President Joe Biden may be receiving a lot of bad press from Thursday’s debate, but the things Donald Trump said were much worse, argued former lawyer Dean Obeidallah on Sunday. Biden has faced repeated calls to drop out of the race after failing to adequately respond to Trump at the first presidential debate.
Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney and host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program, “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” weighed in on an article from CNN. The commentator said that “while Biden’s performance on Thursday is a legitimate issue, the media’s laser-focused coverage of it has resulted in former President Donald Trump all but being given a pass for vile and — in the opinion of many — racist remarks he made at the debate.”
“And Trump’s comments were far, far worse than anything Biden said,” he added.
Obeidallah pointed out one of Trump’s remarks during the debate that has been criticized as racist. “For starters, there was Trump’s use of the word Palestinian as a slur,” he noted. “My late father was a Palestinian immigrant. Trump used his heritage as an insult during the exchange when he said Biden ‘has become like a Palestinian,'” the ex-attorney said Sunday. “To make matters worse, Trump repeated the use of Palestinian as a smear on Friday at a rally in Virginia, where he said about Democratic US Senator Chuck Schumer, ‘He’s become a Palestinian. He’s a Palestinian now.'”
Obeidallah continued by citing another example of Trump’s controversial remarks at the debate. “Then there was Trump’s baseless comment during the debate claiming that migrants coming to our nation were ‘taking Black jobs.’ Given Trump’s documented history of anti-Black remarks and his defense of white supremacists, the remark rightly raised red flags,” he said. “And immigration groups and think tanks that have studied the issue have long asserted that immigrants to this country for the most part do not take jobs from Americans.”
The debate has sparked significant controversy and criticism of both candidates. However, Obeidallah argues that the media’s intense focus on Biden’s performance has overshadowed the gravity of Trump’s statements. “The media’s fixation on Biden’s performance has allowed Trump to evade scrutiny for his inflammatory and offensive comments,” he emphasized.
As the election race continues, the debate’s fallout highlights the ongoing tension and division in American politics. While Biden faces pressure to improve his debate presence, Obeidallah urges the public and media not to overlook the problematic nature of Trump’s rhetoric.