The Questions They Didn't Ask
David Muir and Linsey Davis end the era of major network presidential debates
It’s astounding when you see it all put together. This is how many times Muir and Davis “fact-checked” Donald Trump last night, courtesy of Duane Patterson at the Hugh Hewitt show.
So, to be clear, Muir (one of People’s Sexiest Men in 2014) and Davis are just appallingly ignorant about what they’re talking about, perhaps because the ABC News political team employs nearly zero Republicans (Hugh informed me that Reince Priebus just got a contract over there for the cycle, so great job, they’ve got one) and their debate prep consists essentially of a crew of people who look like the staff of The Acolyte, plus Jon Karl.
This debate was devastating for the broadcast industry. It will likely be the last debate of any kind to be hosted by the old guard networks. Why subject yourself as a Republican to a situation that amounts to Candy Crowley times ten? And on top of that, avoids any of the obvious questions that should be top of mind? Questions like:
Can Joe Biden still function as president?
An American just got killed by Hamas — what should we do?
Iran-backed forces are targeting Americans — what should we do?
China, as an existential challenge — how will you push back?
What will you do to stop inflation?
There are no mentions of the word “inflation” or “China” or “9/11” by the moderators, but they sure did manage to lie about abortion policy quite aggressively, as did Kamala Harris:
Minnesota Department of Health documents show that eight infants were born alive during abortion procedures between 2019 and 2022, and, in 2023, Walz signed legislation that repealed most of a statute designed to protect infants born alive after an abortion attempt.
Minnesota state law explicitly protected children born alive during abortion procedures since at least 1976 when the state legislature adopted Section 145.423. This statute determined that, “A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law.” It also read, “All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken to preserve the life and health of the child.”
In 2015, the Minnesota state legislature passed additional legislation, signed into law by Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, intended to expand the state’s protections for born-alive infants. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act made minor terminology changes to the existing three subsections of Section 145.423, and added an additional six subsections including those covering civil penalties for medical personnel who did not provide adequate care, privacy protections for court proceedings related to born-alive infants, and the status of born alive-infants who survive following an abortion procedure. The act also formally defined “born-alive infants” as “every infant member of the species Homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.”
As part of the act, Minnesota’s 1998 abortion reporting guidelines were also modified to require additional details—including what medical actions were taken to aid the infant, whether the infant survived, and the status of the surviving infant—in all instances of born-alive infants.
In the first three and a half years of this additional reporting—prior to Walz taking office—the state recorded 16 abortion procedures that led to live births: five in the second half of 2015 after the legislation went into effect; five in 2016; three in 2017; and three in 2018.
In 2019, the first year of Walz’s governorship, Minnesota recorded three cases of born-alive infants, one of whom was pre-viable, another who had fetal anomalies, and a third who was given comfort care measures. None of the three survived.
No instances occurred in 2020, but in 2021 there were five. Of these cases, two were pre-viable, two were given comfort care, and one had fetal anomalies. None of the five survived. No additional instances occurred in 2022.
On May 22, 2023, the Minnesota state legislature passed an omnibus bill—signed into law the next day by Walz—that repealed all six subdivisions added by the 2015 Born Alive Infants Protection Act as well as two of the three subdivisions established in the original 1976 statute. The bill left intact the first subdivision—which read “All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken to preserve the life and health of the child”—but changed its language requiring medical personnel to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant” to instead require medical personnel to “care for the infant who is born alive.” The bill also repealed many of Minnesota’s abortion reporting requirements, including information about born-alive infants.
Earlier in 2023, Walz signed legislation enshrining the right to abortion into Minnesota law following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. The new statute established that “Every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to … obtain an abortion,” and did not include any restrictions or prohibitions. Minnesota currently has no statutory limits on abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
For his part, as I noted on our Zoom last night, Trump botched his answer to this question which should be easy and straightforward. When abortion-loving journos demand to know about fictional legislation that will never reach your desk, the answer is: “I will sign anything that comes to my desk that saves the lives of babies.” That’s it. It’s not more complicated than that. You want to be baby killers, be my guest. Do some shots and kill some babies.
Listen to my segment with Hugh this morning for more:
Patrick Ruffini has some thoughts:
Last night, we got to hear from Donald Trump on:
Crime rates in Central American countries
What Victor Orban thinks
How, if he got a certain raw vote total last time, he couldn’t lose (not how this works)
Migrants eating cats (!)
Crowd size (of course, after taking Kamala Harris’ bait)
We did also hear Trump’s core campaign message on the border, global chaos under Biden-Harris, and why Harris didn’t do anything about the problems she talks about for the last three and a half years. It would have been helpful for Trump if that was all we heard from him—but it wasn’t.
We’re told Trump is a “counterpuncher.” He responds to absolutely everything. He throws the rhetorical kitchen sink at his opponents in these affairs.
That’s not how you methodically dismantle an opponent. And the stakes are higher for him than in most of his previous debates, because he’s going up against an opponent who hadn’t been in the limelight for decades. He needs to be the one to fill in the blanks with a few focused messages that will stick and are memorable, without a bunch of random asides thrown in.
The Day We Forgot
My piece from nine years ago:
Fourteen years after the greatest terrorist attack on the soil of the United States, one thing is clear: virtually everything we thought about America in the days after 9/11 was wrong.
