy. By necessity, it is not comprehensive. The amount of damage done, not only on high-profile issues but through unceasing daily efforts to weaken and degrade the federal bureaucracy, could fill volumes. I’ll just look at the highlights, with a focus on what Trump wants to do and is more likely to get away with in a second term.
First, though, let’s talk about the main thing, which is that a Trump victory would make any reasonable definition of “success” on climate change impossible.
(Note: I asked lots of people for their thoughts on a second Trump term, and for the most part, they did not want to speak on record or in specifics, for fear of giving Trump ideas. The sense of dread is palpable.)
More Trump will ensure the continued escalation of global temperatures
We know from the latest IPCC report that the climate target agreed to by nations — no more than a 2° Celsius rise in global average temperatures — is not a “safe” threshold at all. Going from 1.5° to 2° means many more heat waves, wildfires, crop failures, migrations, and premature deaths. We know that every fraction of a degree beyond 2° means more still, along with the increasing risk of tipping points that make further warming unstoppable.
Hitting the 1.5° target would require the world to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. Doing so would require industrial mobilization beginning immediately. Even hitting 2° would be desperately difficult at this point. There is no longer any time for delay; this is the last decade in which it is still possible.
We know that the US doing its part to reach net zero by 2050 would not be enough, in itself, to limit global temperature rise. By the same token, we know it is wildly unlikely that the rest of the world will be able to organize to meet that goal without US leadership. And in the face of active US undermining and opposition, it will be all but impossible.
Climate policy is complicated, but in the end, it comes down to replacing everything powered by fossil fuels with zero-carbon alternatives, and we know beyond any doubt that the Trump administration is devoted to the interests of its allies in the fossil fuel industry. Everything the administration has done since taking office reflects a single-minded zeal to release fossil fuel industries from regulatory restraints and to subsidize them through public policy.
US carbon emissions have been declining, down roughly 12 percent since 2004. That’s almost entirely due to the market-driven decline of coal in the electricity sector, a trend that analysts expect to continue. The Trump administration disingenuously takes credit for it. But it won’t be enough, on its own, to reduce emissions fast enough to stay on track for net zero by 2050. Not even close.
The US needs to completely transition off electricity generated by coal and natural gas, vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel, and buildings heated by natural gas and oil — and quickly.
Everything Trump has done pushes in the opposite direction. Four more years of Trump, backed by a Republican Senate, will mean a heavy drag on global efforts to control carbon. Progress on decarbonization will slow in the US, and the example America sets will slow other nations’ progress as well, making the aforementioned 10-year mobilization all but impossible. That is a difference that will reverberate for centuries.
Now let’s look at his record.
The US "has committed more to fossil fuel companies through federal and state policies than any other Group of 20 member has directed to all energy types — fossil and renewable combined — since the start of the pandemic." https://t.co/PvzqfM87QX — David Roberts (@drvox) August 18, 2020
Trump has steadily rolled back regulations on fossil fuel companies
“When I think about the horrors of a Trump term two, I think about lock-in of domestic policies,” says Sam Ricketts of Evergreen Action, “buttressed — and in places even made permanent — by his continuing to stack the courts.”
In his first term, Trump has blocked, weakened, or rolled back 100 environmental, public health, and worker safety regulations. Among them are virtually all the steps Obama took to address climate change, from the Clean Power Plan for the electricity sector to tighter fuel economy standards for transportation, emissions standards on methane for oil and gas operations, efforts to integrate a “social cost of carbon” for agency decision-making, reform of fossil fuel leasing on public land, and energy efficiency standards on light bulbs. (Trump also wants to go after toilets and showerheads.)
Every one of those decisions would have the effect of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists have sued over all of them, and thus far, Trump has lost more cases than he has won. Many of the rule changes pushed through by his agencies are being rejected by courts for being rushed and shoddy.
Given another term, Trump’s agencies will have more time to fill out those arguments and resubmit those rules; almost any rule can be justified eventually. Meanwhile, the federal bench will be packed with more sympathetic Trump appointees ready to rubber-stamp those rules.
And if federal judges object, the administration can appeal the cases to the Supreme Court, where Trump will almost certainly have had the opportunity to replace a justice or two. With a solid 6-3 or 7-2 majority on the Court, virtually anything the administration wants will end up being approved.
For example, Trump’s Department of Interior tried to rescind Obama’s 2016 rules limiting methane emissions from oil and gas operations on public land; the court recently rejected the attempt, calling it “defectively promulgated” and “wholly inadequate.” Given time and a friendlier court, the rule would be doomed. (Here’s a comprehensive tracker of all the rule changes so far, and their status.)
The administration is also going after other methane rules on oil and gas operations, and in the process, trying to change the EPA’s rulemaking process to make future regulations more difficult. That brings us to a key point.
The Trump administration is stacking the deck to advantage fossil fuels
Aside from all the rules the administration has eviscerated, is eviscerating, and plans to eviscerate, it is also pushing several changes to agency procedures that will make it more difficult to regulate in the future.
Under administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA has proposed to alter the way it does cost-benefit analysis to exclude consideration of a rule’s “co-benefits” — reductions in other pollutants that come as a side effect of reducing targeted pollutants. (A coalition of environmental groups has opposed the change, which violates EPA precedent, statutory intent, and common sense.) If the change goes into effect — as it surely will given another term and friendlier courts — all future air quality rules will be weakened.
The EPA has also promulgated a “secret science rule” that would exclude from consideration a wide swath of studies demonstrating the danger of air pollution (including its danger in helping spread Covid-19). Without those studies to rely on, justifying public health regulations would be more difficult going forward. The EPA’s own independent board of science advisers said the change would “reduce scientific integrity” at the agency.
Speaking of independent science advisers, starting under Pruitt, the EPA began pushing out science advisers who had received grants from the agency (which includes most of them) and replacing them with fossil fuel cronies. Amusingly, even a science board packed with Trump appointees has said that three of the agency’s major recent rule changes flew in the face of established science. Still, given another term to finish the job, Wheeler could effectively eliminate independent scientific review at the agency.
The administration has also gutted the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which requires the federal government to rigorously assess the effects of its actions on the environment and local communities, and is one of the principal avenues through which communities of color and other vulnerable communities communicate their interests to the federal government.
In July, the White House Council on Environmental Quality released a proposed rule that would dramatically limit the range of federal agency actions to which NEPA applies, limit consideration of cumulative and indirect impacts (like climate change and environmental justice), and curtail public involvement in the decision-making process and judicial review. Given another term to see the change through, the White House could shape every major federal agency decision going forward.
The administration is also trying to revoke California’s waiver under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to set its own (typically more ambitious) emissions standards. If it succeeds, it would sabotage not only California’s standards but those of the 13 states (and Washington, DC) that have adopted them.
