 The second and final presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will take place tonight in Nashville, Tennessee, and it will be moderated by NBC News anchor Kristen Welker. And I honestly am a little bit surprised that the debate is in fact taking place, at least at the time that I record this video, because we got some indications that Trump's team wasn't too happy about the format and the anchor claiming that she's biased, of course. But apparently it's taking place, and there's going to be six different subjects that will be discussed, divided up into six different segments, all 15 minutes each, including COVID-19, American Families, race, climate change, national security, and leadership. Don't necessarily know what that means, because leadership is kind of a vague subject category. But nonetheless, that's what we've got. I'd like healthcare to be added in the mix. But I mean, at least we've got climate change. That's pretty surprising. Now, the reason why I say that I'm actually shocked that Trump is participating is because Trump's campaign penned a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates demanding that foreign policy be added. Now it's weird because national security will be discussed. So you'd think that foreign policy will come up in that subject. But on top of that, they actually wanted subjects such as COVID-19 and race to be totally axed from the debates. Now it's funny because those are obviously Trump's weakest subjects. So the fact that they're trying to get those topics pushed out of the debate is really interesting. It shows that he's hurting and he's desperate, which is why I think he's showing up. But additionally, the Commission on Presidential Debates had announced that there will be a mute feature as part of this debate. And I call it a feature because that last debate was a complete catastrophe. It was a clusterfuck. And I wanted them to mute Donald Trump because he wouldn't shut the fuck up. It's not a debate if somebody will not stop talking and you're talking over someone. So you have to have this feature. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that Kristen Walker is going to be the one with the giant mute button, even though that would be awesome. But the production will be muting Donald Trump and Joe Biden, to be fair, if he's going to choose to do what he did last time. Now in an interview with Fox News, Donald Trump did in fact say that he has a lot of issues with the debate. He thinks that the moderator is like a megalib and he's super biased against Donald Trump. But in spite of all of the complaints that he had, it does seem as if he is implying that he will begrudgingly show up. The Commission has changed the debate rules for this last debate in two days. They have implemented a two minute uninterrupted rule. So they're going to have basically a mute button. They're going to mute your microphone while Joe Biden answers for the first two minutes and then mute his when you answer for the next two minutes. What are your thoughts? Well, I think the whole thing is crazy. This commission, I had problems with them four years ago where they stifled out my mic during my conversation with Crooked Hillary and, you know, they muted my mic. They did a whole thing. They did this to me already. They modulated it at the time and they actually had to write me a letter of apology. And they did it on purpose. Look, these people are not good people. This commission, a lot of funny things go on with them. And frankly, Kristen Welker, who I know, and, you know, I just went through Savannah Guthrie. I knew what I was getting into and it worked out fine, but she was out of line. She was totally out of line. And so was Chris Wallace. I know you'll defend him, but so was Chris Wallace. He was terrible. It was like two on one, and that was just fine with me. But at least they should admit that it was two on one. And the funny thing is Biden doesn't even do a show. Biden won't even go on a show. He'd get killed if he ever did the show. He couldn't do Chris's show. But Kristen Welker is terrible. I mean, she is a totally partisan. Her father and mother are big supporters of Joe Biden for a long time. They're supporters of the Democrat Party. And she deleted her entire account. And I was the one that told you people about Scully. Scully was no baby either. And then he got caught lying with his famous, oh, they hacked my account. You know, every time somebody gets caught, they always say they hacked my account. They said, here we go again with the hacking. So he had a problem. But Kristen Welker is far worse than Scully. But I do it anyway. I mean, I do it anyway. But this is the way it is. It's so set up. So he doesn't like that they're adding a mute button. He doesn't like the moderator, but he's still showing up. So that tells you that he knows he's in trouble. He knows that really this debate is his last chance to try to turn things around. And it might be too late because millions of people have already voted. So I mean, there's only so much that you can do. You've ran a terrible campaign this time. And I mean, if I were him, I would certainly show up. But you know, he's got to change his strategy. Now he's been kind of indicating that he thinks he did a good job. Now I think that most of this is just like bluster because he shared like a couple of unscientific polls on Twitter that certain networks posted that show he won the debate. But overall scientific polls showed that Joe Biden won the debate. But putting all of that aside. Joe Biden got a post-debate polling pump. So that last debate was a disaster. So if he honestly believes that he won that last debate and he shows up to this debate, not changing his strategy at all. I mean, I don't even know what to say, but we did get a little bit of an indication that he will in fact be changing his strategy and he won't be interrupting as much because I think he realized he turned off too many people with that last debate. So he may change his strategy, but we'll see. But in terms of what we can expect at tonight's debate, here's the thing. Trump has a window to change the trajectory of this election that is closing rapidly if it isn't already closed, at least if the polls are correct. Like nationally, Joe Biden is pulling well ahead of Donald Trump outside of the margin of error. So Joe Biden is most likely going to win the popular vote. But what it will come down to are the key battleground stage states, which are a little bit tighter. So here's the thing, a lot of people have already casted their votes. And unfortunately for Donald Trump, there are less undecided voters this time than there were in 2016. Having said that, though, I don't think that this election is over. I