Remarkably unfavourable reactions to Donald Trump’s efficiency throughout his first formal matchup in opposition to Vice President Kamala Harris have left conservatives reeling—and Trump panicking.
On Wednesday, the previous president tried to wiggle out of any additional debates in opposition to Harris, claiming that he had really crushed Harris and deserved to be acknowledged for the “Okay.O.”
“Within the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter will get crushed or knocked out, they stand up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’” Trump posted on Fact Social. “Effectively, it’s no completely different with a Debate. She was crushed badly final night time. Each Ballot has us WINNING, in a single case, 92-8, so why would I do a Rematch?”
Later, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that he didn’t imagine he “needed to do it a second time,” solely to counsel that he might be open to following by way of on the 2 different debates slated to be hosted on NBC and Fox within the coming weeks.
(No polls have indicated that Trump would win by such a big margin. A CNN flash ballot after the talk indicated that 63 % of Individuals felt that Harris outperformed Trump.)
In the meantime, the Harris marketing campaign was greater than prepared for a second face-off, inviting Trump to debate the previous prosecutor once more simply hours after the talk ended.
“Below the intense lights, the American folks received to see the selection they may face this fall on the poll field: between shifting ahead with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump,” Harris marketing campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday night time. “That’s what they saw tonight and what they need to see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is prepared for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?” Extra about if Trump will debate Harris once more:
Conservatives can’t settle for the truth that Donald Trump struck out at Tuesday night time’s presidential debate, so they’re claiming the entire thing was rigged in opposition to him. A number of right-wing politicians and personalities are crying foul, following the lead of the previous president and convicted felon himself.
Newsmax’s Greg Kelly thinks that as a result of ABC Information used a blue set and indicators studying “We the Individuals,” and the DNC additionally used that as a slogan within the 2020 election, the community was biased in opposition to Trump. (By no means thoughts that these are the primary three phrases within the Structure and the talk was held at Philadelphia’s Nationwide Structure Heart.)
Former Trump adviser turned far-right legal troll Stephen Miller thinks that ABC was “aggressively working to sabotage and undermine the authorized course of.”
Even early within the debate, some on the proper thought it was fastened in opposition to Trump. Clay Travis, who ought to most likely keep on with sports activities, noticed “rigged news.”
A number of on the proper complained about Harris’s earrings, alleging that they had been secretly “sensible audio” earrings permitting her to cheat indirectly. In actuality, Harris’s earrings are Tiffany jewellery, in a unique design and coloration than the units the proper alleged she was sporting.
The Human Occasions weblog, run by right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, claimed that Trump’s placement on the left facet of the stage with the digital camera pointing down at him was “a traditional filmmaking method to make somebody seem villainous.” What that is primarily based on is unclear, particularly as movie strategies really say the alternative: Individuals and objects shifting from left to proper really inspire positive feelings within the viewers, and vice versa from proper to left. In actuality, right-wing figures are making these complaints as a result of even they will’t deny the truth that Harris soundly defeated Trump in Tuesday night time’s debate. So that they must provide you with conspiracies and allegations of a rigged contest to one way or the other spin the fact that Trump misplaced on Tuesday night time. Identical to when Trump misplaced the 2020 election, they will’t settle for the reality even when it’s fairly apparent. Will there be one other presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? The previous president and his marketing campaign don’t appear to be on the identical web page. On CNN Wednesday morning, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the marketing campaign, told Kasie Hunt that Trump “has already mentioned that he’s going to do three debates.” However minutes later, on Fox Information, Trump informed Fox & Mates that he wasn’t certain about one other debate. “I’d be much less inclined to as a result of we had an amazing night time. We gained the talk. We had a horrible, a horrible community,” Trump said. Final month, Trump’s marketing campaign crew wasn’t on the identical web page with Harris’s crew, with the latter claiming that the 2 campaigns had agreed to 2 presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. Trump’s crew, however, mentioned there was an extra Fox Information debate and two vice presidential debates. As of proper now, it’s anybody’s guess as as to if there can be one other debate in any respect and if J.D. Vance will resolve that he doesn’t need to debate Tim Walz on October 1.
Trump complained and hedged about whether or not he’d really present as much as Tuesday’s debate, so it’s not shocking for him to solid doubt on debating once more, particularly contemplating how badly it went for him. The previous president and convicted felon has not been taking it effectively, lashing out at Fox News and threatening Taylor Swift after the pop star endorsed Harris following the talk Tuesday night time. If he seems to be on the stock price for his media firm, he’d most likely get much more upset. Donald Trump actually didn’t like getting reside fact-checked by ABC Information throughout Tuesday night time’s debate, a lot so he desires the community shut down. In a name to Fox & Mates Wednesday morning, Trump referred to as the talk “rigged” and claimed that because of the moderators debunking his false statements, “it was a three-on-one.”
