‘I’ve never seen the depth of moral corruption’: controversial Netanyahu doc screens at Toronto
Despite a legal attempt to stop it, documentary The Bibi Files, which shows leaked interrogation footage of the Israeli prime minister, made its debut at the festival
Audiences got a look at Benjamin Netanyahu’s leaked police interrogation videos for the first time at last night’s world premiere of The Bibi Files. The urgent and incendiary documentary played at the Toronto film festival despite the Israeli prime minister’s attempts to block its screening.
Israeli courts rejected Netanyahu’s request before the film – in which he is seen furiously denying allegations of bribery and corruption – was unveiled to a tense and vocal audience, many of whom were carrying signs reading “Bring Them Home” and “Deal Now”, referring to hostages held in Gaza.
The film, directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney, builds a rigorous and damning case, posing an argument close observers may already be familiar with: Netanyahu is prolonging the devastating war in Gaza – which has amassed more than 40,000 casualties – to avoid possible prison time stemming from corruption charges. A humanitarian crisis flouting international law is all about his self-preservation.
According to the documentary – which Bloom began working on before 7 October, when a source provided Gibney with the leaked videos – Netanyahu’s lawyer filed a motion to delay the trial currently scheduled for December. The lawyer cites the ongoing war as the reason.
“I’ve never seen the depth of moral corruption as I’ve seen in this man,” Gibney, the director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, told the audience following the screening. A member of what appeared to be a largely pro-Israel audience policed Gibney’s language, interrupting the producer to clarify that Netanyahu had not yet been found guilty. The attempts at seizing control of the narrative, both on screen and off, didn’t end there.
The interrogation videos shown in the film were recorded by police between 2016 and 2018 before they formally brought charges of corruption against Netanyahu. The footage includes the prime minister addressing allegations that he and his wife accepted expensive champagne, Cuban cigars and jewelry from the Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. Netanyahu is heard minimizing the champagne and cigars as simply gifts from a friend, while denying knowledge of the jewelry.
Several witnesses who worked for Milchan and Netanyahu are also shown speaking to police. They paint a picture of regular gifts expected by Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, in exchange for favours. One such favour includes a marginal tax break extension that benefited Milchan. Netanyahu argues his unusual interference regarding the tax break was for the good of the state, not Milchan. Meanwhile, the LA Confidential producer corroborated much of the witness testimony, though, in one excerpt, he gently asks police not to use the word “bribery” because it would make him look bad.
Netanyahu is also seen vehemently denying allegations that he signed off on regulations favouring the Israeli media mogul Shaul Elovitch. The prime minister repeatedly and dramatically calls one of his top aides, Nir Hefetz, a liar for saying so. Other witnesses argue Elovitch paid back the alleged generosity by allowing Netanyahu to directly influence coverage of his family on the popular website Walla.
The incriminating evidence in the interrogation videos have already been leaked and reported on by Israeli media. But the videos will never be shown to the public (at least legally) in that country. According to Gibney, Israeli law grants privacy to subjects who have been photographed in official proceedings, which would make publication of the footage illegal. “It’s a peculiar law to Israel [that] doesn’t affect the rest of the world,” Gibney said.
He explained that they brought The Bibi Files to Toronto, as a work-in-progress, because it urgently needed to be seen while the death toll in Gaza continues to rise. But also because they are seeking distribution partners at the festival’s market, hoping to get the film released as quickly as possible for the world to see.
Though the documentary doesn’t reveal new information, Gibney explains that for an audience familiar with Netanyahu’s carefully stage-managed speeches, watching his agitation under interrogation, where his performance begins to crack, is illuminating. At various points when police officers confront him with incriminating testimony from his peers, Netanyahu raises fists and repeatedly slams his hand against his desk as if the banging will silence the accusations.
“Even in the interrogation videos, you see performances,” says Gibney. “But you see performances that are not as finely tuned; that are performed for an audience of three people; that he doesn’t think is going to get out of the room.”
