Yep, the NY Times has it around the same.
Yeah, that’s where I saw it.
Typical Trumpy excuses for poor performance. It’s not HIS fault he looked stupid and silly and weird - those mean and biased moderators made him look bad. Don’t the complainers realize this argument makes Trump look even weaker? What, he isnt smart enough or strong enough or able to make his case unless they go easy on him? He couldn’t handle a couple of reporters but he wants to be President? Maybe if he didn’t tell so many lies and conspiracy theories they wouldn’t have felt the need to fact check him? His performance was bad and there is no excusing it. But, it’s never HIS fault. Waahhh!!
When even the GOP talking head is saying Trump missed his shots …
To be fair let’s remember it was the Kamala campaign that wanted to switch to unmuted mics. Loved not going to bed with a feeling of dread like on the last debate. Kamala did prove Trump right by aborting a baby 78 years post birth.
When he DOESN’T have a beard he looks like Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence from Full Metal Jacket. Believe me, the beard is an improvement.
The one answer I wish she would’ve given differently is on the economy. Something like:
Harris often finished making her point before her time expired. Trump just talked until he had to be interrupted by the moderators. No big deal. The more Trump talks, the worse he looks.
Surely that was already accepted fact? Absolutely no one in the entire world expected Harris to look or old old and senile. Everyone expected her to perform better than that; she was held to a standard of a normal candidate. She had to look better than TRUMP, which she accomplished.
Whether it’ll move the needle of the polls remains to be seen.
Respectfully, guess which clips from that statement would have been run ceaselessly in negative campaign ads against her.
Can anyone translate this?
Biden doesn’t go after people because supposedly China paid him millions of dollars. He’s afraid to do it. Between him and his son. They get all this money from Ukraine. They get all this money from all of these different countries. And then you wonder why is he so loyal to this one, that one Ukraine, China? Why is he? Why did he get 3 1/2 million dollars from the mayor of Moscow’s wife? Why did he get – why did she pay him 3 1/2 million dollars? This is a crooked administration, and they’re selling our country down the tubes.
I’m not saying Trump doesn’t do that. He is mocked for his much he does that. And at least Harris’s actually say something, like “Let’s be clear, my values haven’t changed,” as opposed to “the likes of which nobody’s ever seen”.
But my point is just that - Trump is mocked for it, don’t do what will get you mocked.
I’m not saying not to have those bullet points, but show a little care in how and when you trot them out.
When two or three minutes of that was him ranting about people eating cats and the FBI lying about how much crime there is, I’m kind of okay with it. He was his own worst enemy last night.
That would be his “Biden crime family” rant.
Today in nyc, Kamala standing 2 people away from trump shook his hand again.
I am seeing more Kamala ads now. I did see some new ones after the debate last night.
I guess. But is there a backstory about the Moscow mayor’s wife? That’s new to me.
Sure, the money quote is “it also led to inflation that we haven’t seen since the 1980s.”
So maybe she could say something like
I think she played it safe here in a way that she shouldn’t have. Folks who are genuinely concerned about inflation didn’t hear any explanation for inflation that makes her sound better, even though the explanation is pretty straightforward: our current inflation is a side-effect of our current lack of a recession.
Had she addressed the issue head-on, I think it would have come across as courageous and honest and straight-shooting. Even if it got turned into nasty political ads, I think it would’ve been worth it.
Here’s my totally unasked for morning after grading, with the caveat that I listened to the debate; I did not watch it.
I’m going to grade their performances against what they were or should have been trying to accomplish, not against each other. If grading them comparatively, then obviously Harris gets and A+ compared to Trump’s F-, but I don’t know that that’s instructive.
IMO and from pre-debate analysis that I read, Harris’ main goals were to re-introduce herself to the country, defining herself as a moderate, sane leader who is focused on helping middle-class families, as well as a champion for reproductive freedom, and a respected world leader who will maintain America’s standing in the world and with our allies. (As opposed to the Trump campaign’s litanies of lies about her being an extremist/marxist/etc.). Recent polls have shown those lies to be effective, with way too many voters concerned about her being too “extreme.” Finally, I think she should have been trying to remind everyone what a fucking disaster the Trump admin was and Trump personally is.
