With assistance from ABC NewsKamala Harris won the presidential debate in Philadelphia.
The moderators vigorously, and sometimes misleadingly, fact-checked Donald Trump. He was correct that Harris had spoken out in previous years for kicking 180 million Americans off their private health insurance and confiscating guns.
They [moderadores] They didn’t challenge her, letting her claim that her reference to a post-election “bloodbath” was about civil unrest, not damage to the auto industry. They asked him more pointed questions than they did her. Her assurance of Biden’s acuity and vigor, for example, drew no challenge.
But no one forced Trump to follow the many blind alleys he has taken. He didn’t have to defend the Jan. 6 protesters, claim he won in 2020, or engage in a dispute over crowd size — or, for that matter, cite political commentator Sean Hannity and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as his fans. Anyone who was encouraged by those comments is already an active Trump supporter.
Harris didn’t have a good answer when asked whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago, or what she would do differently than Joe Biden, or why she has changed her mind on so many issues, or even — and here we must give credit to the moderators for asking — whether she would set any limits on abortion.
But Trump has done more to raise doubts about himself than about her. The race is still tight, and his flaws are still glaring, but he has done himself or his supporters no favors.
©2024 National Review. Published with permission. Original in English: Trump’s Missed Opportunity
#Trumps #Missed #Opportunity
