GOP lawmakers and analysts virtually unanimous that Trump was second best to Harris in first presidential debate

GOP lawmakers and analysts virtually unanimous that Trump was second best to Harris in first presidential debate

Donald Trump’s campaign was in damage control mode on Wednesday amid widespread dismay among supporters over a presidential debate performance that saw Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, repeatedly goad him into going wildly off-message and missing apparent opportunities to tackle her on policy.

Even with Trump insisting to have won the debate “by a lot”, Republicans were virtually unanimous that Trump had come off second best in a series of exchanges that saw the vice-president deliberately bait him on his weak points while he responded with visible anger.

The Republican nominee – who took the unusual step afterwards of visiting the media spin room, a venue normally frequented only by candidates’ surrogates – was non-committal on Wednesday to the Harris campaign’s proposal for a second debate. Despite widespread opinion to the contrary, Trump suggested she needed it because she had lost. “I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night. We won the debate,” he told Fox & Friends.

  • andrewta@lemmy.world
    116·
    2 months ago

    I hate trump but I agree. This wasn’t a landslide victory for Harris. She won in my opinion but only by a thin margin.

    • CileTheSane
      3·
      2 months ago

      Trump claimed immigrants were eating people’s pets. And doubled down when called on it. How low is your bar?

      • webadict@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 months ago

        Remember when claiming immigrants were stealing and eating pets was enough to disqualify someone from being a president?

        … No?

        Ah, my bad, this insane new low seems to have never happened before.

      • andrewta@lemmy.world
        14·
        2 months ago

        Rewatch the debate. She rarely actually answered a question. deflected most of the time. I ding a candidate each time they do that.

        • CileTheSane
          31·
          2 months ago

          How often did Trump actually answer a question versus deflection?
          Okay, so let’s ding them both equally for deflection and now let’s focus on how they deflected: Did Kamala say anything nearly as batshit crazy as “schools are forcing surgery on children”?

          • andrewta@lemmy.world
            14·
            2 months ago

            Let’s put this on a scale of 1-10

            10 is top

            Trump was batshit crazy and lied so he gets a 1

            Harris just plain deflected on a ton of stuff, so I ding her to a 2. She had ample opportunity to answer and just plain didn’t. So instead of being bat shit crazy, she either wasn’t prepared or wasn’t able to think on her feet. Either way I give her a two for lack of answers.

            • CileTheSane
              2·
              2 months ago

              So Harris was twice as good as Trump?

              Again I have to ask how low your bar is. If neither answered questions, but Trump insisted on deranged delusions (he doubled down on the claim that immigrants are eating pets when challenged) how do you consider that only slightly worse than someone who didn’t answer questions but lives in reality?

              When Biden had a bad debate Democrats were willing to admit he had a bad debate. It was presented as “we still have to vote for him because Trump wants to be a dictator, but ya, that wasn’t good.”
              Trump makes up absolute nonsense and people try to insist that “it was close.”

              • andrewta@lemmy.world
                12·
                2 months ago

                Umm if you go from 1 to 2 then that sounds like it’s doubled. But if you go from 1 to 2 on a ten point scale then exactly how is that doubled? By that logic going from 2 to 3 is also doubled. Yeah no.

                • CileTheSane
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  Of course, the only thing you reply to is the random joke and not the actual points being made. I can only assume that means you consider the rest of my post reasonable and agree with it.