Watching Tuesday night's presidential debate "was painful," Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night's Late Show. "I mean, to see a Fox News commentator have to try to constantly wrestle with the president of the United States just so Joe Biden would have time to speak, it was embarrassing to our country." President Trump acted like he thinks, "Well, Putin doesn't have to go through these things, why do I even have to be here?" he added, "What I liked about Joe Biden is he kept trying to turn it away from the two men on the stage and back to the American people."
"The whole night was just sad" and "our commander in chief was just so ugly," Booker said, but Trump's comments about the Proud Boys alone was "like a dagger to the heart of that American aspiration" and "truly menacing to all that we stand for." Because he didn't just fail to condemn white supremacists, "he said 'stand back and stand by' to the Proud Boys, a right-wing hate organization," Booker said, and they seem to have embraced "those words almost as if they're a license from the president to stand ready in an election to engage."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) told Jimmy Kimmel that Biden had a "very, very difficult" job in debating Trump, "who is a bully, who is a liar, who doesn't even respect the rules of the debate." Kimmel asked if he thinks "these televised debates are constructive," and Sanders said probably not: "I don't think tonight was a great night for America, and I think I was probably not the only person yelling at the TV."
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"I wonder if you were surprised when specifically asked if he would denounce white supremacists, that the president dodged it and did not do that," Kimmel said. "I guess that it's hard to be shocked anymore, but that was shocking to me." Sanders said Trump is a "racist" and a "xenophobe" and urged people to vote: "The American people have got to make this clear — and I say this to Republicans and I say this to independents, not just Democrats: If you believe in democracy, if you believe in the Constitution and in the rule of law, Trump has got to go, because he does not believe in those things." Watch below. Peter Weber
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