And it won’t be the only way a vindictive Trump could go after his perceived enemies. “Blue states will be starved of federal funding, which means massive cuts that inevitably lead to a degradation in environmental enforcement and investment in cleaner energy,” says Freed, “but also likely big reductions in mass transit funding and aid to cities that will push more people into cars and more emissions.”
Over at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Trump appointees have pushed through a Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR). It’s quite technical (I explain it here), but the net result is that state policies meant to support clean energy will be cancelled out in regional energy wholesale markets. It would cost consumers billions of dollars and prop up uneconomic coal power plants.
The MOPR is also under litigation from multiple groups. Again, given four more years and a compliant Supreme Court, it will probably stick. And FERC’s Republican commissioners have said they want to expand its use.
FERC also recently pushed through reforms to PURPA (the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act) that would disadvantage small-scale clean energy projects. And it has long pushed an argument for ending net-metering programs (which incentivize rooftop solar) nationwide; that and other steps against distributed energy resources will likely feature in a second term.
At least in this term, the administration chose not to go directly after the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which classifies greenhouse gases as pollutants subject to the Clean Air Act. Rumors abound that the administration will go after it in a second term, given a friendlier Supreme Court. That would take one of the only major existing regulatory tools against greenhouse gases in the US off the table.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, an emboldened conservative majority is likely to go after the Chevron doctrine, which gives federal agencies wide latitude in interpreting congressional directives. “I don’t think it’s a matter of if Chevron would be overturned,” says Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power 2020, “just a matter of what case gets them to do it.”
Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch have recently been making noise about radically limiting the ability of federal agencies to regulate at all, under a hyper-conservative interpretation of the “nondelegation doctrine.”
“It’s impossible to exaggerate the importance of this issue,” my colleague Ian Millhiser writes. “Countless federal laws, from the Clean Air Act to the Affordable Care Act, lay out a broad federal policy and delegate to an agency the power to implement the details of that policy. Under Kavanaugh’s approach, many of these laws are unconstitutional, as are numerous existing regulations governing polluters, health providers, and employers.”
There may already be five conservative votes on the court for this radical lurch backward. If Trump gets another two SCOTUS appointments, it is all but a certainty.
Land, water, and wildlife are also getting the shaft
I’ve mostly been focusing on the EPA and energy, but Trump’s damage is omnidirectional.
Earlier this year, the administration gutted Obama’s Waters of the US (WOTUS) rule, removing pollution protections from a wide swathe of wetlands and streams.
Over at the Department of Interior, Trump’s first appointee, Ryan Zinke, went on an industry-friendly bender, weakening land and species protections, ramping up oil and gas leasing on public land, and purging senior staff and 4,000 jobs. He eventually resigned amid a hail of ethics investigations — so many the New York Times had to put together a guide — and some are ongoing.
Zinke was replaced by oil lobbyist David Bernhardt, who managed to get as far as rolling back a bunch of wildlife protections before also coming under investigation for conflicts of interest. He has held on so far, though, and has a long wish list (there’s a tracker here), with almost every proposed change devoted in one way or another to weakening wildlife protections and expanding oil and gas drilling on public land.
A second Trump term will almost certainly see a renewed push for more offshore oil and gas drilling, expanding on the recent opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A plan to open virtually all the nation’s coastal waters to drilling was put “on hold” after pushback from courts and coastal communities last year, but it will return, as will further delays for offshore wind projects.
Bernhardt also moved the headquarters of DOI’s Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado (a fossil fuel hub), and gave DC staff 30 days to decide whether to follow. Predictably, and by intent, the move resulted in an enormous brain drain, as about half of the experienced staff left.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue did something similar, moving the USDA’s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture — research agencies investigating, among other things, lower-carbon regenerative agriculture — to Kansas City. Critics saw the move as an obvious bid to make filling positions and coordinating with other federal researchers more difficult, thus strengthening the influence of big, carbon-intensive industrial agriculture.
There is no telling how many more agencies Trump could gut given four more years. Many staff, at EPA and other agencies, have been holding on to hopes of a new president. If Trump is reelected, there’s likely to be a huge exodus of knowledge and talent from the federal government.
Trump’s foreign policy is entirely devoted to fossil fuels
Promoting fossil fuels has been one of the few consistent themes of Trump’s foreign policy.
He announced early on, amid a flurry of misinformation, that the US would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. (That decision will go into effect on November 5, regardless of the election outcome.) Though some State Department staffers are still attending international climate meetings and participating in lower-level dialogues, top US leadership has spurned the entire process and shows no sign of reengaging.
Instead, Trump is trying to manage oil prices by making deals with cartels, bullying other countries to buy US oil, seeking to export liquid natural gas to India, and jostling with Russia and China over trade routes through the melting Arctic.
In a second term, Trump is unlikely to rejoin Paris; he’s much more likely to remove the US from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entirely. It is an open question whether the Paris framework could survive that at all.
Four more years of Trump would leave democracy, and hope for a safe climate, in tatters
The above constitutes a highly selective list, a small portion of the damage Trump has done to climate and energy progress across federal agencies and international agreements. There are plenty of other examples to cite, including his beloved trade wars, which he will undoubtedly expand in a second term. A recent analysis found that his solar tariffs to date have cost 62,000 jobs in the solar industry and blocked 10.5 gigawatts of new solar from coming online. (If you can stomach a more comprehensive list, check out this piece from the Global Current.)
The main bulwark against Trump’s changes so far has been the courts, but that bulwark will not hold against an administration with four more years to bolster its legal cases and appoint sympathetic judges.
Under Trump and McConnell, the Senate has already appointed 200 federal judges, almost a quarter of the total number. If McConnell keeps the Senate, the next four years could see half of federal judges being Trump appointees and a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. That would likely mean a rapid return to pre-New Deal jurisprudence, radically curtailing the reach of foundational environmental laws. Trump — or, more precisely, the Federalist Society — would be utterly unrestrained.
And that’s not even accounting for the possibility that Trump could simply ignore court judgments he doesn’t like, which seems to be the logical next step for an administration that has faced so little accountability for its law-breaking.
In a second term, especially if Republicans keep the Senate, there would be few tools left to use against Trump’s march into the fossil fuel past. Big businesses and financial institutions might exert some influence. The EU might impose a border adjustment tax. But most hope would fall on direct activism.
Yet activism is only going to get more difficult, as it tends to under authoritarian states. “It’s impossible to separate the massive, vicious assault on democracy and civil rights Trump would prosecute in a second term from the actions he would take on climate and energy,” says Freed. Many states have been passing laws ramping up the scope and severity of penalties for direct activism, increasingly being redefined as “domestic terrorism.” Trump’s use of federal forces to brutalize protesters in Portland is likely a preview of a much more extensive crackdown on civil disobedience in a second term. Some environmental groups are already having serious discussions about how to prepare their members.