Reading through the rhetoric and press coverage of the time as we approached this anniversary, a few threads run through nearly every piece and speech. First, that Americans are more united than they have ever been in understanding who we are and our place in the world. Second, that we are grappling with a new and different sort of enemy, but one that will be defeated with the same American attributes that have sustained us in the past. And third, that so long as we act with purpose and clarity, the world will stand with us in what we must do next – that we are not alone.
Fourteen years later, it is astonishing the degree to which these and other lessons of that day have been forgotten, rendered moot, or cast aside.
Shocking as it seems, America didn’t learn much at all from 9/11. It was not a particular moment of cultural or political change in American society. No generally held assumptions were overturned. No historical watershed was reached. It yielded no great art or literature. The monuments to the dead are for the most part defeatist, not expressions of resolve. What was baked into America’s future on the 10th of September, 2001 was still there on the 12th of September, 2001. The nation did not change.
As a matter of foreign policy, America tried first the optimistic and interventionist agenda of George W. Bush, which began with lofty words about the freedom of all peoples, and ended with a 180 degree shift in policy in an attempt to make Iraq a place where beheading day wasn’t every day that ended in “y”. It shifted afterwards to the incoherent policies of Barack Obama, which have allowed a vacuum so chaotic, this very week The White House cannot decide between supporting Vladimir Putin in battling ISIS, or supporting arms against him in seeking to topple Assad.
Politically speaking, 9/11 did not cause a great sort in the coalitions of either party. Our process today is more monopartisan, not less. The consequences of the brief moment of bipartisanship were very limited. Perhaps you would have had a Hillary Clinton presidency followed by a likely Obama presidency, as opposed to an Obama presidency followed by a likely Clinton presidency – but then, the Obama presidency has felt more like a Hillary Clinton presidency than we expected, in so many corporatist ways.
Philosophically speaking, 9/11 taught Americans very little. The unity it inspired in outpourings of shared grief was astonishingly brief. Today, we are more fractured than ever along the lines of race and class. The trust it inspired in our leaders and elites was squandered – today, there is less trust in elite institutions of all kinds than ever before. Our pluribus lacks unum.
Nor did 9/11 prompt a great debate and rethinking of what risks freedom entails, what its nature is, and what the need for heightened security demands from our government and from us. What does it mean that government exists to secure our liberty, and what should we do with that liberty, once secured? Today people take it for granted that we will be frisked, poked, and prodded in all sorts of ways, but that it mostly amounts to pointless security theater. They take it for granted that our established security state is so unsecure that it can be easily penetrated by foreign governments with no consequence for them. They assume our government spies on us, but also assume that it is not very good at it.
Think back to other epochal moments in American history: the moment Americans learned of Lexington and Concord, or Fort Sumter, or Pearl Harbor. What did Americans do on hearing that news?
At bare minimum, they were forced to take a stand within their communities in reaction to the great event. They had to make a choice. They had to change their lives.
Nothing like that happened on 9/11. It came and it went. We wept and we forgot. The indictment of our society today is that 9/11 wasn’t a date that changed everything for us, not for the elites, and not for the people.
But if there is solace to be found here, it is in this: that there are still some Americans who, when the time calls for it, have the courage to act in the face of great danger to save lives. Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, and Alek Skarlatos did so most recently when the moment demanded action on a train in France. There are across the nation many people, good people, who still hold to that spirit and understand that obligation.
It has been said for years now that we are a nation without heroes, and that a nation without heroes is a nation in the soup. Look at those heroes, and who were they? Firemen, police, medics, nurses, steel workers. That’s real strength. That’s the real strength of the country. And those aren’t celluloid heroes. That’s the real thing. Did you notice how young so many of them are? Did you see the young woman whose husband and other young men on that flight that went down in Pennsylvania? They’re our heroes, and they’re young. They’re of this generation who is supposedly untested, soft, spoiled, without direction. Don’t believe it. We should take heart from that.
Perhaps there is some hope to be found in this. 9/11 may not have changed the way we understood America’s role in the world or our role as citizens. But there are a few things that have not changed about Americans, some precious inclinations that have not yet been stamped out. There are still Americans who innately understand the balance of independence and duty. There are still Americans with courage to rise to the test when the moment calls. There are still Americans who will run to the sound of the guns. And we should take heart from that.
Feature
Items of Interest
Foreign
The risky business of foreign entanglements.
Israel offers Hamas leader safe passage in new deal.
Biden: Demand accountability from IDF on death of American.
Ukraine’s magnificent but misguided Kursk incursion.
Domestic
Mike Johnson confident on keeping Republican House.
Larry Ellison’s net worth soars.
Biden: I’m going to “do 9/11” in latest gaffe.
2024
Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris.
J.D. Vance and Yamiche Alcindor clash over Springfield pet eating.
Trump and Harris shake hands at 9/11 ceremony.
Prediction markets have Harris moving ahead of Trump.
Lee Siegel: Trump has lost the election.
Media
Jashinsky: ABC lost this debate.
Kimball: ABC News is the biggest loser.
Glenn Beck: Fox News is source of spiritual evil.
Ephemera
Will Ferrell regrets his drag performances on SNL.
Jude Law’s latest could net him an Oscar nom.
Podcast
Quote
“Winners act like winners before they’re winners…The culture precedes positive results. It doesn’t get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before their winners.”
— Bill Walsh