ANALYSIS |
2020
Trump Is Not the Man He Used to Be
His belligerent debate performance revealed the
president has lost the confidence he had four years ago, and it will cost him.
By TIM
ALBERTA
09/30/2020
05:23 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/30/trump-debate-2020-analysis-423916
Donald
Trump believes, to his core, that a single event in 2016 clinched him the
presidency.
It wasn’t
the FBI reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t the
Wikileaks dump of hacked DNC emails. It wasn’t the published list of potential
Supreme Court nominees, or the selection of Mike Pence, or Clinton’s comment
about “deplorables.”
To Trump,
the pivotal moment of the campaign was the second presidential debate. On the
second Sunday in October, the Republican nominee arrived in St. Louis a dead
man walking. Just 48 hours earlier, the Washington Post had publicized an old
recording on which Trump boasted about grabbing women by the genitals. A number
of leading Republicans publicly renounced his candidacy. Many more pleaded with
the party chairman, Reince Priebus, to remove him from the ticket. The morning
before the debate, Priebus warned Trump, “Either you’ll lose in the biggest
landslide in history, or you can get out of the race and let somebody else run
who can win.”
But the
reality TV star wasn’t going to walk away—not from such high drama, not from
such huge ratings. In an interview several years later, Trump told me that he
viewed the debate as an experiment in “who likes pressure.” Voters wanted to
see how a prospective president would handle being tested, being pushed. Trump
responded to that pressure. With his back to the wall, facing scrutiny like no
presidential hopeful in memory, Trump turned in his strongest stage performance
of 2016. He was forceful but controlled. He was steady, unflappable, almost
carefree. Even his most noxious lines, such as suggesting that Clinton belonged
in jail, were delivered with a smooth cadence and a cool smirk, as if he knew a
secret that others didn’t.
“That
debate showed that I like pressure, because there was some pressure. What were
the odds? Like 50-50, will he show up?” Trump told me. “That debate won me the
election.”
I happen to
agree with him. At a moment of genuine crisis, with his campaign on the brink
of collapse just one month before the election, Trump projected a confidence
that became contagious. The calls for his ouster ceased. The party got back to
work boosting his candidacy. His poll numbers began to rebound. Trump had
passed the pressure test. He had stopped the bleeding in ways that kept his
base intact while demonstrating a resiliency, a certain defiance, that was
appealing to some voters still on the fence.
I couldn’t
stop thinking about that 2016 debate, and Trump’s subsequent analysis of it,
during Tuesday night’s Cacophony in Cleveland.
The
backdrop was awfully similar. With about a month until Election Day, trailing
badly in the polls and urgently in need of resurgence, the burden of
performance was on Trump. He came into Tuesday saddled not with a single
calamity of “Access Hollywood” proportion, but with the collective weight of a
pandemic that has killed some 205,000 citizens, an economic meltdown that has
put millions out of work and a racial uproar that rips at the seams of American
society. Because voting has started earlier than ever, diminishing the impact
of later debates, there was zero time to spare. This was the 2020 version of
Trump’s pressure test.
He failed
miserably.
In the wake
of Tuesday’s 90-minute barroom argument, many was the pundit who argued that we
really shouldn’t be surprised. Trump is Trump. The hysterical norm-shattering
guerilla we saw debating in Cleveland is the same hysterical norm-shattering
guerilla we saw coming down the escalator in Manhattan. The manic president on
stage was no different than the manic president on Twitter.
But this
isn’t quite right. In reality, the candidate we saw Tuesday night—the worn,
restless, curmudgeonly incumbent of 2020—bore little resemblance to the loose,
rollicking, self-assured candidate of 2016. It might be hard to remember
through the fog of these past four years, but the animating sentiment for Trump
during his first run for the presidency wasn’t hatred or division. It was fun.
He was having the time of his life. Nothing Trump had ever experienced had
showered him with so much attention, so much adulation, so much controversy and
coverage. He loved every moment of it. Even in the valleys of that campaign,
such as Access Hollywood weekend, Trump found humor in razzing Rudy Giuliani or
making jokes about Karen Pence. Even when he was lashing out against Clinton or
the media or the Never Trump Republicans, he was enjoying himself.
The
president wasn’t enjoying himself last night. There was no mischievous glint in
his eye, no mirthful vibrancy in his demeanor. He looked exhausted. He sounded
ornery. Gone was the swagger, the detached smirk, that reflected bottomless
wells of confidence and conviction. Though described by Tucker Carlson in Fox
News’ pregame show as an “instinctive predator,” Trump behaved like cornered
prey—fearful, desperate, trapped by his own shortcomings and the circumstances
that exposed them. He was a shell of his former dominant self.
