On Friday’s “Morning Joe,” guest John Heilemann described the president as “Quaalude Trump” after his relatively subdued debate performance Thursday night. That, compared to his aggressive first outing, which Heilemann called “Crystal Meth Trump.”
“I think ‘Quaalude Trump’ is better than ‘Crystal Meth Trump,’ you know, from the last debate,” the MSNBC national affairs analyst said. “That was, like, an improvement, I think.”
The rest of the morning show panel chuckled at the description. Host Joe Scarborough mused that if the analysts were “going down that road,” they should point out the fictional drugs “wore off” after a little over an hour of debate.
Heilemann added, “He needed one extra ‘lude to get him through the whole thing and he wasn’t quite there. ‘Quaalude Trump’ was still not that great. Joe Biden, I think, you know, he’s best one-on-one. I think his previous best debate performance was one-on-one against Bernie Sanders. I thought Biden was clear, on-point and making his arguments and did not tire, as he sometimes has in some of the debates. He was strong, I thought, throughout.”
In terms of actual relevant substance, Trump and Biden did discuss drug use during Thursday night’s debate. Biden, specifically, shared his support of diversion programs over jail time for non-violent drug offenses, saying, “No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem.”
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