Tonight, live from Cleveland it's the first of three 2020 Presidential debates. In this corner, we have the incumbent, President Donald J. Trump, who's currently trailing in the polls to the man we have in this corner, Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two will not begin by shaking hands, which is fine because they don't like each other. So what will we get? What I'd like to see is two men telling us in detail what they would do specifically to make the country better, at a time when it is coming apart on so many levels. But it will probably get personal. As Biden says, "focus on this man and what he's doing."

If Biden tries to roast the president it's not going to be easy because Trump's been roasted by the best, including Artie Lange who told me about the time he roasted Trump in 2004 when he came on my show back in November of 2018.

"If you met Trump" Artie said when he came on my show, "he's the farthest thing from a racist. I don't think he's racist at all (or) homophobic. I really think he's a good man. He's the kind of guy you can joke with. He's you know, what they call it a human being?"

Artie was voted best roaster by two newspapers for his roast of the future president.

"One of the jokes I made was about his business," Artie said. "At the time Atlantic City wasn't going so great for him and they had just opened up the Borgata, which was his arch nemesis, so the joke I made [was]..."

"Recently Donald drove his daughters to Atlantic City and said 'Sweetheart someday your name will be at the top of all these buildings ... if you marry a guy named Borgata.'"

Later, when Trump visited the Howard Stern Show, he told the "King of All Media" that Artie was "the best roaster." So, Howard asked Artie to do a joke and he repeated the Borgata joke. "Now," Artie said, "he's in a closed area and I think he felt attacked in a millisecond. He goes 'Artie's the worst roaster I've ever seen, he's a loser, why do I say nice things about losers?'"

"I think he fired me," Lange said. "And Howard says, 'Well, actually he works for me, only I can fire him.'"

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise. Any opinions expressed are Steve's own. Steve Trevelise is on New Jersey 101.5 Monday-Thursday from 7pm-11pm. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

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