It was
shocking to witness. Whereas Trump four years ago was unemotional in his
approach to Clinton, placid almost to the point of appearing sedated, he was
twitchy and agitated from the opening moments of Tuesday’s debate. The
president shouted and seethed and flailed his arms in fury, his face pulsating
ever brighter hues of citrus. For all the talk of Trump throwing Biden off his
game, it was Biden—and moderator Chris Wallace—who stirred such conniptions in
the president that he was unable to meet the bare minimums. Despite being
prepared for the obvious questions, Trump was so inflamed that he could not
offer the vague outlines of a health care plan or denounce white supremacists
with more than a single word—“Sure”—when gifted multiple opportunities to do
so.
On the
debate stage, Trump has long benefited from a commanding presence, an
intimidating persona, that compensates for his lack of policy knowledge. This
was the story of his success in the Republican primary season: He was never
going to be the smartest kid in class, but he was always going to be the
strongest. And yet, Trump didn’t come across as strong Tuesday night. He came
across as spooked and insecure. The president who graduated from Wharton made
fun of his opponent for getting bad grades. The president who is charged with
guiding his country through a pandemic mocked the idea of wearing an oversized
face mask. The president who promised to Make America Great Again depicted the
U.S. (without evidence) as a failed state that can’t run a legitimate election.
Trump has
lived his adult life by the gospel of Norman Vincent Peale and his mega-selling
book, The Power of Positive Thinking. It preaches that there are no obstacles,
only opportunities, and that overcoming them is a matter of belief and
affirmative visualization. Watching the president on Tuesday night felt like
watching someone losing his religion. Trump could not overpower Biden or
Wallace any more than he could overpower Covid-19 or the cascading job losses
or the turmoil engulfing American cities. For the first time in his presidency,
Trump appeared to recognize that he had been overtaken by events. His warnings
about the aftermath of the election doubled for his own political fate: “This
is not going to end well.”
Facing
pressure unlike any he has ever faced, the president of the United States came
unglued. If his campaign for reelection fails, Trump cannot blame any one
particular culprit. He can, however, look back on Tuesday’s debate as the
bookend of his presidency, a moment in our history every bit as politically and
psychologically significant as the one four years earlier.
‘A huge misstep’: Trump allies see a lost
opportunity in first debate
For the next debate, some Trump supporters want the
president’s demeanor to undergo a wholesale makeover.
Some supporters said President Donald Trump‘s constant
jabs ultimately worked to Joe Biden’s advantage.
By GABBY
ORR
09/30/2020
07:06 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/trump-allies-debate-biden-424082
President
Donald Trump spent his first 2020 presidential debate heckling his opponent at
every turn. His supporters are hoping he got it out of his system — for good.
Trump aides
and allies saw Tuesday night’s event, a 90-minute schoolyard brawl featuring
incessant interruptions from the incumbent Republican and pleas from his
Democratic opponent to quit the “yapping,” as an avoidable tragedy in the
president’s quest for reelection.
As the dust
settled in Cleveland and the Trump campaign claimed victory over a “weak”
performance by former Vice President Joe Biden, others involved in his
reelection effort were less convinced the president did himself any favors. If
anything, they said, he might have done more harm than good.
Indeed, the
leading complaint from some of Trump’s top allies after the opening debate was
not the perceived unfairness of moderator Chris Wallace — though they took
repeated issues with the Fox News anchor’s performance — or Biden's evasive
answer to a question related to the Supreme Court, but the president’s own
demeanor. Overcome with scorn for Biden, Trump jabbed and jeered his way
through the night without ever giving his opponent a chance to self-implode.
The strategy confounded supporters who had giddily approached the first debate
thinking it would be a prime opportunity for voters to see the 77-year-old
Democratic presidential nominee stumble through answers with rambling responses
and cringe-worthy gaffes.
One Trump
adviser had flashbacks to the O.J. Simpson trial, likening Trump to the
football legend’s domineering defense attorney Barry Scheck and Biden to
frazzled prosecutor Marcia Clark. But while Scheck may have “brilliantly” saved
his client with merciless cross-examinations, the adviser said Trump’s attempts
to corner Biden only further imperiled his unstable campaign.
Another
person involved with the president’s campaign said they couldn’t blame anyone
who turned the TV off halfway through the debate: “The few independents that we
need, I imagine some of them just flipped the channel after the first hour.”
Others were
more blunt.
“It was
really frustrating to watch,” said Dallas investor Doug Deason, a GOP megadonor
and Trump supporter. “He’s the president of the United States. He should have
not let it get out of hand like it did and instead he led it.”
