Tim Miller and Susan Glasser join Yahoo News to analyze the final presidential debate

Yahoo News Editor in Chief Dan Klaidman and Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff are joined by Tim Miller, political director of Republican Voters Against Trump and writer-at-large for the Bulwark Online, and Susan Glasser, a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, to offer expert commentary on the final presidential debate.

Video Transcript

DAN KLAIDMAN: Well, we are back with Mike Isikoff, chief investigative reporter for Yahoo News. And we are watching the candidates and their wives, masked wives, on the debate stage after a spirited 90 minutes or more. This was not the-- certainly a more subdued debate than the last one, but hardly a love fest. A lot of zingers, not friendly at all. We are, I think, joined as well by Tim Miller. Tim, are you there?

TIM MILLER: I'm here.

DAN KLAIDMAN: OK, great. Who served as Jeb Bush's communications director during the 2016 presidential campaign and now is a contributor at the Bulwark. Tim, let's go to you first. Just give us--

TIM MILLER: Sure.

DAN KLAIDMAN: --your overall impression of this debate and what the sort of defining moment of it was, if there was one, and the extent to which you think it will have an impact.

TIM MILLER: You know, look, I mean, these do have impacts. These do have an impact. At Bulwark and my other hat, Republican Voters Against Trump, you know, we do focus groups and hear from voters who are still legitimately undecided. So this will have an impact. My take on tonight is that, you know, Donald Trump didn't have a tantrum like a five-year-old boy. So he'll probably be graded on a curve because of that, among the other pundits.

But among the-- when it comes to the big issue that is facing everybody in this country right now, all of us, who are either social distancing, or stuck in our homes, or, you know, for some people, struggling to make ends meet, they spent the first 20 minutes on it, and he doesn't have a plan for that. He doesn't have a plan for dealing with the pandemic. He wants everything just to go back to normal like magic, like he's wanted to from the start.

And so I think the fact that he doesn't have a good answer to that central question is going to be the big-- is the big problem for him. But I think he probably stopped the bleeding from the last debate, you know, because he didn't act like a child.

DAN KLAIDMAN: And we are now joined as well by Susan Glasser. Susan is a staff writer for the New Yorker and co-author of "The Man Who Ran Washington, The Life and Times of James Baker," that everyone is talking about that book. So congratulations. What stood out for you tonight?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, right, aside from the lack of shouting and interruptions, you know, it was painful to watch President Trump have to answer policy questions. You know, he just-- it's just so remarkable that he's the president, but he really just doesn't want to talk about the actual nitty gritty work of governing, and that includes governing during the pandemic.

I agree with Tim that the first section on the coronavirus, really, is-- you know, that is the defining issue of the election. And of course that's what Trump has been trying to avoid for the last seven months because it's a terrible defining issue for an incumbent president to have lost more than 220,000 Americans on his watch.

It was a sort of facsimile of what a normal presidential debate would look like, except if the incumbent president didn't really have a plan and [INAUDIBLE] talking about basic issues. You know, the much [INAUDIBLE] Hunter Biden allegations devolved into sort of a, you know, your corruption is worse than mine finger pointing exercise. Trump taxes versus what did Biden's son do, I think it was sort of a wash in the end. Hard to imagine that [INAUDIBLE] undecided voters can pass the ballot on.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Yeah, Isikoff, I want to bring you in on the Hunter Biden allegations and the back and forth on corruption because I sort of put myself in the shoes of an average American voter listening to that who maybe hasn't read all the stories. It didn't seem to me like Trump landed any real blows because it was just hard to understand-- I mean, hard to know what he was talking about. I think we may be having an audio problem.

- You're on mute, Michael.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Mike, I think you might be on mute. OK, yeah, all right. Well, hopefully we'll be able to solve Isikoff's audio problem. But, you know, I throw it back to you, Tim. You know, I think this was what the Trump campaign was hoping that they would get traction on this issue. They would begin to try to make the argument that they could disqualify Joe Biden because he's corrupt.