“So many issues I mentioned had been debunked, completely debunked, like Charlottesville,” mentioned Trump, referring to his infamous “very fine people” line referring to neo-Nazis. Trump went on to complain that as he was beneath the microscope in the course of the “unfair” debate, “[Kamala Harris] might say something she wished.” “They ought to remove their license for the best way they did that,” mentioned Trump, in a transparent menace to ABC Information. Trump lied for an excellent portion of Tuesday night time’s debate, and ABC Information moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir often tried to chime in with a correction. For instance, when Trump said Democrats, together with vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, “execute” infants after they’re born, Davis clarified, “There isn’t any state on this nation the place it’s authorized to kill a child after it’s born.” And when Trump claimed, “They’re consuming the pets,” referring to Haitian asylum-seekers in Ohio, Muir interjected that “there have been no credible stories of particular claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by people throughout the immigrant group.” As Trump sparred with Muir over the correction, Harris appeared on with disbelief. When requested by Fox Information why Trump felt moderators hadn’t given the identical remedy to Harris, Trump answered: “As a result of they’re dishonest.” Maybe, as an alternative, Harris didn’t have the gall to lie so flagrantly and continuously on the nationwide stage. Donald Trump’s debate coach was torn to shreds on-line following the Republican presidential candidate’s disastrous efficiency, with critics on-line questioning who set the MAGA chief up for failure.
The girl backstage was one in all Kamala Harris’s 2020 Democratic main opponents: former Hawaii Consultant Tulsi Gabbard, who informally coached Trump for roughly a month earlier than his first matchup in opposition to the vp. However shortly after the talk concluded, commenters on-line ripped Gabbard aside for failing to adequately put together Trump for his showdown in opposition to a former prosecutor.
“Shout out to Tulsi Gabbard for her sensible debate prep—and to RFK Jr, for lending Trump his mind worm,” wrote one X consumer. “Effectively executed you two!!!”
One other on-line critic sneered that Gabbard’s “profession as a debate coach didn’t even final a complete Scaramucci,” referring to former White Home communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who famously lasted simply 10 days in Trump’s White Home.
Democrats additionally joined in on the enjoyable, with one Harris staffer writing that “on behalf of Democrats in all places, I’d prefer to thank Tulsi Gabbard for her laborious work tonight.” “Really feel assured saying Trump received labored in that debate,” wrote former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor. “Prepping by holding ‘coverage periods’ with idiots like @mattgaetz and @TulsiGabbard was a deadly mistake. He appeared indignant, swallowed the bait each time, and his rants about consuming animals and crowd dimension tanked in dials.”
Even though she probably has a one-way ticket off the Trump marketing campaign, Gabbard was nonetheless working to salvage Trump’s efficiency within the aftermath of the talk, complaining on X that the talk was “three vs one,” with ABC Information’s debate moderators “clearly shilling” for Harris. (In actuality, ABC really allowed Trump to talk for six minutes longer than his Democratic opponent over the length of the talk.)*
* This text initially misstated what number of additional minutes Trump received.
Donald Trump spent the twenty-third anniversary of the September 11 terrorist assaults accompanied by a far-right conspiracy theorist who beforehand claimed the assaults had been an inside job.
Laura Loomer, a self-described “pro-white nationalist” and “proud Islamophobe,” accompanied Trump and J.D. Vance Wednesday to the annual service on the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, after which to a hearth station in decrease Manhattan to satisfy with New York firefighters and commemorate those that died within the 9/11 assaults.
However for Loomer, these deaths took on a particular that means, as a result of she believes that the U.S. authorities was complicit within the assaults that killed almost 3,000 Individuals—or a minimum of, that’s what she posted on X final 12 months.
“On 9/10/01 , someday earlier than 9/11, Secretary of Protection Donald Rumsfeld beneath the Bush administration mentioned the US Authorities ‘misplaced’ $2.3 Trillion {dollars}. The very subsequent day, 9/11/01, we had been attacked,” Loomer wrote in a publish in June 2023.
Along with these killed on 9/11, one other 6,781 persons are believed to have died as of December from diseases linked to publicity to Floor Zero within the days after the World Commerce Heart fell. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, an estimated 70,000 civilians had been killed between 2001 and 2023 because of the U.S. army marketing campaign.
