CNN
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Ex-President Donald Trump is equivocating over the potential for a second debate with Kamala Harris after his dud display of their first showdown prompted his group and conservative media allies to mount a frantic cleanup operation.
It’s far too early to say whether or not the tangle in Philadelphia considerably modified the race as Harris beseeches remaining movable voters in swing states to ditch the chaos of the Trump period. However within the aftermath of Tuesday’s debate, each campaigns are surveying the influence of a vital conflict earlier than greater than 60 million viewers eight weeks from Election Day.
Trump, who took a number of victory laps following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate efficiency in late June, discovered himself dealing with the type of inquest endured by his erstwhile rival. Whereas the ex-president’s marketing campaign is not going to endure the identical destiny as Biden’s shuttered reelection effort, the controversy was the newest signal that Trump continues to be failing to deal with the brand new challenges posed by Harris and make his personal greatest case.
The vice chairman was basking in a contemporary jolt of euphoria amongst Democrats who understand an oft-doubted political determine rising in stature with each check she passes. Harris’ marketing campaign can also be leveraging the endorsement of Taylor Swift, which might open a brand new seam of curiosity among the many pop megastar’s loyal fanbase.
And her allies are reinforcing the tone of mockery and makes an attempt to goad Trump that emerged on the Democratic Nationwide Conference and that the vice chairman carried into the controversy. Philippe Reines, a former Hillary Clinton aide who played Trump in Harris’ debate prep, advised CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Wednesday that the ex-president has slowed mentally since 2016 and in contrast him to a “malfunctioning equipment.”
“He was in all places however to some extent structured,” Reines stated, referring to Trump when he took on former Secretary of State Clinton. “Now, he’s all around the board.” He added: “I feel he’s shedding (his) prepare of thought and he’s simply blurting out the following factor in his thoughts.”
Hours after the controversy, the political bile briefly eased as Harris and Trump, together with Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, gathered at Floor Zero in New York to honor the twenty third anniversary of the September 11 assaults in 2001. The overall election rivals solely met for the primary time on the debate, however they shared their second handshake in 12 hours in a gesture of nationwide unity orchestrated by former New York Metropolis Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
In a extra light-hearted scene Wednesday, a grinning Biden took the extraordinary step of donning a Trump 2024 baseball cap. Andrew Bates, a White Home spokesman, stated the president gave a hat to a Trump supporter throughout a go to to a fireplace station in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, close to the place the fourth hijacked jet crashed in need of its goal on 9/11 after a passenger revolt. The Trump supporter had stated that “in the identical spirit POTUS ought to placed on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it,” Bates stated.
But it surely was solely a short lived respite to the bitter fallout from the controversy.
The previous president did what he all the time does when introduced with unfavorable political info — deny them. He declared on Fox Information on Wednesday that he had “certainly one of my higher debates,” regardless of sweeping detrimental opinions of his exhibiting. Trump additionally launched an assault on ABC Information, claiming the controversy was “rigged” and faulting moderators who truth checked him for organising a “three-to-one” tag group towards him.
However certainly one of his latest associates, former impartial presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., might have inadvertently highlighted Trump’s deficiencies within the debate whilst he tried to reward the ex-president whom he not too long ago endorsed.
Kennedy stated on Fox Information that whereas Trump gained the controversy on “substance,” Harris “clearly gained the controversy when it comes to her supply, her polish, her group and her preparation.”
“I feel on substance, President Trump wins when it comes to his governance,” Kennedy stated. “However he didn’t inform that story.”
Nonetheless, Trump’s complaints had been extra eagerly picked up amongst his longtime boosters in conservative media, underscoring the best way that the Republican Celebration all the time falls in line behind its chief. Nonetheless, Trump’s narrative that he was thwarted by two TV anchors sat uneasily together with his declare on stage that he’s such an intimidating determine that US enemies had been merely afraid of him.