But it seems to me that on sort of these two-- in these two ways, both kind of hard to understand. There sort of aren't a lot of-- enough facts out there yet. No one really knows-- understands the narrative. That's one, and secondly, Joe Biden, there's no sort of predisposition here to think that he is corrupt, right? I mean, isn't that part of the problem with trying to make that argument against him?

TIM MILLER: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was unfortunate that they went to it so early. That was my only-- I thought Kristin did great tonight. But that'd be my only complaint about her. I mean, it's just-- it's a completely nonsense attack. I mean, I think that Trump was completely unsuccessful I think at landing that and making people understand exactly what happened.

He might have been successful at muddying the waters on the issue of corruption. And I think that that is-- you know, if I'm the Biden campaign-- I'm looking at tonight-- I think he did a really good job talking about the kitchen table issues. And I think that was one of his main goals tonight.

I don't know if he did as good of a job in distinguishing himself as uncorrupt, somebody who has basic respect for American norms and institutions, as compared to Trump. They kind of fought that to a draw a little bit, where it was like, you did this, you did that.

And so I think Trump had some success in turning that into kind of a game of he said, he said, when it's like-- I mean, Trump is literally taking money from the Turks right now. I'm like yelling at my TV screen. Like, Trump is taking money from Turkey right now, as we speak. And it's like-- and meanwhile, he's got all these confusing accusations about Biden. I think the average viewer probably saw that as a draw.

DAN KLAIDMAN: OK, let's bring Isikoff back in.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Yeah, a couple points--

DAN KLAIDMAN: Because you were making-- go ahead.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Yeah, look, this was-- clearly, the Trump camp wanted to make an issue about the Hunter Biden stuff. And I agree that it kind of fell flat. It got very much in the weeds. And for the overwhelming majority of Americans, well, probably 99% who are not in the weeds on this story, it would have had a very hard time figuring out what Trump-- the points that Trump was trying to make. He didn't make them especially effectively.

You know, he was kind of all over the map. You said your family got $3 and 1/2 million from Russia. I never got any money from Russia. Of course, he was trying to do business in Russia while running for president. But overall, I think the debate was a wash. I mean, the only winner was Kristin Welker, who I thought did a masterful job of reining the candidates in and keeping it moving.

I thought Biden had a few good lines. I don't look at the way-- at this the way he does, blue states versus red states. We're all Americans. You know, resonating-- echoing Barack Obama in that famous 2004 convention speech. And I thought that was pretty effective. I thought Trump had made a fairly decent line later when he said you had eight years. What did you do? You were a politician. You're all talk and no action.

But overall, clearly no knockout blows. And I want to just make one other point here. This was supposed to be a debate about national security. Remember? That was the original idea. And it barely came up in this debate. You know, some talk about China a bit. But overall, on foreign policy, very little was said.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Susan, this is, really, the last big event of the campaign. It's the last time that these two candidates will be on a stage together. One of the things in the final debate that presidential candidates are expected to try to do is to give a closing argument. Did you hear closing arguments from either Trump or Biden tonight?

SUSAN GLASSER: You know, look, that's been the mystery of Trump's campaign from, you know, for the last few months, really, is it's unclear what he's running on. You know, the Republican Party didn't even pass a platform at his convention this year, I think for the first time ever. So it's not entirely clear what Trump is running on. He was asked that directly, actually, by the moderator. And I agree, she did an excellent job tonight.

And he essentially said, I'm running to make America like 2019 again, which is a little bit harder to sell as a program for four years since you've been in office for four years. Biden, you know, his closing argument was sort of unchanged by the back and forth over Hunter Biden and corruption. He basically is running on decency and values and the idea that this isn't, you know, the America we want it to be.