There’s no sugarcoating it: If Trump wins the election and Republicans keep the Senate, democracy in America might not survive. At the very least, any hope of public policy to rapidly decarbonize the US is off the table. The US will push actively in the opposite direction.
I often think about this passage from a 2016 commentary in the journal Nature (signed by 22 noted climate scientists):
Policy decisions made during [coming years] are likely to result in changes to Earth’s climate system measured in millennia rather than human lifespans, with associated socioeconomic and ecological impacts that will exacerbate the risks and damages to society and ecosystems that are projected for the twenty-first century and propagate into the future for many thousands of years.
Thousands of years.
Trump’s damage to the climate is not like his damage to the immigration system or the health care system. It can’t be undone. It can’t be repaired. Changes to the climate are, for all intents and purposes, irreversible. They will be experienced by every generation to come.
It is a cliché by now to call this the most important election of our lifetimes, but even that dramatic phrasing doesn’t capture the stakes. From the perspective of the human species as a whole, the arc of its life on this planet, it may be the most important election ever.
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vox--2020-10-23--The first post-debate polls say Biden won

The final presidential debate is in the books , and the first polls are in — and they suggest Donald Trump didn ’ t get the shakeup he desperately needed .
Now , as usual , I will remind you to take these polls with some grains of salt .
They are limited to people who actually watched the debate rather than the broader electorate , and they don ’ t take into account the spin wars and media narratives that will help shape voters ’ understanding of what happened .
But of course you crave the instant gratification of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it happened rather than waiting for more rigorous data , so I ’ ll deliver it to you .
The three instant polls we have so far both find that most debate watchers thought Joe Biden won .
CNN conducted its usual instant poll with SSRS , and they found that 53 percent of respondents who watched the debate thought Biden won , and 39 percent thought Trump won .
( This poll and the others discussed in this article are different from those simple web polls in which anyone can vote — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somewhat hasty , polls . )
That ’ s not quite as overwhelming a margin as Biden had in this poll after the first debate — the CNN/SSRS poll then showed 60 percent of watchers thought he won and just 28 percent thought Trump did — but he ’ ll take it .
( CNN ’ s political director , David Chalian , also pointed out that their sample this time had slightly more Republicans than Democrats , which wasn ’ t true for the earlier poll . )
A second poll of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , conducted by the progressive firm Data for Progress , found a similar result — 52 percent of respondents said they thought Biden won , and 41 percent said they thought Trump won .
Both of these results are fairly similar to Biden ’ s current lead over Trump in national polling averages — he leads by 9.9 percentage points , according to FiveThirtyEight .
Finally , a third poll , from YouGov , found the biggest margin for Biden , with 54 percent of debate-watching respondents saying he won while 35 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results suggest that Trump ’ s performance did not do anything to shift the dynamics of the race , in which he is trailing , in his favor .
As we may remember from 2016 , the final debate doesn ’ t end the campaign — there is still time for dramatic news events to shake things up , or for voters to change their minds .
But that time is ticking away .
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The final presidential debate is in the books, and the first polls are in — and they suggest Donald Trump didn’t get the shakeup he desperately needed.
Now, as usual, I will remind you to take these polls with some grains of salt. They are limited to people who actually watched the debate rather than the broader electorate, and they don’t take into account the spin wars and media narratives that will help shape voters’ understanding of what happened.
But of course you crave the instant gratification of learning who “won” shortly after it happened rather than waiting for more rigorous data, so I’ll deliver it to you. The three instant polls we have so far both find that most debate watchers thought Joe Biden won.
CNN conducted its usual instant poll with SSRS, and they found that 53 percent of respondents who watched the debate thought Biden won, and 39 percent thought Trump won. (This poll and the others discussed in this article are different from those simple web polls in which anyone can vote — they’re methodologically sound, albeit somewhat hasty, polls.)
Results of the CNN instant poll of debate watchers: 53% say Biden won, 39% say Trump won. pic.twitter.com/AK4Fc99tez — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 23, 2020
That’s not quite as overwhelming a margin as Biden had in this poll after the first debate — the CNN/SSRS poll then showed 60 percent of watchers thought he won and just 28 percent thought Trump did — but he’ll take it. (CNN’s political director, David Chalian, also pointed out that their sample this time had slightly more Republicans than Democrats, which wasn’t true for the earlier poll.)
A second poll of people who watched Thursday’s debate, conducted by the progressive firm Data for Progress, found a similar result — 52 percent of respondents said they thought Biden won, and 41 percent said they thought Trump won.
Preliminary results from the @DataProgress snap debate poll: A majority of voters who watched the debate say Biden won (52% Biden, 41% Trump, 7% undecided) and moderates in particular think Biden won by a 2:1 margin — Charlotte Swasey (@charlotteeffect) October 23, 2020
Both of these results are fairly similar to Biden’s current lead over Trump in national polling averages — he leads by 9.9 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Finally, a third poll, from YouGov, found the biggest margin for Biden, with 54 percent of debate-watching respondents saying he won while 35 percent saying Trump did.
SNAP POLL: Who voters think did a better job - or won - tonight’s #PresidentialDebate
Joe Biden – 54%
Donald Trump – 35%https://t.co/xW3GfYI3Vw #Debates2020 pic.twitter.com/2s1cFAof9O — YouGov America (@YouGovAmerica) October 23, 2020
Overall, these results suggest that Trump’s performance did not do anything to shift the dynamics of the race, in which he is trailing, in his favor. As we may remember from 2016, the final debate doesn’t end the campaign — there is still time for dramatic news events to shake things up, or for voters to change their minds. But that time is ticking away.


vox--2020-10-23--In the final debate, Trump interrupted twice as much as Biden

By Vox ’ s count , there were 96 interruptions and interjections in Thursday ’ s final presidential debate in Nashville , Tennessee .
President Donald Trump was responsible for 65 percent of the interruptions — substantive moments where he spoke over another person , stopping the conversational flow — and former Vice President Joe Biden was responsible for 67 percent of the shorter interjections , chiming in with comments like “ not true ” or “ oh , come on.
” ( More on how we counted below ) .
At one point , after debate moderator Kristen Welker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1994 crime bill , Trump repeatedly pushed the former vice president on why he didn ’ t accomplish his proposed criminal justice reforms during his eight years in the White House .
Trump : You had eight years to get it done .
Now you ’ re saying you ’ re going to get it done because you ’ re all talk and no action , Joe .
Biden : We got a lot of it done — Trump : You didn ’ t get anything done .
Trump : You got nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s 34 interruptions .
Biden interrupted Trump occasionally as well ( 17 times by our count ) , but was much more likely to toss in a sarcastic or incredulous rejoinder , as he did when Trump was discussing climate change : In the first presidential debate , as Vox ’ s Zack Beauchamp reported , Trump “ used interruption as his central strategy , attempting to fluster Biden and prevent him from making actual substantive arguments .
