I watched it and thought Shapiro won by a distance. It was clear, at least to me, that he was too skilled a debater and sharp witted. In fairness, Shapiro has made a living from these kind of debates in addition to his journalism, whereas Cenk is less experienced in that regard and it showed.
That being said, I still think Cenk was mostly right on the issues but didn't make the correct points. For example, he was using large GDP growth in the 50's and 60's coupled with a 91% marginal tax rate and then essentially making the argument, "high taxes cause large GDP growth". The correct argument in my view would rather have been that high taxes weren't detrimental to the economy at the time, and then to use data on recent tax cuts for the rich that didn't have the positive growth effect that frauds like Laffer promised. Shapiro won on taxation, convincingly.
Cenk's strongest argument was on healthcare. He got Ben to allude to the fact he could take additional insurance if he wanted, which entails a better quality of care, but the existing burden of him paying health insurance for others would mean he and other rich people wouldn't be able to afford it. His weakest response of the debate.
This post was edited by dro94 on Aug 6 2017 02:40am