The supposedly independent Commission on Presidential Debates unveiled the topics for Thursday night’s primetime match-up. The topics were announced late last week after a series of bombshell revelations from the New York Post expanded public knowledge of the Biden family’s corrupt overseas business activity while in the upper echelons of U.S. government.
The debate, moderated by NBC’s Kristen Welker — who celebrated Christmas with the Obamas and whose family has donated thousands to Democrats including Joe Biden — will feature questions on “Fighting COVID-19,” “American Families,” “Race in America,” “Climate Change,” “National Security,” and “Leadership.”
After former Clinton White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos refused to ask Biden a single question during ABC’s town hall last week about the fresh evidence implicating the former vice president in his son’s foreign business dealings, one has to wonder if the Democratic candidate already being protected by big tech, legacy media, and the debate commission will be forced to finally address the controversy.
On Wednesday, the New York Post dropped its first round of blockbuster reporting that revealed incriminating evidence against the former vice president on a laptop suspected of belonging to Hunter Biden obtained from a computer repair shop in Delaware.
Emails published by the Post show Joe Biden lied when he claimed repeatedly that he never spoke business with his son, “or with anyone else.” Now-public correspondence shows that Hunter Biden introduced his vice president father to a senior adviser for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company where Hunter served on the board. Hunter had no prior experience in the industry yet received upwards of $50,000 a month in excess compensation.
“Thank you for inviting me to DC and giving me an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together,” Burisma consultant Vadym Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter, whose father at the time was the “public face” of the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine.
Twitter and Facebook immediately weaponized their monopolistic power over the 21st-century public square to suppress the story.
On Thursday, the New York Post dropped round two of their reporting on content found in the computer that showed Hunter Biden stood to rake in $10 million a year for “introductions alone,” from a Chinese businessman with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The story was, of course, subjected to big tech censorship again.
The debate commission revealed its debate topics the next day. Foreign policy, which the Trump campaign claims had been the previously agreed focus following internal deliberations with Team Biden and the debate commission, wasn’t among them.
Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepein demanded the commission feature foreign policy as a primary topic for Thursday night’s event. That has become custom for the third presidential debate, although this week’s is technically the second to actually occur, after last week’s was canceled.
“We write with great concern over the announced topics for what was always billed as the ‘Foreign Policy Debate,’ in a series of events agreed to by both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign many months ago,” Stepein wrote, noting that many of the topics on the next debate’s docket had already been addressed at length in the first debate moderated by Chris Wallace. “For the good of campaign integrity, and for the benefit of the American people, we urge you to rethink and reissue a set of topics for the October 22 debate, with an emphasis on foreign policy.”
Our letter to the BDC (Biden Debate Commission) pic.twitter.com/ZsY5JfMbT7
— BillStepien (@BillStepien) October 19, 2020
It’s unlikely they will, given that the commission run entirely by Biden supporters has already been making decisions to the Democrat’s benefit such as flanking Trump with demands for a virtual debate that ultimately ended in canceling it. The second debate was also supposed to be moderated by a former Biden intern who exposed his own bias on Twitter when he publicly consulted fired former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, now a vocal NeverTrumper, on how to handle the president.
Interesting tweet from debate moderator Steve Scully to Anthony Scaramucci. https://t.co/3iRN9lidR6 pic.twitter.com/gImyfTCz9C
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 9, 2020
Scully initially claimed he was hacked before admitting it was a lie a week later. C-SPAN suspended Scully indefinitely. The town halls that took place instead paraded Biden supporters as “undecided voters,” and each failed to offer substantive dialogue on American foreign policy from the candidates, a major area of success for the Trump administration. Trump has brokered Middle East treaties culminating in the explosion of peace in the region.
Whether Biden will be pressed on Hunter Biden Thursday night is certain. The Trump campaign has already promised it. Whether it comes from the debate moderator as it should, however, remains the open question. Whether the moderator will step in to protect Joe Biden on stage remains an even bigger one.
When the Democratic nominee was finally pressed on the charges of corruption now plaguing his campaign, at least from conservative media reporting what legacy media has attempted to delegitimize despite hyping up the pee tape Steele dossier, Biden lashed out at the press, calling the report a smear campaign.
“I have no response,” Biden said. “It’s another smear campaign, right up your alley.”
I asked Joe Biden: What is your response to the NYPost story about your son, sir?
He called it a “smear campaign” and then went after me. “I know you’d ask it. I have no response, it’s another smear campaign, right up your alley, those are the questions you always ask.” pic.twitter.com/Eo6VD4TqxD
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) October 17, 2020
With new allegations of corruption roiling the campaign, reporters reverted to softball coverage, asking Biden what kind of ice cream he got on Sunday.
Joe Biden and granddaughter, Finnegan, get milkshakes at Cookout in Durham, NC pic.twitter.com/o4B8ziU7H9
— Tyler Pager (@tylerpager) October 18, 2020
One could easily imagine how the same reporters would behave if the roles were reversed and it was Trump exiting the North Carolina food joint while facing the same kind of accusations.
Possibly to avoid any more questions about the content revealed on his son’s laptop, the Biden campaign called a 72-hour cessation of campaigning Monday while not disputing the authenticity of the reported emails.
The Biden campaign has called a lid until Thursday.
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) October 19, 2020