Instead of engaging on the merits , Trump deliberately turned the first presidential debate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t count the interruptions in the first debate , the follow-up certainly felt more civil ( and by Slate ’ s measure , Trump interrupted 128 times all by himself in the first debate ) .
This could be a win for the Commission on Presidential Debates , which introduced a mute button following the first unwieldy debate , but it ’ s equally plausible Trump ’ s relative restraint is due to polling indicating Americans didn ’ t approve of his first performance .
What is an interruption ?
Interruptions are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anderson , professor of psychology at the University of Houston , told FiveThirtyEight in 2016 after another interruption-laden debate , “ It ’ s unimaginable how many definitions of interruptions I ’ ve seen in the [ scientific ] literature .
These are definitions that have to be operationally defined and submitted to peer review , and you still get a lot.
” Vox used the following rules for counting interruptions and interjections : • An interjection is when an individual speaks over another for a few words , but does not stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • An interruption is when one individual speaks over another for more than a few words .
Whether that individual succeeds in taking over the debate , or simply makes an attempt to while the original speaker continues to speak , does not affect whether we considered it an interruption .
• Someone who was interrupted and attempts to keep talking over the interrupter is not , himself , interrupting .
• We did not count laughs , scoffs , etc .
as interruptions or interjections .
If after reading these rules you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bit of room for subjectivity , you ’ re right , and it ’ s for good reason .
Imagine a normal conversation where someone who is listening says “ yeah ” in agreement with you while you ’ re speaking .
That ’ s not something we ’ d usually consider to be an interruption , because in our normal lives we use tone and context to judge these exchanges .
As FiveThirtyEight ’ s Maggie Koerth explained four years ago , there ’ s “ something scientists call ‘ back-channeling ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mm-hmmms ’ that we all toss out while listening ... and which are generally meant to encourage the speaker to continue.
” However , during a debate it ’ s difficult for us to judge objectively which of these interjections are truly disruptive and which were not intended to be .
So we defaulted to counting them .
What ’ s clear from the breakdown of interjections versus interruptions is that Biden is much more likely to stop talking once he interjects and the other person doesn ’ t cede the floor .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ tics like “ oh god ” while Trump was speaking which , while non-disruptive , did spike his tally of interjections significantly .
It ’ s too soon to tell how Americans will view the final debate .
But the chaos of the first debate may have set the bar low enough for Trump to appear reasonable — despite “ only ” interrupting his rival and the moderator 34 times .
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By Vox’s count, there were 96 interruptions and interjections in Thursday’s final presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee.
President Donald Trump was responsible for 65 percent of the interruptions — substantive moments where he spoke over another person, stopping the conversational flow — and former Vice President Joe Biden was responsible for 67 percent of the shorter interjections, chiming in with comments like “not true” or “oh, come on.” (More on how we counted below).
At one point, after debate moderator Kristen Welker asked Biden about his vote for the 1994 crime bill, Trump repeatedly pushed the former vice president on why he didn’t accomplish his proposed criminal justice reforms during his eight years in the White House.
Trump: You had eight years to get it done. Now you’re saying you’re going to get it done because you’re all talk and no action, Joe. Welker [indicating Biden]: Your response. Biden: We got a lot of it done — Trump: You didn’t get anything done. Biden: 38,000 prisoners — Trump: You got nothing done.
That was one of Trump’s 34 interruptions. Biden interrupted Trump occasionally as well (17 times by our count), but was much more likely to toss in a sarcastic or incredulous rejoinder, as he did when Trump was discussing climate change:
Trump: Solar doesn’t have it yet. It’s not powerful enough yet to really run our big beautiful factories that we need to compete with the world. So — Biden: False. Trump: It’s all a pipe dream ...
In the first presidential debate, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp reported, Trump “used interruption as his central strategy, attempting to fluster Biden and prevent him from making actual substantive arguments. Instead of engaging on the merits, Trump deliberately turned the first presidential debate into a carnival.”
While we didn’t count the interruptions in the first debate, the follow-up certainly felt more civil (and by Slate’s measure, Trump interrupted 128 times all by himself in the first debate). This could be a win for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which introduced a mute button following the first unwieldy debate, but it’s equally plausible Trump’s relative restraint is due to polling indicating Americans didn’t approve of his first performance.
What is an interruption?
Interruptions are really hard to define.
As Kristin Anderson, professor of psychology at the University of Houston, told FiveThirtyEight in 2016 after another interruption-laden debate, “It’s unimaginable how many definitions of interruptions I’ve seen in the [scientific] literature. These are definitions that have to be operationally defined and submitted to peer review, and you still get a lot.”
Vox used the following rules for counting interruptions and interjections:
An interjection is when an individual speaks over another for a few words, but does not stop the flow of the original speaker. An interruption is when one individual speaks over another for more than a few words. Whether that individual succeeds in taking over the debate, or simply makes an attempt to while the original speaker continues to speak, does not affect whether we considered it an interruption. Someone who was interrupted and attempts to keep talking over the interrupter is not, himself, interrupting. We did not count laughs, scoffs, etc. as interruptions or interjections.
If after reading these rules you think there’s still quite a bit of room for subjectivity, you’re right, and it’s for good reason.
Imagine a normal conversation where someone who is listening says “yeah” in agreement with you while you’re speaking. That’s not something we’d usually consider to be an interruption, because in our normal lives we use tone and context to judge these exchanges. As FiveThirtyEight’s Maggie Koerth explained four years ago, there’s “something scientists call ‘back-channeling’ — the ‘yeah’ or ‘mm-hmmms’ that we all toss out while listening ... and which are generally meant to encourage the speaker to continue.”
However, during a debate it’s difficult for us to judge objectively which of these interjections are truly disruptive and which were not intended to be. So we defaulted to counting them.
What’s clear from the breakdown of interjections versus interruptions is that Biden is much more likely to stop talking once he interjects and the other person doesn’t cede the floor. He also allowed himself to use verbal tics like “oh god” while Trump was speaking which, while non-disruptive, did spike his tally of interjections significantly.
Joe Biden is a master of the incredulous “come on!” — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 23, 2020
It’s too soon to tell how Americans will view the final debate. But the chaos of the first debate may have set the bar low enough for Trump to appear reasonable — despite “only” interrupting his rival and the moderator 34 times.


vox--2020-10-22--4 winners and 5 losers from the last Biden-Trump debate

The final debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden , held on Thursday evening , was the first one of the entire campaign that actually felt like a debate .
The first debate was a chaotic disaster due to Trump ’ s constant interruptions ; the second one didn ’ t happen because Trump refused to agree to debate virtually while he had Covid-19 ( the candidates held dueling town halls instead ) .
This time around , better moderation and the handy use of a mute button allowed both candidates to express their thoughts — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy exchanges and less-than-coherent mudslinging about families and personal finance .