The Bibi Files contextualizes the interrogation videos with a portrait of Netanyahu, whose career is built on stoking fear and promising security, and whose personal life is largely in service of his wife Sara’s turbulent moods and expensive lifestyle. Sara Netanyahu’s erratic testimonies and outbursts during testimony are also included in the footage.
Insiders like the Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker, former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon, a childhood friend and more are on hand as talking heads. They connect the dots and reveal the long-running pattern of Netanyahu serving his own interests while clinging to power – from deliberate ploys to sabotage an alliance between the West Bank and Gaza by enabling Hamas, to his alliance with the violent far right and attempted overhaul of the supreme court to save himself from prosecution.
Bloom expressed disappointment after the screening that more people didn’t speak up on the record. She said she interviewed former chiefs of staff, heads of Shin Bet and others in senior positions under Netanyahu who would speak to her for hours about his lies and corruption. One of them compared his regime to the Netflix series House of Cards. “One said to me, ‘Well, you know, I might go into politics myself one day,’” Bloom recalled. “‘So I have to be careful.’”
The atmosphere at the premiere, which was announced just days before the festival began, was more anxious than usual. Added security, including a police canine unit, were at the scene. While the screening itself went off without a hitch, many in the audience appeared agitated during the post-screening conversation between Bloom, Gibney and Tiff’s documentary programmer, Thom Powers. Some yelled out for their turn to have a say, prompting Powers to call for some order and avoid overt statements.
Following the conversation, a visibly nervous Bloom was surrounded by a crowd and accosted by an audience member who claimed that she included “a bunch of lies” in the film. He was referring to the report that more than 40,000 people have been killed by Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
“You don’t know that,” he said before asking, accusingly, “Are you trusting Hamas?”
“I think they’re corroborated,” Bloom gently responded.
“You are putting a false narrative out there,” he warned.
The Bibi Files is screening at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution
Erick Erickson@EWErickson
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13m
Trump lost the debate and whining about the moderators doesn’t change it. He didn’t lose because of their behavior. He lost because of his own performance while his lips were moving, not theirs.
Bernard Goldberg@BernardGoldberg
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57m
I don't like Kamala Harris. I don't trust her. I don't like her policies. And, as a friend says, she's mopping the floor with him.
In the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, The Washington Post tried something new: We asked a group of uncommitted, swing-state voters in real time about their reactions to Tuesday’s debate.
They thought Harris won, regardless of how they plan to vote in November...
Former president Trump has always approached debates as professional wrestling events in which the key is not to explain policies or answer questions, but rather to demonstrate dominance over your opponent. In 2016 the Democratic nominee, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, had a hard time countering this strategy effectively because of the many expectations of what was appropriate behavior for a female presidential candidate. In 2020 and then again in the June 2024 “debate,” Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s stutter made it difficult to counter Trump’s scattershot attacks.
The question for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in tonight’s presidential debate was not how to answer policy questions, but how to counter Trump’s dominance displays while also appealing to the American people.
She and her team figured it out, and today they played the former president brilliantly. He took the bait, and tonight he self-destructed. In a live debate, on national television.
The Harris campaign began the day trolling Trump with a new campaign ad featuring the pieces of former president Barack Obama’s speech at the August Democratic National Convention that concerned Trump. “Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire”—the ad cuts to a photo of Trump in a golf cart—“who has not stopped whining about his problems.” Then a clip of Trump shows him complaining about Harris’s crowds, before Obama notes Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes,” complete with Obama’s hand motion suggesting Trump’s sizes were small. “It just goes on, and on, and on,” Obama says, before the ad shows empty seats and people yawning at Trump’s rallies.
“America’s ready for a new chapter,” Obama says to the overflow crowd cheering at Chicago’s United Center during the Democratic National Convention. “We are ready for a President Kamala Harris!” At the end, even Harris’s standard statement, “I’m Kamala Harris and I approved this message,” sounds like a challenge.
This morning, the Harris campaign began running the ad on the Fox News Channel.
