There was a clear winner in Thursday night’s debate — President Donald Trump. And you don’t have to take my word for it. The overwhelming majority of undecided voters in a Los Angeles Times focus group also agreed that Trump won the debate. Here are some highlights:

• Trump slammed Biden for being a failed 47-year career politician who didn’t do anything, saying, “You know, Joe, I ran because of you. I ran because of Barack Obama, because you did a poor job.” It was a powerful hit against Biden and a theme the president came back to repeatedly.

• Trump more than held his own during the discussion of COVID, and he put Biden on defense over shutting down the country again. Biden even started suggesting things that he wanted to shut down, like bars and gyms. Polls show that only one-third of Americans support additional lockdowns.

• Debate organizers deployed a mute button for the candidates, which seemed to work okay. But perhaps the candidates need a button to mute the moderator. Kristen Welker interrupted Trump 41 times and interrupted Biden only eight times. Once again, the president was debating two Democrats, Joe Biden and whoever is supposedly moderating.

• There were some bizarre moments, such as when Joe Biden insisted that nobody lost their health insurance under Obamacare. Millions of people lost their insurance plans because of Obamacare. And Barack Obama’s claim that people could keep insurance plans and doctors they liked was labeled by PolitiFact as 2013’s “Lie of the Year.” Surely Joe Biden knows that.

• Biden insisted that he supports private insurance and opposes socialized healthcare. Yet his own healthcare plan calls for a “public option,” which is government-funded healthcare designed to drive private plans out of business. That’s why Bernie Sanders says Joe Biden is the “most progressive” candidate in generations.

• Biden also bizarrely claimed that he never said he would ban fracking. Yes, he did. And so did his running mate, Kamala Harris.

• Biden is trying to deny his environmental extremism now because he knows it’s a huge problem for him. But he also said he wants to phase out the fossil fuel industry. Well, that sounds like a fracking ban to me. By the way, that’s not the only industry he’s going to “phase out.” He’ll destroy the medical industry too. And who knows how many businesses Biden would destroy with additional lockdowns.

• In one telling moment about how liberal he is, Biden criticized his former boss, claiming Obama was too tough on illegal immigration! Biden then promised a massive amnesty bill in his first 100 days.

• Perhaps the most bizarre moment was when Biden declared that America “had a good relationship with Hitler” before he invaded Europe. That’s a grotesque lie, but I guess Biden has been spending a lot of time reading the 1619 Project and absorbing the left’s revisionist history. (See below.)

How do you spend four days in debate preparation and still make mistakes like that? By the way, Biden was back in his basement Friday, while President Trump began what will be six rallies over three days.

Bad News for Biden

Joe Biden got some bad news right before Thursday night’s debate. Tony Bobulinski, one of Hunter Biden’s former business partners, held a dramatic press conference 90 minutes before the debate.

He said Joe Biden was lying about his family not profiting from foreign influence dealings. Bobulinksi presented three cellphones that he said contained evidence of the family’s dealings. Bobulinski said he would be meeting with Senate investigators and handing the devices over to government authorities.

Of course, the mainstream media ignored Bobulinksi’s statement. The media insists that such information is unverified and then they do absolutely nothing to attempt to verify it.

The most telling thing is that Joe Biden and his campaign have never actually denied the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop now in FBI possession or the messages on it that point to widespread corruption with communist China.

Biden attempted to dismiss the allegations as “Russian disinformation,” but the director of national intelligence flatly refuted Biden’s claim.

Big Media dragged the American people and the president through the mud for years over a completely discredited dossier with absurd charges. But when presented with evidence about the Biden family’s dealings with the communist Chinese, it refuses to even look at it.

This story is a perfect example of media bias. It’s not just how the media spin information. It’s also what they refuse to tell you.

In fact, Jake Tapper and Chuck Todd actually mocked President Trump for raising this issue, saying that only Fox viewers would have any idea what he was talking about. Well, that’s because the left-wing media are propaganda arms of the Democrat Party!

Biden Runs Down America

Earlier this week, the Biden campaign released an ad on social media that wholly embraces the radical left’s disdain for our country. In the ad, Biden says, “America was an idea, an idea. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ We’ve never lived up to it.”

Never lived up to it?

What does Joe Biden think the Civil War was about? What does he think World War II was about? What does he think the civil rights movement was about?

I guess he’s got a pretty low opinion of Barack Obama’s election and reelection, too.

I disagreed vehemently with Barack Obama on virtually every public policy issue. But like millions of Americans, I had high hopes for what his election represented in terms of racial reconciliation.

For Joe Biden to dismiss that and all the tremendous progress this country has made is beyond insulting. And it just shows how extreme today’s Democrat Party has become.

No candidate seeking to lead this nation would have dreamed of running such an ad in previous presidential campaigns.

But Biden and his party have rejected American exceptionalism. They have embraced the left’s mantra that “America was never great” and that it must be “fundamentally transformed” into who knows what.

As much as anything else before us, this is THE ISSUE of the campaign.

As Vice President Mike Pence has put it, “The choice in this election is whether America remains America.”

I believe it is central to why Donald Trump prevailed in 2016, and why I believe he must prevail this November.

Please join me and Reverend Franklin Graham in a day of fasting and prayer this Sunday for our country.

Confused About Coyotes

This next item could make you laugh or cry.

It seems President Trump stumped many on the left Thursday night when he said that children were being taken across the border by coyotes.

Apparently, there are plenty of progressives who are totally ignorant about human trafficking. They actually thought he meant the animal, not a smuggler!