The format seems to have suited Biden , who seemed energized and on target — getting in a number of strong attacks on Trump ’ s record on Covid-19 , health care , and family separations .
Trump was also better than he was in the first debate , where he came across as an unfit bully , but he was outclassed on policy and unable to tell a particularly cogent story on the question of why Americans should care about Hunter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analysis follows of who won and who lost — and not just candidates .
During the primary and general election , Biden hasn ’ t particularly shined on the debate stage .
His answers tend to meander and he mixes up words in ways that take the sting out from attack lines .
But on Thursday , Biden was sharper and more on target , allowing his strong qualities — his command over policy and his ability to connect with ordinary Americans — to shine through .
During the first segment of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump said “ we ’ re learning to live with it.
” Biden responded with a possibly rehearsed but nonetheless devastating , line — “ He says that we ’ re learning to live with it ; people are learning to die with it.
” He continued needling Trump about his refusal to take responsibility for pandemic policy , provoking the president into the most embarrassing stumble from either candidate in the entire debate : “ I take full responsibility .
It ’ s not my fault that it came here .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” It ’ s a line that you can bet will be in anti-Trump attack ads in very short order .
Biden was like this for much of the debate , clever and empathetic and even a little feisty .
He got emotional about family separations ( “ violates every notion of who we are as a nation ” ) , sounded a populist note on Trump ’ s obsession with markets ( “ ‘ the stock market is booming ’ is his only measure of what ’ s happening ” ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship with the truth ( “ I don ’ t know where he comes up with these numbers ” ) .
He even got in his favorite catchphrase — “ there ’ s a reason why he ’ s bringing up all this malarkey.
” Was it an all-time great debate performance ?
No , I don ’ t think so .
But it was solid : strong when it really needed to be and certainly better than his opposition .
With a lead of nearly 10 points in the national poll averages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to call this a win for Biden .
It is perhaps telling that any praise of President Trump ’ s performance on Twitter during Thursday night ’ s debate involved terms like “ well-tempered ” and “ composed , ” an indication that the biggest hurdle Trump faced was himself .
Trump appeared to take notes during the debate .
He managed to avoid interrupting Joe Biden quite as much as in the last round .
He was coherent and , as opposed to the first debate , he did not seem entirely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lowest of bars to clear , but he cleared it .
Still , far too many of his references only made sense if you watch a lot of Fox News and/or spend a lot of time on right-leaning Twitter .
There are viewers to whom “ the Big Man ” is obviously Joe Biden and “ the laptop from hell ” is clearly a device that allegedly belonged to Joe Biden ’ s son , Hunter Biden ( who is not , as far as we know , running for the White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obscure references to the Trump campaign ’ s attacks on Hunter Biden likely flew over most viewers ’ heads .
Trump could still win reelection .
But currently , he is losing , in the polls and in the eyes of the public , as Covid-19 begins to surge ( again ) and stimulus negotiations falter ( again ) .
“ Well-tempered ” and “ composed ” aren ’ t enough to get it done — especially when the subjects Trump most wishes to discuss are ones largely disconnected from those that matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Donald Trump was challenged on national TV by a female journalist this fall — by Savannah Guthrie , at his town hall on October 15 — he and his allies responded by throwing a massive temper tantrum .
The second time , when CBS News ’ s Lesley Stahl attempted to interview him , he shut down the interview prematurely after using much of it to complain about her tough questioning .
In sports , this is known as “ working the refs.
” If you yell at the refs , or in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe they ’ ll back down and refuse to ask tough questions , or fact-check , or ask meaningful follow-ups .
They ’ ll give you a break .
It didn ’ t work with moderator Kristen Welker , despite Trump ’ s attacks on her before the event .
Welker , aided by a mute button ( see below ) whose absence made the first debate such a disaster , was able to deftly move the debate between different topics .
She allowed each candidate ample time to speak , without letting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Chris Wallace presided over in the first debate .
And she actually challenged the candidates when their responses didn ’ t add up .
When Trump insisted a vaccine for Covid-19 will be ready by the end of the year , she pointed out , “ Your own officials say it could take well into 2021 , ” and asked him to clarify .
When Joe Biden criticized Trump ’ s diplomacy with North Korea , she asked , “ You said you wouldn ’ t meet with Kim Jong Un without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which you would meet with him ?
” That ’ s how you run a useful , informative debate , and basically everyone watching applauded .
Journalists including Steve Inskeep , Philip Rucker , and Yamiche Alcindor were full of praise .
So were progressive viewers .
And while conservatives criticized Welker for not allowing Trump more time to bring up Hunter Biden-related attacks , even people like Ben Shapiro and Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis had positive reactions .
Perhaps the strangest endorser was Trump himself , who told Welker , “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ handling this.
” Moderating a debate with as mendacious a liar as Trump is almost impossibly difficult , and Welker wasn ’ t perfect at holding him to account .
But she did quite well overall , and managed to perform in a way that both Biden and Trump supporters agreed was fair — an almost miraculous achievement .
The first presidential debate didn ’ t go well .
Pundits and journalists ’ reviews ranged from “ the worst presidential debate I have ever seen in my life ” to “ a shitshow.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , who spent the entire debate interrupting Biden — making it impossible for Biden to get a point in and stifling any semblance of a coherent conversation .
In response , the presidential debate commission decided to use a mute button .
The Associated Press explained the setup : That this was necessary at all was a testament to Trump ’ s disregard for basic norms .
In previous presidential debates , from primaries to general elections , the candidates would disagree , but they would at least let each other speak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading to a disaster of a debate last month .
Still , the mute button worked .
Thursday ’ s debate was much more productive and substantive ( to the extent any debate with Trump can be ) .
At the very least , both candidates had a chance to voice their respective visions for America , and the public was able to follow what was going on .
Biden was unequivocal .
He ’ s not the Medicare-for-all candidate Trump is looking for .
The president tried to turn the health care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic nominee of supporting “ socialized medicine.
” He wanted to lump Biden together with the more progressive Democrats who support a single-payer health care system .
Biden wasn ’ t having it .
He wanted to remind voters he ’ d beaten several candidates — including the godfather of Medicare-for-all , Sen. Bernie Sanders — by promising to preserve private insurance .
“ The reason why I had such a fight with 20 candidates for the nomination was I support private insurance , ” Biden said .
“ Not one single person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under my plan , nor did they under Obamacare.
” To be clear : Some Americans had a private plan canceled when the ACA ’ s new rules took effect ( but most of them qualified for new coverage ) ; Biden ’ s plan as written would allow people who get private insurance through their work to enroll in a government-run public option , but only if they choose .
But it is certainly true that Biden was running as the candidate who wanted to build on the current system , not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn Medicare-for-all into an election-year boogeyman , part of his strategy to make Biden look like a stalking horse for the left .
But Biden keeps rebutting that argument with a simple truth : He doesn ’ t support Medicare-for-all .