At the same time, they began running Philadelphia-themed ads across the city on billboards, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and on food trucks and taxi cabs, sidewalk art, and digital projections making fun of Trump’s fascination with crowd sizes. They showed, for example, a full-sized Philadelphia pretzel labeled “Harris” alongside a piece of one that looked like an upside down U labeled “Trump.”
The taunting might have been behind Trump’s demand for loyalty from Republican lawmakers this afternoon, telling them to shut down the government if he doesn’t get his way on the inclusion of a voter suppression measure in the bill to fund the government. The right has often relied on threats of government shutdowns to try to get their way, but such shutdowns are never popular, and even moderate Republicans are leery of launching one just before an election.
Nonetheless, Trump tried to lock them into such a shutdown, reiterating in a post this afternoon the lie that undocumented immigrants are voting in presidential elections. “If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN—CLOSE IT DOWN.”
Throughout the day, the Harris campaign placed posts on social media showing Harris looking crisp and presidential and Trump looking old and unkempt. And then, for ten minutes in the hour before the debate, the Harris campaign held a drone show over the Philadelphia Museum of Art showing campaign slogans and then turning the words “MADAM VICE PRESIDENT” into “MADAM PRESIDENT.”
Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported today that Trump’s advisors were concerned ahead of the debate about whether they would get “happy Trump” or “angry Trump,” worrying that a frustrated Trump would engage in the vicious personal attacks that turn voters off. They expressed relief that having the microphones muted when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak would prevent Harris from irritating him with fact checks and snark of her own. Conservative lawyer George Conway noted that it was “interesting how one campaign is extremely concerned about the emotional stability of its candidate, and how the other is not.”
Harris’s attacks on Trump, including her campaign’s subtle digs at his masculinity, appeared to have accomplished what they set out to. When the two came out on stage, he went straight to his podium, while she strode across the stage, moved into his space, held out her hand, introduced herself and wished him well: “Kamala Harris. Have a good debate.” He muttered in response, “Nice to see you.” Then she took her own spot at the podium. When the debate opened, it was clear that Harris was the dominant figure and that her opponent was “angry Trump.” He would not look at her during the debate.
In her first answer, Harris tried to set out both her own story as a child of the middle class and how she intended to build an opportunity economy for others, lowering food and housing costs and opening the way for more small businesses. It was a lot, quickly, and she looked a little nervous.
Then Trump spoke and it was clear he was going off the rails. His first comment was to suggest Harris was lying, and then to insist that his proposed tariffs will solve everything, although he has the way tariffs work entirely backward: they are paid by the consumer, not by foreign countries. As he followed with a long list of his rally lies, Harris started to smile.
From then on, he continued to produce rally stories full of wild exaggerations and attack Harris with lies in what CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale called “a staggeringly dishonest debate performance from former president Trump.” "No major presidential candidate before Donald Trump has ever lied with this kind of frequency,” Dale said. “A remarkably large chunk of what he said tonight was just not true. This wasn't little exaggerations, political spin. A lot of his false claims were untethered to reality." As Harris spoke directly to the American people, growing stronger and stronger, Trump got wilder and angrier and told more and more crazy stories.
And then, about ten minutes into the debate, Harris baited him. She invited the American people to go to one of his rallies, where “he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter, he will talk about ‘windmills cause cancer.’ And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
Trump lost it. He defended his rallies, said Harris couldn’t get anyone to attend hers and has to bus in attendees (in reality, her rallies are packed and he is the one who reportedly hires attendees), and then, in his fury, repeated the lie about immigrants eating pets. When a moderator fact-checked that story, he fought back, saying he heard it on television.
And from then on, Harris kept baiting him while explaining her own policies directly to the camera, and he took the bait every single time. He ran down every rabbit hole and appeared unable to finish a thought. Notably, he refused to say he would not sign a national abortion ban and admitted that after nine years of promising one, he had no health care plan (he has, he said, “concepts of a plan,” and if they pan out, he’ll let us know in the “not too distant future”).
He threatened World War III and repeated that the U.S. is “a failing nation.” He told a long story about threatening “Abdul,” the leader of the Taliban; in fact, the leader of the Taliban since 2016 is Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada. In response to Harris’s statement that foreign leaders thought he was a disgrace, Trump answered that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who destroyed his country’s democracy and replaced it with a dictatorship, says he’s a good leader. New York Times columnist David French wrote: “It's like she's debating MAGA Twitter come to life.”
The debate moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC, asked solid questions and corrected the most egregious of Trump’s lies. But as he continued to interrupt and yell at Harris, they increasingly gave him leeway to do so. This meant he spoke more often and for more time than Harris; MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle reported that he spoke 39 times for a total of 41.9 minutes, to her 23 times for a total of 37.1 minutes. But the extra time did him no favors.
By the end of the evening, Harris had delivered a clear message about her hopes to move the country forward beyond years of using race to divide people who have far more in common than they have differences. She promised to develop an economy that will build small businesses and support a growing middle class, while protecting rights, including the right to make reproductive decisions without the intrusion of the state. And she showed the nation that Trump can be baited, that he lies freely and incoherently, and—perhaps crucially—that he is no longer the dominant politician in America.
Immediately after the debate, the Harris campaign continued their demonstration of dominance. Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a statement recapping Harris’s strength and Trump’s angry incoherence. She concluded: “Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?”
Then things got even worse for Trump.
Music phenomenon Taylor Swift endorsed Harris, telling her 283 million Instagram followers that she felt she had to because of Trump’s earlier reposting of an AI image of her seeming to endorse him. That, she said, “brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
After explaining why she was supporting Harris and Walz and urging her fans to do their own research, Swift signed off: “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”
Can anyone possibly explain how Trump is a thing?
Quote:Can anyone possibly explain how Trump is a thing?
Not without indicting a sizable portion of the US electorate as bat-**** crazy.
it's time to put crazy orange man out to pasture...
Posted on twitter by Ari Melber so I'm presuming this Taylor Swift endorsement is legit.
“I ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and Biden put it back on day one.”
— Trump
This is mostly false. Trump enabled the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — which would have doubled the export of Russian natural gas to Germany — over congressional opposition. “Successive U.S. Administrations and Congresses have opposed Nord Stream 2, reflecting concerns about European dependence on Russian energy and the threat Russia poses to Ukraine,” the Congressional Research Service said in a 2021 report.
Trump’s first secretary of state essentially allowed the pipeline to proceed, and only late in Trump’s administration could Congress pass a law that made the pipeline subject to sanctions that halted construction for one year. But by then it was largely complete. Biden waived those sanctions in an effort to mend fences with Germany — but the whole project was killed after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“He [NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg] got these countries, the 28 countries at the time, to pay up, he said. I’ve never seen — he’s the head of NATO — he said ‘I’ve never seen.’ For years, we were paying almost all of NATO. We were being ripped off by European nations, both on trade and on NATO. I got them to pay up by saying one of the statements you made before, if you don’t pay, we’re not going to protect you, otherwise we would have never gotten it, he said. It was one of the most incredible jobs that he’s ever seen done.”
— Trump
When he was president, Trump often attributed quotes to Stoltenberg that could not be confirmed, such as: “Secretary Stoltenberg has been maybe Trump’s biggest fan, to be honest with you. He goes around telling — he made a speech the other day. He said, ‘Without Donald Trump, maybe there would be no NATO.’” Stoltenberg said no such thing.
Throughout the 2016 campaign, his presidency and now this election, Trump has demonstrated that he has little notion of how NATO is funded and operates. He repeatedly claimed that other members of the alliance “owed” money to the United States and that they were delinquent in their payments. Then he claimed credit for the money “pouring in” as a result of his jawboning, even though much of the increase in those countries’ contributions was set under guidelines arranged during the Obama administration.
Jeff Sharlet@JeffSharlet
2h
It's taken me all day to process what I heard on Megyn Kelly Show today: Male panelist said KH wouldn't be VP if not for "the shade and shape of her genitalia." Another panelist said he was imagining it, that it was "gross." WTF with these people...
Today’s fallout from last night’s presidential debate between Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former president Donald Trump has shown Harris solidifying her dominant position. Trump increasingly looks as if the anger he has been displaying is a way to hide the fear that he is losing control.
After debates, surrogates for a nominee talk to journalists in what’s known as a “spin room,” where they try to spin the event in favor of their candidate. John Bowden of The Independent described his time in last night’s spin room as “the strangest moments of my political career.” As usual, Republican surrogates immediately attacked the moderators for fact-checking the debate.
But it was clear, Bowden wrote, that the campaign officials were panicking. Even Fox News Channel reporters said that Trump had performed badly, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the debate a “disaster.” But MAGA Republicans, whom Trump has elevated far beyond any position they could achieve without him, were lashing out on his behalf.
Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance attacked the moderators and doubled down on the lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors’ pets, despite statements from Springfield police and the town manager that there is no evidence for such a statement. Anti-immigrant Trump advisor Stephen Miller melted down when Hispanic reporter José María Del Pino asked him where he got his figures saying that crime in Venezuela had dropped dramatically.
The Trump campaign had told reporters that Vance would be the top surrogate for the evening, but after the debate, Trump himself appeared in the spin room to override his surrogates’ attempts to blame his performance on the moderators and instead assure reporters that he had won the debate. It is highly unusual for a candidate to go to the spin room in person, and his appearance demonstrated that Trump was aware that he was in trouble. Reporters seemed to agree: “If you won tonight, why are you here?” one can be heard saying to him. “Why not let the performance speak for itself?”
“Trump has come in the spin room and he is desperately trying to get the attention that I think he needs as oxygen at this point,” an MSNBC reporter told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “Is he literally standing there like he’s his own surrogate trying to get people to talk to him about his own performance?” Maddow asked. “Wow. That’s something. That is not a sign of strength or confidence in your own performance when you’re trying to extend past the final bell….”
Answering questions did not appear to help him. When asked once again to answer whether he would veto a national abortion bill, he answered: “It was a perfect answer on abortion, and I’ve done a great job on that, and I’ve brought our country together.” And then he walked out.
All day today, he posted and reposted statements that he had won the debate—including a message of support from former Tenet Media commentator Benny Johnson, whose paycheck was paid by Russia—but it was hard to miss that Trump’s performance was historically bad. Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who studies focus groups, said that “[a]cross the board,’ a “focus group of swing voters from swing states” thought Harris won the debate. Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz went on record saying that Trump’s debate performance would cost him the presidential race. The Harris campaign’s ongoing trolling of Trump was perhaps even harsher: it posted the entire hour and forty minute debate as a campaign ad.
Meanwhile, by 2:00 this afternoon, Taylor Swift’s endorsement had prompted 337,826 people to start the process of registering to vote.
All day today, reporters fact checked Trump’s statements, proving them lies. But lies have never damaged him; they reinforce his dominance by forcing subordinates to agree that the person in charge gets to determine what reality is. Victims must surrender either their integrity or their ownership of their own perceptions; in either case, once they have agreed to a deliberate lie, it becomes harder to challenge later ones since that means acknowledging the other times they caved.
That’s why the lie about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration is so important: it is the foundational lie on which all the others stand. Harris, who spent her legal career dealing with criminals and abusers who depend on this technique, knew exactly how to undermine it. She made fun of it, making his “obsession with crowd sizes” a national joke. The jokes set him off not only because he cannot bear to be laughed at, but also because challenging that lie challenges all the others.
Following Harris’s lead, posters on social media turned to memes today, setting Trump’s assertion that “they’re eating the cats,” to Vince Guaraldi’s theme “Linus and Lucy” from the Peanuts movies, for example, and designing the same statement as a Dr. Seuss book, as well as posting pictures of live pets wrapped in bread and rolls.
