Much of the attention on Thursday’s presidential debate fell upon President Joe Biden’s faltering performance, which has called into question whether he can even remain the Democratic candidate. In the aftermath, some have focused on former President Donald Trump’s nonstop lies.
Left largely overlooked, however, has been the open xenophobia Trump deployed against Palestinians and immigrants, and the silence with which it was met.
The most striking illustration might be Trump’s response to a prompt from CNN moderator Dana Bash, regarding Israel’s war on Gaza and the “humanitarian crisis” that Israel has created while killing thousands of Palestinians.
As Biden insisted that Hamas was the only entity standing in the way of a ceasefire, Trump actually pushed back on the idea. “You got to ask him,” Trump began, referring to Biden, “as far as Israel and Hamas, Israel is the one that wants to go. He said the only one who wants to keep going is Hamas.” He continued: “Actually, Israel is the one, and you should let them go and let them finish the job. He doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But, they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. He is a weak one.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Much of the attention on Thursday’s presidential debate fell upon President Joe Biden’s faltering performance, which has called into question whether he can even remain the Democratic candidate.
The moment embodied a through line of the debate: CNN moderators Bash or Jake Tapper would ask a question; Trump would respond with something off-topic, dishonest, and dangerous; and the moderators, instead of pushing back or even acknowledging the absurdity of Trump’s answers, would simply move on, thanking the twice-impeached former president for his time.
In response to the same question, Biden said he’s still pushing hard for Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal and made clear that “the only thing I’ve denied Israel was 2,000-pound bombs,” given the risk to innocent people in populated areas.
Shortly after, Bash followed up with Trump, asking if he would “support the creation of an independent Palestinian state in order to achieve peace in the region.”
Trump referred to immigrants as hordes of millions coming from “prisons, jails, and mental institutions” into the country to destroy it.
The debate has triggered a broader reflection on whether a candidate other than Biden would be best suited to put down such cruelty, though some higher-echelon Democrats have thus far refused to entertain that possibility.
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