well if u.s presidential debates are
about informing voters about policy and
showing a watching world how democracy
works then
what we saw last night was a failure for
90 minutes the pressure america is under
was laid bare
msnbc called it a dark event cnn called
it
a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside
a train wreck and the interruptions and
insults cast a shadow over proceedings
so much so
that the commission which organizes them
now says it's going to bring in new
measures to
ensure a more orderly discussion of the
issues in the next two debates
well in the coming minutes we're going
to work through the key moments and the
fallout from
an infamous night starting with
president trump
passing up the chance to condemn white's
premises
do you want to call him what do you want
to call them give me your name give me a
white surprise
and write presents stand back and stand
by
but i'll tell you what i'll tell you
what somebody's got to do something
about antifa and the left
so the president passed up the chance to
address white supremacy he did though
tell a far-right group the proud boys to
stand by
well now he sought to clarify this he
says he's always denounced white
supremacist
that's not true and here's what he said
about the proud boys
i don't know who the proud boys are i
mean you have to give me a definition
because i really don't know who they are
i can only say they have to stand down
let law enforcement do their work
let's be clear he didn't address white
supremacy when asked to during the
debate
and did refer to the proud boys now
earlier the senate republican leader
mitch mcconnell
was asked about the president's handling
of this issue in the debate
he said the president condemns white
supremacists in the strongest possible
way
well have a listen to washington post
columnist brian class who sees it
differently
it's not that he just didn't condemn it
it's that he gave an instruction to this
group
as though he was their leader he said
stand by as though he's waiting for
further instructions if there is
election related violence
so i think the the tensions and the
polarization around the election are so
great and trust
and president trump's language so
explosive that i'm very worried about
violence around the november elections
joe biden was asked about these concerns
today here's what he said if in fact we
win this election this president will
step down
it's a lot of bravado he has no
alternative the american people will not
stand for it
no agency would stand for that happening
my message to the proud boys and every
other white supremacist group
is cease and desist that's not who we
are this is not
who we are as americans well if you
don't know of the proud boys this is a
group that was founded in 2016.
it's far right anti-immigrant and
all-male it has a strict membership
protocol in order to join members have
to declare that they are
a western chauvinist who refuses to
apologize for creating the modern world
they've become notorious for violent
confrontations they frequently faced off
against opposition groups facebook
instagram twitter and youtube have all
banned the proud boys facebook says it
considers it
a hate organization but uh we know it
does still continue to use private
social media channels like telegram and
parlay
and where there are a number of reports
in u.s media that members of the proud
boys were celebrating the president's
refusal
to condemn them the other group
referenced in that section of the debate
was antifa that's short for anti-fascist
it's not a coherent group more a loose
affiliation of mostly far-left activists
and some antifa activists have a track
record of using violence to make their
point
they've been prominent during black
lives matter protests and have
frequently clashed with opposition
groups and
with police to be clear proud boys and
nuns are relatively small perhaps a few
thousand active supporters at most
something even less than that but their
willingness to use violence on occasions
means they get a disproportionate amount
of attention
so remarkably one issue was the
president refusing to condemn white
supremacy
the next issue is how moderator chris
wallace struggled to contain donald
trump's continual interruptions
he is one of many examples we're moving
on
he didn't take them vice president can
gentlemen is i hate to raise my voice
but i think it seems to me
why shouldn't i be different than the
two of you the country would be better
served
if we allowed both people to speak with
fewer interruptions i'm appealing to you
sir to do that
well and him too well frankly you've
been doing more interruptions that's all
right but he does plenty
well less than sir no less than you have
let's please continue on there's plenty
more of that it was always going to be
difficult one columnist for the new york
magazine tweeted people are hating on
chris wallace but
i think there was no way to moderate
this debate effectively
an apple bam of the atlantic argues this
was intentional she says
the point of trump's performance in that
debate was to undermine confidence in
the election
and in democracy itself mr trump himself
has responded saying chris had a tough
night
two on one was not surprising but fun he
says
two things to note about chris wallace
he's a registered democrat
but he also works for fox news a network
that's consistently supportive
