Joe Biden and Donald Trump will debate for the first time Tuesday night, September 29. Both have said they are looking forward to the verbal duel. It’s time for Biden to really speak out. Herewith a suggestion for Mr. Biden’s opening remarks:
Let me begin by thanking the Commission on Presidential Debates for sponsoring this debate. Voting is our most important right. It is paramount that we do everything in our power to have an informed public willing and able to cast their votes either in person or by mail-in ballot, just like Donald Trump and his family do without any aspersions being cast as to the integrity of their mailed-in ballots.
For months Donald Trump has spewed vile untruths about me and the Democratic platform upon which I am running. Tonight, to my face, let him cite evidence to back up his claims, or shut up.
Tonight we should not forget that more than 200,000 of our fellow Americans have died because Donald Trump failed to heed the advice of his medical experts and national security professionals. They warned him that COVID-19 is a killer. He knew that back in February. But he was more interested in seeing stock market gains than focusing on the death toll of our loved ones.
His advisors told him it would be his presidency’s greatest challenge. He ignored their advice and set a bad example by not wearing a mask in public and by urging his supporters to congregate close together at his rallies where many of them did not wear masks. Even when one of his key supporters, Herman Cain, died after attending one of his rallies without a mask, Donald Trump refused to listen to medical experts.
200,000 deaths. With hardly a word of compassion or consolation from our president. He said he was a “wartime president” fighting the pandemic. Under his command we have lost more Americans than in the wars we fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined! He should be relieved of duty.
Tonight we’re going to demand specifics. He says he has a great health care plan. Let’s hear specifics. What will it cost each family to be covered at least as well as under the Affordable Care Act. He says he would keep coverage on pre-existing conditions. Then why is he supporting a Republican lawsuit to throw out Obamacare and its pre-existing conditions mandate? Can he by executive order dictate that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions? Perhaps in Fascist or Communist countries that could happen, but here in the United States we don’t rule by executive fiat. We ended that form of tyranny in 1776.
Tonight we’re going to demand specifics from the person The Washington Post says has fabricated reality more than 20,000 times in speeches and tweets. From the man who decries unnamed sources we will demand names of those “many people” he claims tell him things that he turns into innuendos and assaults on other people’s character. Let’s judge him by the credibility of his sources.
Tonight, there will be no hiding behind vague bromides. Tonight, Donny, there will be no one else to take your test.
