WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Thursday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.
· The transfixing Presidential Debate was an actual event now fixed in history forever and yet it was seen as completely different things through the eyes and ears somehow transformed into filters by various degrees of partisanship. After @macenewsmacro’s 67 tweets on Trump and Biden answers there were more with reactions drawn from post-debate TV screen patter:
· Debate react: Fox News’ Sean Hannity says Biden “caught in lie after lie after lie.” MSNBC’s Claire McCaskill says Trump “was a manufacturer of lie after lie after lie after lie.”
· Debate react: National Review’s Rich Lowry, on NBC, says Biden looked “pretty good” throughout but gave Trump campaign an opening by saying he would transition out of the oil industry.
· Debate react: Fox News contributor Donna Brazile, “This was not the Twitter Donald Trump.” Tone was different but still was Trump who wouldn’t release taxes. Also no health care plan. ABC’s Dan Abrams says Hunter Biden-related charges didn’t apply to Joe Biden.
· Debate react: NBC’s Chuck Todd says Trump’s more restrained performance “stopped the bleeding.” Fox’s Chris Wallace says questions favored Biden. Though Biden “very successful” countering email charges, and on tax returns.
· Debate react: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow says Trump misinforming on virus cures. Not true mortality rates better than other countries. Worse on Earth. Fox Biz’s contributor says “viewers won,” because debate had substance.
· Debate react: Fox Biz’s Kennedy says Biden being uninterrupted “played to the president’s strengths.” Made points on 1994 crime bill. On CBS, ex-Wht Hse’s Reince Priebus says if president influenced just small numbers in key states, would make big difference.
· And so it went on through the night and from now until Election Day when the ultimate reaction arrives. It will take some more hours before the general impression from the debate begins to settle out into a consensus view of who gained the most. Champions on both sides will argue points large and small to illustrate how their guy aced it. So many words, little zingers that landed or didn’t, statements that will be disassembled by fact checkers, the inevitable follow-up presidential tweets, the weight of fleeting impressions – it all will add up to the final verdict at the polls.
· Meanwhile the tsunami warning has been sounded, about the big wave of evictions, bankruptcies and children experiencing acute hunger, and some have heard it and some have not, at least not yet. Speaking of the Senate, as White House economic policy coordinator Larry Kudlow – he of the V-shaped recovery – said, time is running out. Would a last-gasp pandemic relief deal promising checks or cash cards in the mail have made a difference? That may be the question bouncing off the walls of the Capitol on the Senate side the day after the election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who Wednesday was certain a bill is on the way, sounded a little less certain at her briefing Thursday. The same big roadblocks, aid to state and local governments and child care subsidies, appear to still be blocking the road.
· Upcoming economic statistics include the new Chicago Fed’s ALEX GDP model’s debut at 9a ET and the Markit Composite manufacturing and services index at 9:45a. The morning’s initial jobless benefit claims total was “down” according to many reports but actually it was up and still a huge number, just less than last week as Kevin Kastner details elsewhere on this macenews.com site. Existing-home sales came in even stronger than expected.
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