of the president and as i mentioned
earlier the commission which runs these
debates says the rules now need to be
changed
in a statement it says last night debate
made clear that additional structure
should be added to the format of the
remaining debates to ensure a more
orderly discussion
of the issues well let's uh get further
analysis from the bbc's barbara platt
usher
in washington dc after the debate last
night commentators who frankly looked
visibly shocked said
let's stop here why would we want to
have another one of these what's the
point of that
now you have this commission statement
saying yes more structure
is needed for uh orderly discussion we
are considering new tools and we'll let
you know what they are shortly now there
have been calls for things like
uh the moderator being able to cut the
mic or to end the debate early if it
gets out of hand
and bear in mind roz that the next
debate is going to be a different format
it's going to be a town hall format in
which
ordinary people ask questions so that
might be a format that's less
likely to be dominated by mr trump in
this way because
um he did seem to be very calculated
about his barrage of
insults and interruptions and so and it
did seem to be a tactic
of disruption which even his own people
said was too hot
now mr biden himself has said that he's
going to continue with these debates no
matter what and in fact he made quite a
lot of money for his campaign
during last night's debate so that's at
least an incentive to keep going but you
do wonder how many more people are going
to keep
keep on tuning in if the commission
doesn't come up with something that can
actually
bring order to this and make it a debate
rather than a sort of fiasco
and barbara i'm losing count of the
number of commentators who are either
writing articles or going on tv or
tweeting that this is now
a crisis in american democracy what we
saw last night what we've seen
more generally you've been covering
american politics for a long while do
you think that's overstating it
well i mean president trump has been
chipping away at the norms and
institutions of democracy for the past
four years but i would say that has
escalated in recent months in the sense
that he has begun to actively cast doubt
on the democratic process itself so he
has
uh said that mail and voting will lead
to massive fraud when there's no
evidence that that
that that's the case he has not
committed himself to accepting the
results of the election
if he thinks that there is fraud he's
not even committed
to a peaceful transition of power which
is really bedrock stuff for democracy so
i think the trajectory is alarming um
is democracy right now in crisis here i
would say at the very least the
foundations of democracy in the us are
being tested
and just quickly barbara how are we
looking in the polls at the moment mr
biden's still up i assume
yeah there haven't been a lot of numbers
since the debate itself but he has had a
very stable lead over president trump
for quite a while
in the single digits between six and ten
percent uh and also he has leads in
in a number of swing states as well the
feeling of going into the debate was
that mr trump was on the defensive
he would need to uh shift attention away
from himself
towards mr biden and his presumed
weaknesses now that didn't happen as
we've seen it was very much center stage
on his disruptive tactics so
some analysts are saying there was no
winner therefore joe biden is the winner
because he's out in front
now this is one of these moments when
the world watches american democracy and
it's fair to say a lot of people were
unimpressed uh in germany der spiegel
said the debate was
a tv jewel like a car accident the
state-run chinese newspaper the global
times called it the most chaotic
presidential debate ever
the italian newspaper la republica
declared that american politics had
never sunk so low and that it was
chaotic rowdy and based on mutual
contempt or you could read the times
here in the uk describing it as
not a debate in any meaningful sense but
rather an ill-tempered and at times
incomprehensible squabble
between two angry stepugenerians who
palpably
loathe each other and the bbc's nick
bryant one of our correspondents in
america he put it this way when
historians assess the self-inflicted
harm america did its international
reputation in the early 21st century
the florida debacle will be on the list
that's the 2000 election
guantanamo abu ghraib and this first
presidential debate watch the world over
incalculable soft power damage says nick
well president trump's former national
security adviser general h.r mcmaster
has spoken to bbc world news today and
picks up on some of those themes saying
these deep divisions
on show are harming america we're acting
like
we're our own worst enemies and so it's
as as you allude to that russia in
particular
is trying to drag us down trying to
polarize all of our societies
pit us against each other you know
really amplify
uh these narrow identities uh
in a way that reduces our confidence in
who we are as as a people
and in our democratic principles and
institutions
and processes so all of our leaders
especially those who are on stage last
night they have to be a heck of a lot
more responsible
because i don't think they even
recognize the damage they're doing and
how easy
they're making it for our determined
adversaries