Ever have that dream in which you walk into your geometry class and realize you had failed to study for the final exam?
That was Donald Trump on Tuesday night.
Among the many takeaways from the debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris, there was this: If you have seriously thin skin and an overweening ego, it’s probably not a good idea to debate a prosecutor.
Sure enough, minutes after the debate began, it became obvious that Trump had ignored the cardinal rule of debating: Preparation is everything.
It certainly paid off for Harris. Although it will be a few more days before the post-debate polls are completed and analyzed, Democrats and even many Republicans have already concluded that Harris won the debate.
Trump’s failure to train adequately for the debate blinded him to the realization that Harris would use his egotism against him. There is little doubt that Trump’s debate coaches warned him not to underestimate Harris, a prosecutor with years of experience in contending with criminal defense attorneys.
Like he paid attention. As one Republican noted after the debate, as Harris presented criticisms of his presidency, Trump went down one rabbit hole after another. The result: more than an hour of scattershot claims that showed the former president’s wing-it approach had undermined his opportunity to make the best case for his re-election.
In a warning that Republicans should not fall for Trump’s claim that he had in fact won the 2020 election, longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz begged to differ, refuting claims that Trump just had a bad night.
Not so, according to Luntz, whose political wisdom is widely respected:
“This [was] not the worst debate performance I’ve seen in my career, but it’s very close to it. The conversations about people eating dogs and cats, calling the leader of Hungary one of the greatest world leaders, repeatedly missing the opportunity to focus on inflation and affordability, and the complete inability to present his point of view without completely tearing into her, into Joe Biden, into whomever was in his sights. It was a pretty negative performance. Pretty pessimistic. Cynical. Contemptuous. And I think that this will cost him.”
In one of the debate’s most contentious issues, Trump went all in on immigration, ranting about migrants crossing the border to “destroy our country, steal Americans’ jobs and take over towns. They’re criminals. Other countries’ crime rates are dropping.” In America, apparently, criminals rule.
Harris noted that Republicans and Democrats had produced a bipartisan bill aimed at strengthening oversight of the border, including 1,500 more border patrol officers. It was set for a vote — until Trump demanded that Republicans drop their support. Instead, she said, Trump preferred to run on the immigration issue rather than try to fix the problem.
As expected, Harris focused on the abortion issue that has become a huge problem for Republicans since Roe v. Wade was overturned in a 6-3 party-line decision.
Since the Roe decision, Trump has been “all over the lot” on various pro-life issues. His criticism of a proposed abortion ban in Florida, The New York Times wrote, led the conservative National Review to publish an article titled, “Trump Stabs Florida Pro-Lifers in the Front.”
Since the 2020 election, GOP consultants and others haven’t succeeded in persuading Trump to focus on ways he could help Americans who need it. But with the election less than two months away, who could be surprised when, during the debate, he was asked if he was finally admitting he lost in 2020. His reply: “No, I don’t acknowledge that at all.”
But he did say later that he lost “by a whisker.” Adding: “That was sarcasm.”
And here we are.
Michael Loftin is a former editorial page editor at The Chattanooga Times.