Trump was appropriate in arguing that he was fact-checked extra completely than Harris on Tuesday night time by moderators who missed a number of probabilities to appropriate the vice chairman or to carry her to account for dodging questions. However Harris stated nothing that in comparison with the gusher of untruths from the previous president, which included a declare that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been slaying and consuming residents’ canines and cats. (That racist declare was debunked Wednesday by Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who stated there was “no credible proof.”)
Adopting a extra sinister tone in his interview with Fox, the previous president accused ABC of placing on a “rigged deal” and warned officers “ought to remove their license.” His feedback had been ominous contemplating he’s vowed to wage a presidency of “retribution” if he’s elected to a second time period in November that would come with using presidential energy to punish his enemies.
The previous president additionally Wednesday publicly toyed with the concept of a second debate, after the Harris marketing campaign challenged him to a different spherical. However the former president, smarting from his therapy by the hands of the vice chairman on Tuesday, doesn’t appear to be in a rush to resume the efficiency.
One the one hand, he might have little incentive to point out up once more provided that he was extensively seen to have suffered a drubbing on Tuesday. But when the polls present him trailing within the run-up to the election, there may be a rationale for a do-over. The Harris marketing campaign has the same conundrum. There’s a case for the vice chairman folding her tent provided that she may not be capable of repeat Tuesday’s efficiency.
Trump, nonetheless, is making an attempt to vary perceptions of the controversy after the very fact.
“Within the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter will get overwhelmed or knocked out, they stand up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’ Properly, it’s no completely different with a Debate. She was overwhelmed badly final nigh. Each Ballot has us WINNING,” he wrote on Fact Social, “so why would I do a Rematch?” As is usually the case, the ex-president’s studying of polls was exaggerated. A flash CNN poll carried out by SSRS after the controversy discovered that watchers thought Harris put in a stronger efficiency by 63% to 37%.
Historical past means that it takes not less than per week for the total influence of a debate to filter down into the voters. And the basics of the neck-and-neck race with Harris nonetheless appear to favor the previous president, whose marketing campaign adverts are focusing on the vice chairman over the present administration’s report on the economic system, together with excessive costs, inflation and immigration, with an depth and degree of focus that Trump as a candidate has come nowhere close to matching.
Trump’s working mate has additionally been simpler at delivering a pointy political message than his boss. He weaved a dismissal of the Swift endorsement for Harris right into a wider assault on the vice chairman on Fox Information. “When grocery costs go by up by 20%, it hurts most Individuals. It doesn’t harm Taylor Swift,” Vance stated. “When housing costs develop into unaffordable, it doesn’t have an effect on Taylor Swift or some other billionaire. It does have an effect on middle-class Individuals throughout our nation.”
The difficult political backdrop explains why issues are nonetheless tense at Harris headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. A senior marketing campaign aide advised CNN’s MJ Lee that the belief was that the election remained a 50-50 proposition. “It’ll be extremely shut. We can’t take our foot off the gasoline, even when the second feels actually good,” the aide stated.
Harris additionally faces selections past whether or not she’ll agree to a different debate. Whereas her efficiency was stylistically sturdy on Tuesday, she nonetheless dodged key questions — as an example, the very first one on whether or not she believes Individuals are higher off now or when Trump was in workplace. The Trump marketing campaign is certain to maintain up its drumbeat of complaints that she’s avoiding deeper media scrutiny. And there are numerous indicators that voters need extra substance from the Democratic nominee.
A number of voters who’re undecided or leaning towards Harris or Trump, however open to altering their candidate, advised CNN’s John King that Harris did effectively within the debate however a number of additionally cautioned she was not sufficiently particular in explaining her insurance policies.
“Kamala Harris says she needs to elevate up the center class, however how?” stated Linda Rooney, who lives within the Philadelphia suburbs and voted for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley within the main. She additionally voiced concern about Harris shifting her positions on fracking and different points.
Such doubts are evident in latest nationwide polls too. However additionally they replicate the contemporary problems Trump has prompted for himself together with his underwhelming debate efficiency: He might have squandered his greatest and final probability to show Harris over these vulnerabilities in entrance of tens of hundreds of thousands of voters.