It is smart that Loomer stored near Trump and his posse, as a result of she’d already been hanging out with them on the airplane forward of Tuesday night time’s presidential debate. Loomer has hawked loads of far-right conspiracy theories, together with that Kamala Harris’s mom committed immigration fraud and that former U.S. Consultant Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot within the head, was “brain dead.”
Loomer spent her time at Floor Zero Wednesday posting on X about how President Joe Biden “looked like death.”
The dad and mom of a younger boy who was killed in a bus accident Springfield, Ohio, had been pressured to beg Republican lawmakers to cease utilizing their son’s loss of life as a political software in opposition to Haitian immigrants.
Final month, Aiden Clark was killed after a minivan went left of middle, inflicting his college bus to crash into it and go off the street, flipping over. The minivan was pushed by Hermanio Joseph, a Haitian immigrant within the nation beneath momentary protected authorized standing. Joseph was sentenced to 9 to 13.5 years in jail for the crash on costs of first-degree felony involuntary manslaughter and fourth-degree felony vehicular murder.
Within the final week, this incident has turn into a part of an outcry from right-wing extremists elevating racist rumors that Haitian immigrants had been wreaking havoc in Springfield and had began eating people’s pets in addition.
Aiden’s dad and mom appeared at a Springfield Metropolis Fee assembly on Tuesday, the place Aiden’s father, Nathan Clark, made a startling however highly effective plea for lawmakers to cease talking about their son.
“I want that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old white man,” Clark mentioned. “I guess you by no means thought anybody would say one thing so blunt, but when that man killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing folks would go away us alone.
“The very last thing that we want is to have the worst day of our lives violently and consistently shoved in our faces, however even that’s not ok for them. They take it one step additional. They make it appear that our great Aiden appreciates your hate, that we should always observe their hate,” Clark mentioned, based on the Springfield News-Sun.
Clark condemned statements from U.S Senate candidate Bernie Moreno and Texas Consultant Chip Roy, in addition to Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and former President Donald Trump. “They’ve spoken my son’s identify and used his loss of life for political achieve,” said the grieving father. “This must cease now. They will vomit all of the hate they need about unlawful immigrants, the border disaster, and even unfaithful claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by group members,” Clark mentioned. “Nevertheless, they don’t seem to be allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to say Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio. I’ll take heed to them yet another time to listen to their apologies.”
“To clear the air, my son Aiden Clark was not murdered. He was unintentionally killed by an immigrant from Haiti,” Clark mentioned, countering a declare from Vance’s extremist social media rant on Tuesday, the place he’d written that “a toddler was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no proper to be right here.”
“Do you know that one of many worst emotions on the planet is to not be capable of shield your youngster?” Clark continued. “Even worse, we will’t even shield his reminiscence when he’s gone.”
Learn extra bout the conspiracy:
Tuesday night time’s first presidential matchup between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was a wake-up name for Individuals—together with a few of Trump’s closest allies.
On Wednesday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham had only one phrase to explain the MAGA chief’s efficiency: “disaster,” based on The Bulwark Podcast’s Tim Miller.
Talking with reporters within the spin room following the talk, the conservative legislator lamented Trump’s lackluster solutions, calling it a “missed alternative” the place Trump “had an opportunity to put all of it out.”
“[Harris] mentioned, ‘We inherited a multitude,’” Graham said. “I used to be yelling and screaming, ‘No you didn’t—you inherited low fuel costs, a safe border, a vaccine for Covid, you inherited the largest Mideast change of my lifetime, the Abraham accords, and now all the pieces is to shit.’”
However Trump’s response wasn’t passable, leaving Graham imagining the reply that he wished had entered Trump’s thoughts. “What I hoped for was: ‘Once I left we had essentially the most safe border in 40 years, mortgage charges had been beneath 3 %, fuel was $1.87, the Abraham accords, vitality impartial, you screwed all of it up,’” Graham mentioned. He added that he had spoken with Trump to counsel that in future debates in opposition to Harris, he ought to “successfully prosecute what you had and the place we’re at” with regard to the state of the nation earlier than and after Trump’s administration.
Different notable conservatives had been feeling equally cynical about Trump’s efficiency. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie informed ABC Information that whoever had “ready Donald Trump must be fired,” including that the previous president was “not good tonight in any respect.” Fox Information chief political analyst Brit Hume mentioned that there was “no mistake” that Trump “had a foul night time.”
“We simply heard so lots of the previous grievances that everyone knows aren’t winners politically,” Hume mentioned.
Learn extra in regards to the debate:
J.D. Vance is doomed to spend the following few months, and possibly the following few years, being knowledgeable scapegoat for Donald Trump.
