Ever since his presidential debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump has been claiming publicly that he won when he hasn’t been complaining about biased moderators and dealing with media questioning about his association with deranged conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
However, there are indications that some of Trump’s inner circle are surprised at how badly he performed on Tuesday night.
The New Republic cited CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who reported on what she heard from the Trump camp on Wednesday.
“I’m told that as soon as Donald Trump exited that debate stage, he immediately began quizzing those waiting in his viewing room about how the last 90 minutes had gone,” Collins said on the air. “While several people praised him to his face, telling him they did a great job, that’s not what a lot of them are saying privately today.”
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Collins had a memorable exchange immediately after the debate with J.D. Vance, in which she challenged the vice presidential nominee on his claims about immigrants in Ohio eating dogs and cats.
“Instead, those around Trump have described what happened as a draw at best and a loss at worst,” Collins said Wednesday. “Several of them told CNN they were stunned that the former president failed to do a better job executing on the talking points that he had been preparing with his team for weeks against Vice President Harris, her record, her policy reversals.”
Also, Collins noted, Trump had been expected to hit Harris on the question of where she’s been for the last four years, but didn’t really raise that point until his closing argument. The panel on Fox News agreed that Trump didn’t have a great night.
Trump, for his part, declared victory, and vowed Thursday to not debate Harris again. Trump supporters have also spread conspiracy theories, from attemping to make hay about Harris and one of the debate moderators belonging to the same sorority (at different schools, many years apart), or spreading the notion that the earrings Harris wore for the debate were in fact Bluetooth earpods.
Another conspiracy theory emerged Thursday, through the sort of made-up-out-of-whole-cloth nonsense that often spreads easily on Elon Musk’s X.
A completely unsourced claim made the rounds, alleging that a “whistleblower” had come forward within ABC News to reveal that Harris received the debate questions in advance. There is no evidence for this at all, and it’s unclear whether having the questions in advance would even help, since every candidate in every presidential debate likely knows which 15-20 issues are likely to be asked about.
BREAKING: ABC whistleblower allegedly will release an affidavit claiming the Harris campaign was given sample questions that were “essentially the same questions that were given during the debate,” as well as assurances that Trump would be “fact-checked” and she would not.
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) September 12, 2024
At any rate, ABC has strongly denied the assertion that anyone received the questions in advance, which is not something they would likely do if a real whistleblower were preparing to come forward.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery.