He wants to build on Obamacare with a plan that the Urban Institute estimates would provide insurance to every legal resident in the United States , including 25 million currently uninsured people .
At Thursday night ’ s debate , he said he ’ d even have a name for it : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think that New York is very , very bad , always and including during Thursday ’ s debate .
“ If you go and look at what ’ s happened to New York , it ’ s a ghost town .
It ’ s a ghost town , ” Trump said during the debate .
He said the city that he was born and raised in was “ wonderful ” for so many years , but now it ’ s “ dying , ” because everyone ’ s leaving New York .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York certainly has had its problems , and like anywhere , it ’ s not perfect .
But at least judging from the view from my Brooklyn apartment , things are kind of fine ?
New York City was hit hard early on in the pandemic in a way that was painful and heartbreaking .
But the city and state have gone to great lengths to get the virus under control and , by and large , have been successful .
New York has flattened the curve , and it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on so-called “ hot spots ” where cases are spiking .
On the economic front , yes , it ’ s difficult , and there ’ s no denying businesses are being hit hard .
But the city is resilient .
That said , cities and states across the country , red and blue , need economic help from the federal government right now — help the president could make happen .
During the pandemic , we ’ ve seen a lot of finger-pointing .
If only this state had acted faster , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outbreak , New York was deemed the “ bad place.
” Now , the city ’ s doing better , but it ’ s heartbreaking to see it spread to places like Wisconsin and South Dakota .
Maybe if we hadn ’ t treated this like a New York problem and instead a United States problem early on , could things have been different ?
On Thursday , Biden brought home the important point that it doesn ’ t matter which state people are in , to gauge how good or bad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or how much people should care about them .
“ They ’ re all Americans , ” he said .
Biden made a pointed observation about the reality of stimulus negotiations : Despite Trump ’ s repeated claims that he wants to “ go bigger ” on more aid , he hasn ’ t even been able to get his own party on board .
When pressed about why there wasn ’ t another stimulus package even as millions of Americans grapple with unemployment , evictions , and business closures , Trump said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bill done — and tried to cast blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats .
“ The Republican leader in the United States Senate said he can ’ t pass it , ” Biden said plainly .
“ He will not be able to pass it .
He does not have Republican votes .
Why isn ’ t [ Trump ] talking to his Republican friends ?
” Biden ’ s statement spoke to one of the pervasive dynamics of the ongoing stimulus impasse .
Throughout it , not only has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calling off talks via Twitter at one point — he ’ s never gotten the full backing of his party .
Senate Republicans earlier this summer were already dismissing a comprehensive stimulus option out of concern about adding to the national debt — and potential backlash from base voters down the line .
More recently , Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has tried to discourage a larger compromise prior to the election .
Biden ’ s remarks were a forceful reframing of the blame game over the stimulus .
Biden and Trump effectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Black Lives Matter movement at the debate .
Instead of taking a moment to discuss how they ’ d combat inequality , the candidates pointed fingers in a game of “ who ’ s more racist than whom.
” “ I can ’ t even see the audience ... but I am the least racist person in this room , ” Trump said , staring out into the dark .
“ He pours fuel on every single racist fire , ” Biden retorted , after defending his role in crafting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not use the term “ superpredators ” to describe young Black men .
Since late May , millions of Americans have rallied in protest of police brutality and systemic racism following the police killings of Black people including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd , making Black Lives Matter likely the biggest protest movement in American history .
Though protesters have called for the defunding of the police , this rhetoric has not made its way to the debate stage .
Instead , Trump has emphasized “ law and order ” in response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the problem of systemic racism in policing to “ a few bad apples.
” Though asked why he called Black Lives Matter a “ symbol of hate , ” Trump was given space to keep pushing the lie that he ’ s been the best president for Black America since Abraham Lincoln .
He also claimed that the first time he heard about the Black Lives Matter movement was when protesters apparently chanted “ pigs in a blanket ” in response to police officers — the only moment in the debate when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be fair , tried his best to articulate his newfound vision of criminal justice — people not being locked up for drug use , and fully funded community policing — but it felt like too little , too late .
The question of which candidate would be tougher on China has been a constant throughline in this election .
That was on full display at the debate .
I mean , really , China came up a lot .
You ’ d think that would make it a winner , but if anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s likely biggest foreign policy challenge has become a punching bag .
President Trump is much of the reason China got a lot of airtime .
It feels like years ago ( well , this summer ) when he tried to make “ Beijing Biden ” a thing , but Trump has tried to make his tough-on-China policies a centerpiece of his campaign .
Among those , he touts his trade war with China and his pushback on the country ’ s handling of the coronavirus .
Biden , meanwhile , tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would get China to play by the international rules .
“ Not like he has done , ” Biden said of Trump .
“ He has caused the deficit with China to go up , not down.
” Biden didn ’ t give specifics on how he would get China to play the rules at the debate , but he has already made it clear that he wants to reassert the US as a Pacific power .
Otherwise , it was a lot of familiar territory .
Trump , once again , tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus pandemic by blaming China for the virus ’ s spread , saying “ it was not my fault ” that the pandemic came here .
“ It ’ s China ’ s fault.
” Biden fired back by citing Trump ’ s praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping over the early handling of the outbreak .
They wrangled over Trump ’ s China tariffs .
Trump tried to claim that China was paying billions in tariffs ; Biden , in an effective exchange , rightly said that wasn ’ t true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s windmills , for some reason .
Biden , at least , called out China for meddling in US elections .
But beyond policy , many of the oddest — and hardest to follow — exchanges on China came over allegations of personal financial ties to Beijing .
Trump tried to argue that Biden wasn ’ t tough on China because of business ties his son Hunter had there — and that somehow Biden made money off the deal .
Biden denied those attacks ( and there ’ s no evidence to support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Trump , bringing up New York Times reporting that revealed Trump had a previously unreported bank account in China .
It was a confusing exchange if you ’ re not totally immersed in all of the latest drama , but the main takeaway seemed to be : Doing business in China is bad .
Taken together , China probably took the most hits outside of the two candidates on the stage .
Tensions with China have escalated sharply in recent months , sometimes likened to a cold war .
How the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not be so clear from the debate — but an easing of tensions with China doesn ’ t look likely right now , no matter who wins in November .
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The final debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, held on Thursday evening, was the first one of the entire campaign that actually felt like a debate.
The first debate was a chaotic disaster due to Trump’s constant interruptions; the second one didn’t happen because Trump refused to agree to debate virtually while he had Covid-19 (the candidates held dueling town halls instead). This time around, better moderation and the handy use of a mute button allowed both candidates to express their thoughts — leading to a mix of actual substantive policy exchanges and less-than-coherent mudslinging about families and personal finance.
