It is not clear whether the debate between Republican Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will have a second part, after the vice president put her rival on the defensive for most of the more than 100 minutes of dialectical duel between the two in Philadelphia. But there was an extension: the former president made a surprise appearance at the press center to argue to the journalists who had covered the event that the winner had been, of course, without a doubt, absolutely, him and only him.
“I think I had the best debate I have ever participated in,” the former US president said in front of a crowd of journalists, who had been caught off guard by the candidate’s arrival and who tried to get close to him despite the row of secret service agents protecting him. “The polls say we won by 90%, 82%… I felt very good in the debate, I enjoyed doing it,” while his non-verbal language betrayed him a little.
His appearance was something unusual. Throughout the history of presidential debates in the United States, the candidates conclude their speech and call it a night, to rest or review with their advisors and loved ones what happened during the program. If anything, they agree to attend a meeting to be acclaimed by their faithful. The task of providing evaluations, always of course self-interested, is left to other political celebrities of their party, previously designated.
These are the politicians who go to a specially designated area in the press room, the so-called spin room (something like the “lobby room”). Identified by campaign signs bearing their names and announcing their presence to reporters who wish to ask them questions, whatever happened in the television studio, they always respond that their candidate is, without a doubt, absolutely, the one who has won the duel and that the rival has been disastrous. The official list of Democratic spokespeople included figures such as the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, or the congresswoman and war veteran Tammy Duckworth. On the Republican side, the vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, had been the big star until the appearance of his head of the formula.
Without his Democratic opponent in front of him, Trump continued with the same arguments he had used during the debate. The accusations that Haitian immigrants in Ohio eat their neighbors’ pets? “It’s true,” he maintained, even though both on the television program and among journalists it was pointed out to him that local authorities have denied this rumor that he and his campaign have helped spread.
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Trump’s appearance just minutes after the debate ended was symptomatic. Since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for the White House, the tycoon has repeatedly tried to counterprogram her at times when she was receiving greater or more favorable media coverage, with last-minute press conferences or sudden statements on social media.
And this time, opinions that Harris had her rival on the ropes and won the debate were almost unanimous. Even on the former president’s favourite Fox News network, one of his star journalists, Bret Hume, declared: “Make no mistake about it… Trump had a bad night.” On the liberal-leaning MSNBC, host Rachel Maddow noted that she and her colleagues were debating whether Harris could have delivered “the best performance in a televised presidential debate in history.”
A quick poll on CNN gave the vice president the night’s winner. 63% of those surveyed thought she performed better, while 37% thought Trump was the dominant one.
For the former president, the opinions of the outside world were irrelevant. “She lost tonight, she was terrible,” he said. “She was terrible. She tried to distance herself from Biden and she didn’t succeed… I think she was very weak on foreign policy, she was very weak on the border.” And he insisted: “I think I had my best debate.”
If anyone could say that he hadn’t had his best night, it didn’t matter. The fault? The referees, of course. The moderators, David Muir and Lindsay Davis, “were very unfair. Basically, it was three against one. I think they were very unfair, everyone thought so.”
Since taking over as head of the Democratic ticket in mid-July, Trump had expressed doubts about his participation in tonight’s debate, agreed in May with the Biden campaign. In August, and before finally confirming his attendance, he had announced that he would not participate, after accusing the network that organized it, ABC News, of bias: the tycoon is pursuing a lawsuit against one of its presenters, George Stephanopoulos, for alleged defamation. “I had already assumed that the moderators would be bad, because right now they are the worst television network, in my opinion,” declared the former president, before leaving, as suddenly as he had arrived.
In the rest of the spin room, Democratic representatives did not hide their joy. “Kamala Harris showed why she should be the next president. Donald Trump showed why he should not be,” argued North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. “She wants to be president for all Americans, not spend all her time denigrating our country and saying we are a failed nation.”
“If enough undecided voters have watched this debate, it could well have an impact on the polls,” the governor added.
The governor of the state hosting the debate, Pennsylvania, expressed a similar sentiment. Josh Shapiro, considered a future presidential candidate, said that Harris “has the wind at her back now, and tonight she took a big step forward.”
Far from there, the man who would have faced Trump tonight had he not had a catastrophic performance in his own debate against the Republican in June, also declared his vice president the winner of the televised duel: “Tonight, America got to see the leader I have been proud to work with for three and a half years. It was not even close. Vice President Harris showed that she is the best choice to lead our country forward. We are not going back.”
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