About Tonight's Debate

It’s clear that Kamala Harris and ABC’s entire strategy tonight was to push Trump’s buttons and he let them do it. He did dial it back 3/4 of the way through, but he needed to have the same discipline he had during the Biden debate, but Biden (I can’t believe i’m saying this) took the high road, likely not by choice but due to cognitive ability. I’m going to dive very in-depth on tomorrow’s program, but for now, some initial thoughts. I’ll be honest with you and not blow smoke up your backside for clicks.

• This was Trump’s to lose and he underestimated Harris’s ability to debase herself to play in petty territory. Her goal, and ABC’s really, was to push his buttons, to troll him with every answer, more so than know policy, and on that she succeeded. He didn’t need to respond to her petty remark about his rallies, he could’ve nuked her claim about military leaders “hating” him by asking her who got 13 service members killed after ignoring military counsel in Afghanistan had he remained focus. She began this debate with a thin, audibly terrified voice and dry mouth and grew more confident as the event wore on, with every irrelevant rhetorical attack.

• This was the worst moderated debate I’ve ever witnessed in my entire career. It went exactly like this:

  I’ve attended numerous debates, watched them, given analysis on them, and tonight’s moderators were so blatantly aiding Harris by way of not demanding her answer their questions in the manner they did Trump, by not consistently muting her mic, by arguing with Trump over the existence of actual video like this Ralph Northam endorsing abortion-on-demand up to the moment of birth:

• They let her glide on by when she denied that she ever said she wanted to ban guns:

ABC moderators let her deny that as a Senator she cosponsored bill to ban private health insurance and fracking. She very publicly wanted to ban them, now she doesn’t, no journalistic curiosity from the moderators as to why she did a 180? No fact-check during the debate as they did with Trump? The moderators failed to bring us anything new.

• Trump needed to make this debate Harris vs Harris v Trump. He failed to do so. He let her push his buttons at times and missed opportunities. She was bitter, petty, and offered nothing new in terms of policies or the policies she copied and pasted on her website from Biden’s.

• So who won? Neither of them. Harris was better rehearsed and focused on pettiness while failing to define herself further or expand on proposed policy. Trump took the bait too much, rambled at parts, and missed opportunities to hold Harris to account on issues the moderators glossed over. All around disappointing.

Early voting begins in a week and this will likely be the only debate.

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