The format seems to have suited Biden, who seemed energized and on target — getting in a number of strong attacks on Trump’s record on Covid-19, health care, and family separations. Trump was also better than he was in the first debate, where he came across as an unfit bully, but he was outclassed on policy and unable to tell a particularly cogent story on the question of why Americans should care about Hunter Biden’s emails.
A deeper analysis follows of who won and who lost — and not just candidates.
During the primary and general election, Biden hasn’t particularly shined on the debate stage. His answers tend to meander and he mixes up words in ways that take the sting out of his attack lines. But on Thursday, Biden was sharper and more on target, allowing his strong qualities — his command over policy and his ability to connect with ordinary Americans — to shine through.
During the first segment of the debate about the pandemic, for example, Trump said “we’re learning to live with it.” Biden responded with a possibly rehearsed but nonetheless devastating line, “He says that we’re learning to live with it; people are learning to die with it.”
He continued needling Trump about his refusal to take responsibility for pandemic policy, provoking the president into the most embarrassing stumble from either candidate in the entire debate: “I take full responsibility. It’s not my fault that it came here. It’s China’s fault.” It’s a line that you can bet will be in anti-Trump attack ads in very short order.
Biden was like this for much of the debate, clever and empathetic and even a little feisty.
He got emotional about family separations (“violates every notion of who we are as a nation”), sounded a populist note on Trump’s obsession with markets (“‘the stock market is booming’ is his only measure of what’s happening”), and effectively hit Trump on his tenuous relationship with the truth (“I don’t know where he comes up with these numbers”). He even got in his favorite catchphrase — “there’s a reason why he’s bringing up all this malarkey.”
Was it an all-time great debate performance? No, I don’t think so.
But it was solid: strong when it really needed to be and certainly better than his opposition. With a lead of nearly 10 points in the national poll averages, that’s more than enough to call this a win for Biden.
—Zack Beauchamp
It is perhaps telling that any praise of President Trump’s performance on Twitter during Thursday night’s debate involved terms like “well-tempered” and “composed,” an indication that the biggest hurdle Trump faced was himself.
Trump appeared to take notes during the debate. He managed to avoid interrupting Joe Biden quite as much as in the last round. He was coherent and, as opposed to the first debate, he did not seem entirely out of control. This is the lowest of bars to clear, but he cleared it.
Still, far too many of his references only made sense if you watch a lot of Fox News and/or spend a lot of time on right-leaning Twitter. There are viewers to whom “the Big Man” is obviously Joe Biden and “the laptop from hell” is clearly a device that allegedly belonged to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden (who is not, as far as we know, running for the White House), but the majority of these obscure references to the Trump campaign’s attacks on Hunter Biden likely flew over most viewers’ heads.
Trump could still win reelection. But currently, he is losing, in the polls and in the eyes of the public, as Covid-19 begins to surge (again) and stimulus negotiations falter (again). “Well-tempered” and “composed” aren’t enough to get it done — especially when the subjects Trump most wishes to discuss are ones largely disconnected from those that matter most to voters.
—Jane Coaston
The first time Donald Trump was challenged on national TV by a female journalist this fall — by Savannah Guthrie, at his town hall on October 15 — he and his allies responded by throwing a massive temper tantrum. The second time, when CBS News’s Lesley Stahl attempted to interview him, he shut down the interview prematurely after using much of it to complain about her tough questioning.
In sports, this is known as “working the refs.” If you yell at the refs, or in this case the media, enough, maybe they’ll back down and refuse to ask tough questions, or fact-check, or ask meaningful follow-ups. They’ll give you a break.
It didn’t work with moderator Kristen Welker, despite Trump’s attacks on her before the event.
Welker, aided by a mute button (see below) whose absence made the first debate such a disaster, was able to deftly move the debate between different topics. She allowed each candidate ample time to speak, without letting the debate devolve into the unstructured cacophony that Chris Wallace presided over in the first debate.
And she actually challenged the candidates when their responses didn’t add up. When Trump insisted a vaccine for Covid-19 will be ready by the end of the year, she pointed out, “Your own officials say it could take well into 2021,” and asked him to clarify. When Joe Biden criticized Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea, she asked, “You said you wouldn’t meet with Kim Jong Un without preconditions. Are there any conditions under which you would meet with him?”
That’s how you run a useful, informative debate, and basically everyone watching applauded. Journalists including Steve Inskeep, Philip Rucker, and Yamiche Alcindor were full of praise. So were progressive viewers. And while conservatives criticized Welker for not allowing Trump more time to bring up Hunter Biden-related attacks, even people like Ben Shapiro and Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis had positive reactions. Perhaps the strangest endorser was Trump himself, who told Welker, “I respect very much the way you are handling this.”
Moderating a debate with as mendacious a liar as Trump is almost impossibly difficult, and Welker wasn’t perfect at holding him to account. But she did quite well overall, and managed to perform in a way that both Biden and Trump supporters agreed was fair — an almost miraculous achievement.
—Dylan Matthews
Winner: The mute button
The first presidential debate didn’t go well. Pundits’ and journalists’ reviews ranged from “the worst presidential debate I have ever seen in my life” to “a shitshow.” And it was mostly due to Trump, who spent the entire debate interrupting Biden — making it impossible for Biden to get a point in and stifling any semblance of a coherent conversation.
In response, the presidential debate commission decided to use a mute button. The Associated Press explained the setup:
A representative of the Commission on Presidential Debates — not the moderator — is supposed to ensure each candidate has two full minutes of uninterrupted time to deliver opening answers on six major topics, according to debate commission chair Frank Fahrenkopf. A member of each of the Trump and Biden campaigns was expected to monitor the person who controls the mute button backstage, Fahrenkopf told The Associated Press, noting that the button would not be used beyond the first four minutes of each topic.
That this was necessary at all was a testament to Trump’s disregard for basic norms. In previous presidential debates, from primaries to general elections, the candidates would disagree, but they would at least let each other speak. Trump shattered that basic decorum, leading to a disaster of a debate last month.
Still, the mute button worked. Thursday’s debate was much more productive and substantive (to the extent any debate with Trump can be). At the very least, both candidates had a chance to voice their respective visions for America, and the public was able to follow what was going on.
—German Lopez
Loser: Medicare-for-all
“I support private insurance.”
Biden was unequivocal. He’s not the Medicare-for-all candidate Trump is looking for.
The president tried to turn the health care tables on Biden again, accusing the Democratic nominee of supporting “socialized medicine.” He wanted to lump Biden together with the more progressive Democrats who support a single-payer health care system.
Biden wasn’t having it. He wanted to remind voters he’d beaten several candidates — including the godfather of Medicare-for-all, Sen. Bernie Sanders — by promising to preserve private insurance.
“The reason why I had such a fight with 20 candidates for the nomination was I support private insurance,” Biden said. “Not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare.”
To be clear: Some Americans had a private plan canceled when the ACA’s new rules took effect (but most of them qualified for new coverage); Biden’s plan as written would allow people who get private insurance through their work to enroll in a government-run public option, but only if they choose.