Throughout Tuesday night time’s debate, when Trump was requested about how he would vote on a nationwide abortion ban, he went out of his technique to blame his vice presidential decide. “Your operating mate, J.D. Vance, has mentioned that you’d veto [an abortion ban] if it did come to your desk,” mentioned ABC Information anchor Linsey Davis, referring to Vance’s assertion final month that Trump “explicitly” informed him that he would veto a federal abortion ban.
“Effectively I didn’t talk about it with J.D., in all equity. And I don’t thoughts if he has a sure view, however I don’t suppose he was talking for me,” Trump mentioned on the talk stage, earlier than stumbling by way of the remainder of his phrases. “We don’t have to debate it.” When ABC Information adopted up with Vance after the talk, he was requested to clarify Trump’s reply. “Effectively, I believe the president’s been very clear that he doesn’t need a nationwide abortion ban,” said Vance “I believe in some methods he finds the query slightly bit ridiculous as a result of why are we asking him about laws that’s by no means going to really occur and why would he veto it or not veto it when he says very explicitly he doesn’t help a nationwide abortion ban and he desires these insurance policies to be made by the states?” However Vance’s reply didn’t clarify why Trump would throw him beneath the bus. When requested to additional make clear the mix-up, Vance replied each that he “hadn’t spoken to him about it” and that “Donald Trump thinks the query is absurd as a result of he doesn’t help a nationwide abortion ban.” He went on in charge “the media” for focusing on Trump on abortion and “distracting” Individuals, earlier than shifting consideration to assaults on Kamala Harris. Clearly, Vance is very happy to kiss the ring. Donald Trump warned Wednesday that Taylor Swift may “pay a worth” for endorsing Kamala Harris.
Swift, a self-proclaimed “Childless Cat Girl,” posted on Instagram shortly after Tuesday night time’s presidential debate ended, saying that she could be voting for Harris in November and urging her followers to do their very own analysis and register to vote.
Swift wrote that her endorsement was partially a response to A.I.-generated images that falsely purported that the famous person supported Trump. The previous president was so determined to get Swift’s endorsement that he fortunately reposted the faux photos final month.
Throughout a call in to Fox & Mates Wednesday morning, Trump was requested to answer the actual Swift’s sudden however inevitable betrayal.
“Out of nowhere, after the talk final night time, Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris,” mentioned Steve Doocy. “What do you suppose?” “Effectively, I really like uh, Mrs. uh … I really like Mrs. Mahomes a lot better, if you wish to know the reality. She’s an enormous Trump fan,” Trump mentioned, talking about Brittany Mahomes, who’s married to Patrick Mahomes, the teammate of Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce. “I used to be not a Taylor Swift fan, and it was only a query of time.”
Trump then claimed Swift “couldn’t, you couldn’t presumably endorse [Joe] Biden. You have a look at Biden, you couldn’t presumably endorse him. However she’s a really liberal individual. She appears to all the time endorse a Democrat, and she or he’ll most likely pay a worth for it on the, uh, within the market.
“However no, I like Brittany. I believe Brittany’s nice. Brittany received loads of information final week. She’s an enormous—she’s an enormous MAGA fan. That’s the one I like, a lot better than Taylor Swift,” Trump continued, saying Mahomes was “the spouse of the good quarterback, and he is a superb quarterback.”
Final week, Brittany Mahomes liked and then unliked an Instagram publish from the previous president, outlining his 2024 platform and promising to “Hold males OUT of girls’s sports activities,” “Perform the most important deportation operation in American historical past,” and “Seal the border, and cease the migrant invasion.” This minute social media conduct appeared to point her help for the Republican nominee, and plenty of speculated that it’d trigger a rift between the notably liberal Swift and Mahomes. It didn’t.
Whether or not Swift’s endorsement will make a dent in her monumental web price of $1.1 billion is but to be seen—however that might be completely shocking as a result of it was solely anticipated, given her historical past of Democratic endorsements and criticism of Trump.
Trump isn’t the one conservative shedding it over Swift’s endorsement. Fox Information’s Mark Levin, one of many central figures of Trump’s media bubble, took to X to name Swift an “imbecile” for endorsing Harris.
“Taylor Swift simply endorsed for president essentially the most antisemitic, pro-Islamist, pro-criminal, anti-cop, anti-middle class & working folks, open borders, anti-women’s sports activities, anti-military, inflation-causing, job-destroying, pathological liar and extremist Marxist politician ever to run for president,” Levin wrote.
In by far the creepiest response to Swift’s endorsement, technocrat billionaire and right-wing extremist Elon Musk provided to impregnate her. It appears the pervert will need to have forgotten that she has a six-foot-five, 250 pound boyfriend.
Learn in regards to the endorsement: