The Internet Is Loving Rachel Maddow's Sarcastic Debate Tweet

The first presidential debate of 2020 was... an event. The debate will probably be remembered for just how unhinged it was, with President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, and moderator and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace regularly talking over each other, making their individual statements nearly impossible to discern for much of the night. Donald Trump constantly interrupted Joe Biden, and was then cut off by Wallace—in short, a lot of talking. At any given moment, it seemed like at least two out of the three people on stage were mid-sentence.

Needless to say, this fact did not go unnoticed. Twitter was lit up all night, with tweets coming even more rapidly than jabs onstage. One of these tweets came from MSNBC personality and host Rachel Maddow. As the debate turned to the issue of mail-in voting, a facet of the upcoming election Donald Trump has frequently railed against, one of Maddow's tweets took the internet by storm, prompting many to say that she, in that ancient parlance, won the internet tonight.

About one hour into the debate, Rachel Maddow tweeted out, "Perhaps we could also debate by mail," and folks, the internet loved it. Within an hour, the tweet had accumulated over 21 thousand retweets and nearly 140 thousand likes.

Maddow's tweet immediately attracted praise, with one user deeming it the "tweet of the night," while another said, "I rarely agree with Rachel Maddow, but yeah." Another tweeter suggested debating over Zoom, "where the moderator has muting power." One user likened her suggestion to the Federalist Papers, famously written by Alexander Hamilton during the conception of the United States. Revolutionary idea!

Some users seemed to have completely given up, with one sharing an optical illusion of a giant glass of wine in response, saying "Wake me when it's over," while another simply shared a (very relatable) gif of Ina Garten pouring an entire bottle of Grey Goose into a pitcher. Another shared a similar gif of matriarch Kitty Foreman of That '70s Show, also pouring an entire bottle of liquor into a pitcher with the caption, "...just keep the bottles of wine coming."

Perhaps the best, or at least the most creative, response came from a user who claimed to have "fixed" the problem of the interruptions with a photo. The solution? A piece of tape over Donald Trump's mouth, affixed directly to their TV screen. 

Joking aside, Rachel Maddow has been a proponent of voting by mail for most of 2020, which is just one of the many stances putting her at odds with President Donald Trump. Maddow used her platform to advocate for voting by mail since at least April 2020, when MSNBC's Maddow Blog ran a piece noting how the practice is widely in favor among the public, despite Republicans arguing against the method. The blog cited a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll as evidence, noting that, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, as much as 67% of voters are in favor of voting by mail.

Maddow also criticized Trump for encouraging his supporters to vote twice. "Let them send it in and let them go vote," Trump said during a September 2020 interview with North Carolina's WECT-TV, according to Reuters. "And if the system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote." Maddow condemned his comments, arguing on The Rachel Maddow Show, "With presidential behavior like this, the system just kind of breaks."

Yep, we have a feeling these two won't agree on the issue anytime soon.

Rachel Maddow railing against Donald Trump's claims about mail-in voting is hardly the first time she has criticized the president. Donald Trump's tax returns have been a frequent target of Maddow's criticisms, starting back to the 2016 presidential election when he first refused to make the records public. Then, in March 2017, Maddow caught the internet's attention when she claimed to have the "President's 1040 form."

Although Maddow technically did reveal the president's 1040 form, many were frustrated about the hype that accompanied the reveal. Maddow spent the first 20 minutes of her show building up the documents before actually showing them, and the tax returns were from 2005, well before Trump entered the political arena.

Further, the returns that Maddow had acquired seemed to show nothing particularly inappropriate, causing Maddow to face criticism from all sides. Stephen Colbert parodied her on his show the next night, and CNBC editor Jay Yarow argued that Maddow had handed Trump a victory by seemingly undermining the liberal accusation that Donald Trump hadn't been paying taxes.