Observers correctly noted that the racist trope of immigrants eating pets dehumanizes marginalized people who are already vulnerable, putting them in danger. While posters and media have repeatedly pointed out that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are there legally and have revitalized the city, making fun of those sharing such a stupid lie has a different kind of potential to defang it.
And, aside from Trump’s evident worry, there are signs that Trump is vulnerable. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had scheduled a vote today on the continuing resolution to fund the government before the government will have to shut down on October 1. That measure included the voter suppression measure Trump demanded yesterday in all caps. Today, Johnson pulled the vote.
Republicans are also breaking with Trump over the idea of an interest rate cut. Trump does not want the Fed to lower the cost of borrowing money before the election despite the softening job market—cheaper money should bolster the economy and provide more jobs—and has vowed that if he is reelected, he will take control of the Fed, which is now an independent institution. But Republicans are backing away from his demands. Representative Dan Meuser, a Trump supporter from the swing state of Pennsylvania, told Jasper Goodman and Eleanor Mueller of Politico that he supports a cut. “You’ve got to put the greater good ahead of looking political,” he said.
Today the share price of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), the owner of the Truth Social platform, fell to new lows. The stock fell more than 10% today, ending the day at $16.68 from a high over $60 a share in April. In May, Trump’s stock was valued at more than $6 billion, although the company is losing money and has very few users. The drop over the last several months has wiped away more than $4 billion of that value. Trump needs money for his legal bills and settlements, as well as his businesses, and can begin to cash out on his stock soon, but selling much of it was always going to be a problem because if he dumped it, the bottom would fall out. Now selling is a problem because its value is dropping.
In the face of concern that Trump and Vance have been suggesting they would challenge the results of the 2024 election, the Department of Homeland Security took steps to protect the January 6, 2025, session of Congress that will count the electoral votes that will decide the presidency. They have put January 6, 2025, on the same security level as the Super Bowl or a major event like the U.N. General Assembly.
Finally, today is the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, the day terrorists from the al-Qaeda network used four civilian airplanes as weapons against the United States, and Trump used its commemoration to demonstrate another dominance trait: that he will behave however he wishes. Trump attended a remembrance with right-wing extremist Laura Loomer, who has shared not only the false pet-eating conspiracy theory, but also the false theory that “9/11 was an Inside Job!” Recently, she posted an appalling attack on Vice President Harris. Today she posted that she joined Trump because “I believe in unconditional loyalty to those who are deserving. And there is nobody more deserving of our loyalty and unwavering support than Donald Trump."
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each issued statements about the anniversary. Biden vowed that the nation will never forget the attack, those lost, their families, and “the heroic citizens and survivors who rushed to help their fellow Americans. And never forget that when faced with evil—and an enemy that sought to tear us apart—we endured.”
Harris echoed Biden. She also emphasized the national unity the crisis created as people came together to deny the terrorists the achievement of their goal “to attack and destroy our way of life—our democracy, our freedoms, and everything we hold dear as Americans.” She thanked the military personnel who served in Afghanistan and elsewhere to root out terrorism, and urged Americans to “reflect on what binds us together as one: the greatest privilege on Earth, the pride and privilege of being an American.”
All three were at a commemoration of 9/11 today. Trump and Harris shook hands, and he tried the dominance trick of using the handshake to pull Harris toward him, which she firmly resisted. His social media website confirmed that the world of professional wrestling is very much on Trump’s mind as he apparently tried to reassure himself he, and not Kamala Harris, is the dominant political figure in the country. He clearly doesn’t want to agree to another debate and is trying to spin his reluctance as a show of power.
“In the World of Boxing or U[ltimate] F[ighting] C[hampionship] when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’” he wrote. “Well, it’s no different with a Debate. She was beaten badly last night. Every Poll has us WINNING, in one case, 92–8, so why would I do a Rematch?”