But he seemed a little bit rote when he offered that at the ending. I felt like he was a bit shaken by the back and forth with Trump. And he didn't even bring his normal passion to the question of why he's running for office. Now he does have a huge amount more money than Donald Trump does for the closing days. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if you see the Biden campaign buying a chunk of airtime for him to offer the kind of more composed closing argument to the country that I didn't hear from him tonight.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Yeah. Tim, what about you? I mean, I was sort of struck by the last question that Kristin Welker asked. Imagine you are giving your inauguration address and addressing the people who didn't vote for you. How do you think the candidates answered that question?

TIM MILLER: Yeah, look, I think that Biden had a two-pronged message, closing message. The first one was really just this kitchen table economics. You know, I think he did really well in the minimum wage section in the COVID stimulus section, talking about people's families, talking about people struggling to make ends meet, how McConnell's not doing anything and Trump is. I thought he got that across quite well.

You know, his other message, I kind of agree with Susan. I just-- it's frustrating because the contrast between Biden and Trump is so strong on the issue of decency and compassion. And you just-- like, we're all kind of yearning for that big moment of contrast on this point when you just sort of rip through all of the ways, all of the grotesque [INAUDIBLE] and indignities of the Trump era. And I thought his kind of close on that was rote.

Trump's closing message, I think what he was trying to do, besides the fact that he's very well versed in Burisma and knows a lot more details about Burisma than COVID, I think his other closing message was that he's not a politician. He was trying to go back to the 2016 closing message. Biden is a politician. He's been there 47 years. He couldn't get anything done. I was getting stuff done before the plague came in.

I think in the last maybe 20 minutes, I think he did an OK job of getting that message across. It's just-- it came after a very struggle by section on COVID and then confusing half hour on Biden and the bank accounts.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Isikoff.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Yeah. Yeah, I just want to say, I think that Trump kind of misstepped when the issue of African-Americans and minorities came up. Because clearly, you know, the Trump campaign is trying to make inroads in the African-American community, in particular talking about criminal justice reform.

But when he got that question and he brought up Black Lives Matter and said, my first glimpse and look at Black Lives Matter is people chanting pigs in a blanket, talking about cops. You know, the Black Lives Matter slogan, movement, has really cut across all racial, ethnic, and demographic lines.

I mean, you can't walk through neighborhoods in many parts of the country without seeing Black Lives Matter signs. And I think Trump really undercut whatever efforts his campaign was making to reach out to African-Americans by dismissing the entire Black Lives Matter movement. I thought that was a misstep by him.

And just one other point about the Hunter Biden stuff because, you know, if you notice just when he brought it up, and this was, you know, what they were hoping it was going to be a knockout blow for them or a knockout punch, at least, at Biden. Biden was able to turn it back with a little help from Welker on Trump's taxes and put Trump on the defensive, talking about taxes.

And he starts talking about how, oh, that $750 was prepaid. And I really paid a lot more. Of course, then he had to explain why he hasn't released them. And I think it definitely muffled the impact of what Trump was trying to do by raising the Hunter Biden stuff.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Yeah, you know, on the Black Lives Matters point, I agree with you. And when I was watching it, my reaction was, this president has been living in a bubble. And, you know, he is listening to his, you know, right wing advisors who are feeding him, you know, frankly, a lot of propaganda about this movement. And, you know, we've heard it all before that it is a Marxist Leninist movement, which I think they-- I don't know exactly how they get to that. But we heard that from Matt Schlapp, for example, on our--

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Don't you remember when we had Matt Schlapp on the podcast, and he just goes on and on--

DAN KLAIDMAN: Yeah, yeah.

TIM MILLER: You guys had to suffer through Matt Schlapp? I'll have to listen to that. That's painful.

DAN KLAIDMAN: But I think there was a lot of that tonight from him. And I think, you know, harder, in some ways, for a president who-- you know, they do live in bubbles. And this one, I think, in particular. We have time for last thoughts from everybody. So last thoughts on the debate and where things go from here over the next 12, really now 11, days. Why don't we start with you, Susan?