But it is certainly true that Biden was running as the candidate who wanted to build on the current system, not replace it.
Trump has tried to turn Medicare-for-all into an election-year boogeyman, part of his strategy to make Biden look like a stalking horse for the left. But Biden keeps rebutting that argument with a simple truth: He doesn’t support Medicare-for-all. He wants to build on Obamacare with a plan that the Urban Institute estimates would provide insurance to every legal resident in the United States, including 25 million currently uninsured people.
At Thursday night’s debate, he said he’d even have a name for it: “Bidencare.”
—Dylan Scott
Winner: New York
Trump would like you to think that New York is very, very bad, always and including during Thursday’s debate.
“If you go and look at what’s happened to New York, it’s a ghost town. It’s a ghost town,” Trump said during the debate. He said the city that he was born and raised in was “wonderful” for so many years, but now it’s “dying” because everyone’s leaving New York.
So here’s the thing: New York certainly has had its problems, and like anywhere, it’s not perfect. But at least judging from the view from my Brooklyn apartment, things are kind of fine?
New York City was hit hard early on in the pandemic in a way that was painful and heartbreaking. But the city and state have gone to great lengths to get the virus under control and, by and large, have been successful. New York has flattened the curve, and it’s stayed there, with leaders now focusing on so-called “hot spots” where cases are spiking.
On the economic front, yes, it’s difficult, and there’s no denying businesses are being hit hard. But the city is resilient. That said, cities and states across the country, red and blue, need economic help from the federal government right now — help the president could make happen.
During the pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of finger-pointing. If only this state had acted faster, this mayor. And early on in the outbreak, New York was deemed the “bad place.” Now, the city’s doing better, but it’s heartbreaking to see the disease spread to places like Wisconsin and South Dakota. If we had treated this as a United States problem instead of a New York problem early on, could things have been different?
On Thursday, Biden brought home the important point that it doesn’t matter which state people are in, to gauge how good or bad they’re doing on the pandemic or how much people should care about them. “They’re all Americans,” he said.
It’s a lesson the president should learn.
—Emily Stewart
Loser: Senate Republicans
Biden made a pointed observation about the reality of stimulus negotiations: Despite Trump’s repeated claims that he wants to “go bigger” on more aid, he hasn’t even been able to get his own party on board.
When pressed about why there wasn’t another stimulus package even as millions of Americans grapple with unemployment, evictions, and business closures, Trump said that he wanted to get an expansive bill done — and tried to cast blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats.
Biden, however, had a ready retort.
“The Republican leader in the United States Senate said he can’t pass it,” Biden said plainly. “He will not be able to pass it. He does not have Republican votes. Why isn’t [Trump] talking to his Republican friends?”
Biden’s statement spoke to one of the pervasive dynamics of the ongoing stimulus impasse. Throughout it, not only has Trump been an unreliable negotiator — even at one point calling off talks via Twitter — he’s never gotten the full backing of his party.
Senate Republicans earlier this summer were already dismissing a comprehensive stimulus option out of concern about adding to the national debt — and potential backlash from base voters down the line. More recently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has tried to discourage a larger compromise prior to the election.
Biden’s remarks were a forceful reframing of the blame game over the stimulus.
—Li Zhou
Loser: Social justice
Biden and Trump effectively avoided answering nearly every question about race and the Black Lives Matter movement at the debate. Instead of taking a moment to discuss how they’d combat inequality, the candidates pointed fingers in a game of “who’s more racist than whom.”
“I can’t even see the audience ... but I am the least racist person in this room,” Trump said, staring out into the dark.
“He pours fuel on every single racist fire,” Biden retorted, after defending his role in crafting the 1994 crime bill and clarifying that he did not use the term “superpredators” to describe young Black men.
Since late May, millions of Americans have rallied in protest of police brutality and systemic racism following the police killings of Black people including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, making Black Lives Matter likely the biggest protest movement in American history. Though protesters have called for the defunding of the police, this rhetoric has not made its way to the debate stage. Instead, Trump has emphasized “law and order” in response to the protests and Biden has simplified the problem of systemic racism in policing to “a few bad apples.”
Though asked why he called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” Trump was given space to keep pushing the lie that he’s been the best president for Black America since Abraham Lincoln. He also claimed that the first time he heard about the Black Lives Matter movement was when protesters apparently chanted “pigs in a blanket” in response to police officers — the only moment in the debate when he acknowledged the movement.
Biden, to be fair, tried his best to articulate his newfound vision of criminal justice — people not being locked up for drug use, and fully funded community policing — but it felt like too little, too late.
—Fabiola Cineas
Loser: China
The question of which candidate would be tougher on China has been a throughline in this election. That was on full display at the debate.
I mean, really, China came up a lot. You’d think that would make it a winner, but if anything, it showed how the next president’s likely biggest foreign policy challenge has become a punching bag.
President Trump is much of the reason China got a lot of airtime. It feels like years ago (well, this summer) when he tried to make “Beijing Biden” a thing, but Trump has tried to make his tough-on-China policies a centerpiece of his campaign. Among those, he touts his trade war with China and his pushback on the country’s handling of the coronavirus.
Biden, meanwhile, tried to make the case that his administration would get China to play by the international rules. “Not like he has done,” Biden said of Trump. “He has caused the deficit with China to go up, not down.” At the debate, Biden didn’t give specifics on how he would get China to play by the rules, but he has already made it clear that he wants to reassert the US as a Pacific power.
Otherwise, it was a lot of familiar territory. Trump, once again, tried to deflect from his failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic by blaming China for the virus’s spread, saying “it was not my fault” that the pandemic came here. “It’s China’s fault.”
Biden fired back by citing Trump’s praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping over the early handling of the outbreak. They wrangled over Trump’s China tariffs. Trump tried to claim that China was paying billions in tariffs; Biden, in an effective exchange, rightly said that wasn’t true.
Trump also brought up China’s windmills, for some reason. Biden, at least, called out China for meddling in US elections.
But beyond policy, many of the oddest — and hardest to follow — exchanges on China came over allegations of personal financial ties to Beijing. Trump tried to argue that Biden wasn’t tough on China because of business ties his son Hunter had there — and that somehow Biden made money off the deal.
Biden denied those attacks (and there’s no evidence to support them), and then flipped it on Trump, bringing up New York Times reporting that revealed Trump had a previously unreported bank account in China. It was a confusing exchange if you’re not totally immersed in all of the latest drama, but the main takeaway seemed to be: Doing business in China is bad.
Taken together, China probably took the most hits outside of the two candidates on the stage. Tensions with China have escalated sharply in recent months, sometimes likened to a cold war. How the next president will fix or change that might not be so clear from the debate — but an easing of tensions with China doesn’t look likely right now, no matter who wins in November.
—Jen Kirby