After a presidential debate in which Vice President Kamala Harris goaded former President Trump and put him on the defensive, Trump insisted Wednesday morning that he did a “great job,” blasted the debate as “a rigged deal” and called for ABC to be shut down.
The Republican nominee, who was widely criticized even by Republicans for his weak performance in his first face-to-face meeting with Harris, accused the ABC debate moderators of bias during an early morning appearance on Fox News' “Fox & Friends.”
“It was three to one,” Trump said, accusing moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of fact-checking his statements but not doing the same for Harris. “I think I did a great job.”
Fox's chief political analyst disagreed.
“Make no mistake: Trump had a bad night,” Brit Hume told viewers moments after the debate ended. “This was pretty much his night.”
Shortly afterward, a number of Fox News commentators complained about the way ABC presented its shows. Fox News’ Sean Hannity echoed Trump’s complaint, harshly criticizing the “far-left moderators.” Florida Senator Marco Rubio called them “an embarrassment to journalism.”
But many other conservative pundits dismissed that line of argument.
Erick Erickson, the American conservative radio show host and blogger, wrote on Substack that the moderators were “100% biased” but that Trump ultimately performed poorly.
“The Harris campaign has been saying for a week that it would try to get on Trump’s nerves by mocking his rallies,” Erickson wrote in X on Wednesday mornings. “It worked. It changed Trump’s demeanor for the rest of the debate. He fell right into it.”
“Donald Trump was a disaster last night,” Andrew McCarthy wrote in a National Review article titled “The Trump Disaster.” “He was unhinged, often incoherent, unable to complete thoughts and sentences when he had something to say, leading him down self-absorbed rabbit holes.”
“Look, you can complain about the refs,” wrote John Podhoretz, editor of the conservative magazine Commentary, in X. “But if the pass is incomplete, the play is dead.”
During the debate, Harris repeatedly irritated Trump and distracted him from making his case to undecided voters by bringing up issues like the size of crowds at his rallies and what she said was his lack of standing among military generals and world leaders.
Moderators corrected Trump when he made false claims that Democrats, including his running mate Tim Walz, support “executing” babies “after birth.” They also rejected his claim that Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio, are eating residents’ cats and dogs, noting that the city manager said there were no credible reports of pets being harmed.
On Wednesday morning, Trump criticized the moderators for failing to correct Harris when she linked him to Project 2025, a sprawling plan for a second Trump administration published by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Trump has rejected the plan, even though it was put together by many of his former staffers.
Trump also said Harris misled viewers when she presented a comment he made predicting an economic “bloodbath” if his tariffs on foreign-made cars were not enacted while threatening an uprising if he lost the election.
Asked why he thought the moderators had not corrected Harris, Trump replied: “Because they're dishonest.”
“I think ABC took a huge hit last night,” he continued. “To be honest, they are a news organisation, they have to be licensed to do this. They should have their licence revoked for the way they did it.”
Shortly after the debate, Harris' campaign said the vice president was ready for a rematch in October.
In a statement, Harris-Walz campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said Harris dominated the stage and Trump was “totally incoherent.”
“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: either moving forward with Kamala Harris or moving backward with Trump,” O’Malley Dillon said. “That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see in a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?”
Trump said Wednesday he was not sure.
“When two boxers face each other and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate or a fight,” he told “Fox & Friends.” “The loser, the boxer, the one who debates, always asks for a rematch… I don’t feel inclined to do that because I won the debate by a lot. But I think we’ll let it sit and see what happens.”
On Tuesday night, Fox News announced that the network had sent letters to the Harris and Trump campaigns offering to host a debate in October “as early in-person voting gets underway in several battleground states.” It suggested three possible dates and locations: Oct. 9 in Arizona, Oct. 15 in Georgia and Oct. 16 in North Carolina.
Minutes after the debate ended, Harris got a powerful endorsement: Pop megastar Taylor Swift, identifying herself as a “childless cat lady,” announced on Instagram that she plans to vote for Harris.
Swift, who has 283 million followers on Instagram, praised Harris as a “talented and steady leader” who “fights for the rights and causes that I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Trump said he was unfazed. “I was not a Taylor Swift fan,” Trump said. “It was just a matter of time. She couldn’t support Biden… But she’s a very liberal person. She always seems to support a Democrat.”
For all the Democratic enthusiasm for Harris's performance, there were signs that the debate did not mark a radical shift in the thinking of American voters.
According to a snap poll conducted by CNN, about 6 in 10 debate viewers said Harris outperformed Trump and 4 in 10 said Trump did a better job. About 96% of debate viewers surveyed (who did not reflect the full spectrum of opinions of the American voting public) said they did not change their minds about who to vote for.
In an op-ed for Fox, Douglas Schoen, a political consultant and former adviser to President Clinton and Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, argued that Harris was the clear winner of the debate, but that it would be a “profound mistake” to count out Trump.
“Harris certainly had better answers on abortion, health care, climate change, and leadership for the future. That much is clear,” Schoen wrote. “But what is also clear is that what Trump said in his closing statement remains true.”
“Voters remain angry about the direction the country is headed,” he continued, “about the performance of both President Biden and Harris, as well as about which candidate they trust more on the two or three major issues facing the country: the economy, immigration and law and order.”
Harris still had to win some key constituencies.
Sunrise, the youth movement to stop climate change, criticized Harris for missing “a critical opportunity to draw a stark contrast to Trump and show young voters that she will stand up to Big Oil and stop the climate crisis.”
“Harris spent more time promoting fracking than laying out a bold vision for a clean energy future,” Sunrise communications director Stevie O’Hanlon said in a statement.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council said “Harris doubled down on the Biden administration’s policy of sending weapons to a regime that kills Palestinian families every day.”
He also criticized both candidates for failing to mention the name of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American citizen who was killed last week by the Israel Defense Forces during a protest in the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday morning, Harris issued a statement regarding Eygi.
“The killing of Aysenur Eygi is a horrific tragedy that should never have happened,” Harris wrote. “The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of Israel Defense Forces personnel in the West Bank. Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