think that there still can be something that could happen that Trump can do or Biden could do or not do that changes this race. But it's tough. And statistically, it's very unlikely that this will be the case. But at this debate, could Trump theoretically turn things around? I think yes, but it's highly improbable. So how could he turn things around? So first of all, he has to have a dominant debate performance. So when I say dominant, I don't mean you interrupt Joe Biden every single second. It means you put him on the defensive and you make sure you are never playing defense. But that's going to be tough because they're talking about COVID-19 and you're the incumbent, so you've got to defend your record. And Trump has got to do more than say, yeah, well, I I did the China ban. That's not good enough. Like it's not resonating with people. You're not taking this seriously. You're still not wearing a mask in public after you tested positive. You have to change it up. So just like based on the format and the structure of this debate, it's going to be really tough for Donald Trump to play offense the entire time. He's going to have to play defense. But he can still win if he has a commanding performance to where it's unequivocal. He is the definite winner and nobody can deny it. But on top of that, he alone can't just have a good performance. One portion of this debate is out of his control. That's Joe Biden's performance. So if the stars align for Donald Trump and he has a phenomenal performance just that he's more convincing and Biden is playing defense for the majority of the night and Joe Biden has a poor debate. Joe Biden gets a little bit too cocky because the election is almost over and most people already made up their minds that could possibly trim things around. Now, it's not going to change things dramatically. But all Donald Trump needs is a slight shift in key battleground states. So if he tweaks his message and appeals to, you know, the Midwest, the rust belt, then he can make a difference. But I will say, again, that is going to be really tough to pull off. And I just I don't know that he can pull this off. Even if Donald Trump overall is viewed as the winner, that still doesn't necessarily mean that that win will lead to him changing the outcome of this race, because it's just a little bit too late, most likely, but it's not over yet. It's not over. There's still a little less than two weeks and things can change. Anything can happen. The election is not over. It's not a foregone conclusion. So I'm not going to, you know, count Donald Trump out yet. But do I think he's going to have a really tough time in this debate? Yeah, just the mere fact that, one, you have to defend your record on COVID-19. I mean, it makes sense that he didn't want to talk about COVID-19. And two, you have to talk about race and you won't even admit that systemic racism is a thing. You're going to have a tough time. So he's got to dramatically change his strategy. And I just don't think that he's going to do that. So we'll see. Now, in terms of Joe Biden, Joe Biden, he can breathe a little bit easier in this debate, but he has to still not get too arrogant because all he has to do is maintain. You don't have to have a stellar performance. You just have to get in there, take a couple of jabs at Donald Trump, prove to people that you're more more competent and you'll handle COVID-19 like an adult and you're good. That's it. Because this debate really is make or break for Donald Trump. Again, the stars have to align. He has to have a phenomenal performance. He can't just like marginally win. And, you know, people slightly think that maybe Trump did better and something Biden did better, like it has to be a huge success for Donald Trump. Otherwise, you're not going to change the trajectory of this race. And that's what you care about. Like at this point, it doesn't matter who wins the debate. But each candidate has to make sure that they do something to actually move the needle in their direction. And for Trump, he's got to move the needle a lot. And that's just, again, at this point in time in the race, that's just so hard to do. So I am going to expect Donald Trump to do a shitty job. And I say that because he's under so much pressure, like just from a human standpoint, he might he might huff and puff and, you know, appear really overconfident all the time. But deep down, like this is a human being who has insecurities. Who knows that he has to perform, despite what he says and how good he thinks he performed at that last debate. He knows this is his one chance, his one final chance to make his case. And every single time he was given the microphone in the past, had a chance to prove himself, he face planted. So he knows this is it. It's do or die. That is a lot of pressure. That's a lot of pressure, especially if you care about your legacy and optics more than anything. And, you know, you would be embarrassed by being a one term president as if that's like an embarrassing thing. But that's the way that he thinks. But Trump knows everything is riding on this. I mean, if you can't perform well at this debate and perform exceptionally well, I don't know that we're going to get one last minute October surprise that changes this race. So I mean, all eyes are on Donald Trump because what he does or doesn't do can really change things. If he just like went on that stage and acted like a grown up, didn't insult Joe Biden, didn't focus on, you know, these narrow issues that really only appeal to his own base. He could maybe move the needle a little bit. But again, this is such a tricky position to be in. Like, if I'm in this election, I'm not going to call it yet. But I would want to be in Joe Biden's position rather than Donald Trump's position. So I am expecting Donald Trump to not perform up to what he needs to perform at. Like, will he do at least as well as he did in the Republican primaries where I thought he had pretty solid performances? It's possible, but he really is just so out of touch and in his own bubble and surrounded by yes, men that I don't know that he's going to he's going to have it in him. So we'll see. Look, maybe it'll be entertaining at least. But that last debate was just soul crushing. So at least the one thing that I want my minimum expectations is that this doesn't feel like a dumpster fire. But I think that it probably will be a dumpster fire. So whatever, we'll watch it. And then I will have my post-debate breakdown, as I usually do, ready at 8 a.m. Pacific time. So definitely stay tuned because I'll share my thoughts and we'll see if my expectations actually played out. Mike is the worst progressive on YouTube. 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