My overall Harris grade: A-/B+
She started weak and missed what could have been a home-run first question about “better off than 4 years ago” by reminding us what a disastrous state the country was in in 2020. She clearly had some talking points prepared and shoehorned them in awkwardly sometimes. Things got a bit better after the first 10 minutes or so, then a LOT better when she started to relax and hit her stride. She repeatedly mentioned her plans to help middle-class families economically, which was a little repetitive at times, but overall I felt was effective. She absolutely crushed it on reproductive freedom and abortion rights - her best moment of the night: an absolutely genuine, powerful response. I think she did OK on global geo-politics: very good on Ukraine and in painting Trump as weak and a tool of foreign autocrats, but I hate her phrase “most lethal fighting force” in the world. Yuk. She did a great job of throwing Trump off stride, riling him into non-sensical tirades, and keeping him off-message. By keeping him off base and constantly responding in wacko ways (“eating your pets”), she prevented him from landing any major blows on her. She proved very savvy at turning one of his strengths (bluster) against him. I think she got the balance a little wrong in how much she talked about herself vs. him - I don’t think she was as effective as she could have been in establishing her own identity/priorities. This debate was more about Trump than about Harris, which in some ways is good because he was a rambling lunatic, but in some ways less good because she still needs to make a strong case for herself. Overall, though, I would say she weathered the firehose of lies more effectively than just about any of his previous debate opponents and even turned it around and used it against him.
My overall Trump grade: D-
I’m going to spend less time on Trump because I need to maintain my sanity. I think his goals here were to paint Harris as a radical liberal, paint the country as in ruin, and present a strongman image as the one person who can solve the problems and rescue the country. You know, the usual.
In general, Trump spent much of the debate on his heels, reacting to Harris or the moderators and ignoring the actual questions. It’s obvious he’s got a few stock phrases memorized and just tosses them in and starts to riff off of that. That made him sound weaker to my ears, a bit flailing around. He seemed to get madder and madder as the debate went on; in some ways volume is a projection of strength (and he did sound vigorous if nothing else), but overall he did not succeed in controlling the debate. He tried hard to succeed in defining Harris as a liberal, and also as a flip-flopper, and to paint a picture of a country in ruins. He hit the notes, multiple times, but the notes were out of tune. They came out of left field mostly and felt canned and unnatural. So, you know, he said the things, but they didn’t seem to land, mostly because he was wasting time rambling about crowd size or arguing about Ohio City Managers with the moderators. Credit Harris here for helping to keep him off message and responding to her, rather than setting the tone and terms of the debate, as he often has done in the past. The one thing he did fairly well (as others have noted) is getting the last word in. He did muscle the moderators around to frequently get another response in, often leaving a steaming pile of lies on the table before the topic was switched. I fault the moderators for letting that happen again and again - and it’s almost always a good tactic to get the last word in. That was probably his most effective tactic of the night.
Now, what will be the prevailing message coming out of the debate that will drive the political conversation for the next cycle? I think it will be very positive for Harris, so in those (very important) terms, she won handily.
Trump gets mocked for it because ‘nobody’s ever seen’ is an obvious lie. He keeps saying it, thinking he’s fooling everyone. Harris doesn’t do that. Biden overused a phrase in the last debate, and other times I’ve heard him speak. (I can’t remember it. Something like ‘Can you believe…’ or ‘I can’t imagine…’) But I gather the phrase is a coping mechanism for his speech impediment. It still made me cringe though. Trump has no excuse. He deserves to be mocked.
From a Politico article:
In other cases, of course, Harris’ strategy in her first debate as a presidential nominee was custom-tailored for one specific moment and one specific opponent. She plainly used her long days of debate prep in a Pittsburgh hotel to compile a rich anthology of taunts, putdowns and derisive one-liners against former President Donald Trump. The rehearsal was enough to commit dozens of them to memory — not enough to avoid sometimes sounding a bit stagy in delivery. At times, one could almost see the candidate flipping through a stack of neatly organized 3-by-5 index cards in her mind.
This is exactly what I would expect from an experienced litigator. The old saw “You win the trial sitting at your desk” emphasises the need for prep, and prep, and more prep, before you even enter the courtroom.
That’s especially the case if the court rules say you can’t have notes, as is the case with this debate.
This article makes a similar point:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/11/trump-harris-debate-3-takeaways-analysis-00178484
How much fact checking did they actually do?
- Baby Executions
- Cat Dinners
- Crime Stats
I can’t think of a fourth, but we could list dozens of lies and exaggerations. Interesting definition of “virtually everything” there, buddy.
“I [Trump] and my family have taken countless millions from foreign countries for dubious purposes, therefore I am going to claim that Biden and his family are guilty of the same.”
Every accusation from the right is a confession.