SUSAN GLASSER: Yeah, look, Dan, Joe Biden came into this with a lead, whether it was, you know, eight points, nine points, 10 points. And Donald Trump is the one who, in fact, was the challenger tonight and needed to do something to change the dynamic. It's very hard for an incumbent president who's behind by something, like, absent some, you know, earth shattering external event.

That's what happened four years ago in the form of, you know, then FBI director Jim Comey's intervention on October 29, 2016, after the final debate with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Trump didn't save himself in any significant way tonight. That's what he needed to do. That probably wasn't possible anyways. It's hard to provision anyone, you know, really changing their mind because of anything that was said tonight.

And another major difference, of course, from four years ago is something like 48 million Americans have already voted in this election. So your potential audience is even smaller in that respect than it was before. So, you know, I imagine this is not going to go down in history as one of the more memorable presidential debates.

Donald Trump, bottom line, needed to come in here and either force Biden to make a terrible mistake or somehow transform the American public's view of him. That neither was really realistic. Biden held his own against Trump. And in this case, a tie goes to the guy who comes in with the 10-point lead.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Tim, what do you think? And I'm sure you're looking at the polling closely. Have you seen any movement? I mean, this has been a remarkably stable race. Are you seeing anything at all that is changing the nature of the race and that might continue to change, based on what you saw tonight in this debate?

TIM MILLER: Yeah, just, I'll get to the polls at the end. Two one second things-- one sentence things on the debate that I just wanted to mention. Biden's line-- Biden's best line of the night where-- was when he said to Trump, I think you're confused. I'm Joe Biden, and I beat all those guys that you'r3e trying to compare me to. That is a good message for him with the voters that I'm about to talk to about the polls.

My final pet peeve is we're now through three debates, and we didn't talk about Lafayette Square. And I think that Trump benefits from this bias of he's been such an outlier in his horrible actions over the course of the presidency, you can't get to everything that he's done. And to have three debates without talking about an action that would have been the most unconscionable action of any of the other presidencies in my lifetime, I think is frustrating.

As far as the polls are concerned, you know, look, the voters that we talked to who are still undecided, most of them are leaning Biden, but were worried about him. Like, they were watching these debates because they had bought into the old mental acuity, dementia line from the Trump camp and from Fox. And I think they were looking for a reason to vote for him or a reason to stay home.

And so I think that he acquitted himself fine with those undecided voters. And so while he might not have kept the pedal to the metal tonight, I just-- it's hard for me to imagine a big tick back. We're seeing in our internal polls, you know, Biden's up narrowly in all of these key states. A little closer for my comfort. I wish he was up 10 in all these states. I don't think that's it.

Our polls have him up about four, five, six across Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida. Only about two or three in Florida, actually. So in theory, if there is a push back to Trump after this debate, you know, we could be in for a neck and neck race. But Biden's got a little room.

DAN KLAIDMAN: Isikoff, final thoughts?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Yeah, I think, look, there was no clear winner here. If anything, I'm point scoring. I would probably give a small edge to Biden. But let's remember, I think most pundits like us gave the debates of 2016, scored it for Hillary, and Trump still won. So I don't think that the debates-- this debate is going to be decisive. I think that the Trump people have one play left, and that's the Hunter Biden stuff. And I think you're going to hear a lot about it next week.

And, you know, we started out talking about this guy, Tony Bobulinski-- Bobulinski. I think you're going to see him all over the news next week, certainly in conservative media. It might seep into other news organizations as well. And--

DAN KLAIDMAN: OK, well, I--

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: I think that's the only [INAUDIBLE].

DAN KLAIDMAN: Yeah, I raised-- on the front end, before the debate, I raised the question of whether Tony Bobulinski-- I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right-- is going to be a household name.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Bobulinski.

DAN KLAIDMAN: I don't think he is going to be a household name is my guess. And a lot of people won't be able to pronounce his name. Apparently, I can't, but in any event. Well, thanks to all of you, Susan Glasser, Tim Miller, Isikoff, as always, for joining us tonight. And everybody stay with Yahoo News and Skullduggery through the election and beyond. And have a good evening.