Deason was
invited by the Republican National Committee to watch the debate at the Trump
International Hotel in Washington, where dozens of MAGA fans spent Tuesday
night sipping cocktails and watching the ugly contest unfold. He declined the
invitation, but assumed many of those who attended shared his frustrations as
they took in the debate from a gilded ballroom blocks away from the White House.
“The whole
thing was just so cringeworthy,” he said. “They’re blaming Biden, but they’re
not happy with Trump. The president should have sat back and let Biden just
talk himself into circles, but instead he kept interrupting.”
“He saved
Biden’s day by doing that,” Deason added. “It was a huge misstep.”
Between now
and Oct. 15, when Trump and Biden are scheduled to face off for the second time
in Miami, some Trump supporters said they want the president’s demeanor to
undergo a wholesale makeover. Instead of constant interference, they want brief
interruptions to introduce topics left untouched by the moderator or to pose
open-ended questions to Biden. Rather than juvenile insults, they want the
witty one-liners that defined Trump’s performances in the 2016 GOP primary
debates.
Barring a
course-correction in the second debate, they said the president could
permanently jeopardize his campaign’s effort to win over undecided voters and
reverse his eroding support with women.
“He needs
to show a little more of his charm and humor, less anger,” said Seth Weathers,
former director of Trump's Georgia campaign and co-founder of a conservative
apparel business.
“More
quips, less hits,” Weathers added.
The cast of
“Fox & Friends,” a Fox News morning show Trump watches religiously, on
Wednesday morning aired a rare segment in which several conservatives close to
the Trump campaign also grumbled about the president’s debate performance.
“The
president interrupted way too much. Mr. President, please don’t do that in the
next debate,” said former Trump campaign adviser Stephen Moore.
President
Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden look out to the
audience at end of the first presidential debate.
President
Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden look out to the
audience at end of the first presidential debate on Tuesday. | Win
McNamee/Getty Images
In the same
segment, Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary under President George W.
Bush, urged Trump to “interrupt less” and “let Biden flail" next time.
The person
involved in Trump’s reelection effort said the president ruined several moments
during the Cleveland debate when Biden appeared to be on the brink of
delivering an unsatisfactory answer, but was interrupted by Trump before he
could complete his sentence.
This person
cited Biden’s response to Wallace when he asked if the former vice president,
who has billed himself as a “transition candidate,” would support the “Green
New Deal” climate plan championed by progressives. Biden, whose campaign
website describes the multitrillion dollar proposal as a “crucial framework for
meeting the climate challenges we face,” distanced himself from the deal — that
is, until Trump jumped in to suggest his opponent had “just lost the radical
left.”
“It was one
of those things where you just kind of wanted him to finish his thought. I was
like, ‘You’ve got him cornered, just let him finish it,’” said the person
involved in Trump’s reelection.
Weathers
said Trump should have refused to discuss other topics until the former vice
president definitively said he would support or oppose court-packing if
elected.
“Are you
willing to tell the American people tonight whether or not you will support either
ending the filibuster or packing the courts?” Wallace suggested, referring to a
scenario floated by some progressive activists in which Democrats could add
more justices to the Supreme Court bench to erase its conservative tilt.
“Whatever
position I take on that, that will become the issue. The issue is the American
people should speak. ... Vote and let your senators know how strongly you
feel,” Biden responded.
Before
Wallace could pose a follow-up, Trump cocked his head toward Biden and pounced:
“Are you going to pack the court? Are you going to pack the court? He doesn’t
want to answer the question.”
“Who is on
your list, Joe?” Trump continued, referring to Biden’s yet-to-be-released names
of potential Supreme Court nominees.
The
president “could have done something more theatrical than what he did” instead
of repeatedly interrupting Biden on the court-packing question, said the Trump
campaign adviser. “It is outside the mainstream of America to support packing
the court and for a presidential candidate to say, ‘No, I’m not going to answer
that question,’ I just think the president should have had a more succinct
response ready to go.”
The format
of the next debate is likely to reduce bickering between Trump and Biden —
directing their focus toward audience questions in a town hall-style format as
opposed to simply responding to the moderator and each other — though it is
unclear if the president and those involved in his debate preparations are
eyeing a different approach.
While former
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has spent the past few weeks in debate
preparation with Trump, admitted he was “too hot” on the debate stage, the
president himself seemed pleased with his performance. AFter the debate, Trump
lit up his Twitter feed with retweets of people who praised his combative style
and suggested in a Wednesday afternoon tweet that the disorder that ensued the
previous night had nothing to do with his conduct.
“Try
getting a new Anchor and a smarter Democrat candidate!” Trump tweeted in
response to a statement from the Commission on Presidential Debates promising
to add new “tools to maintain order” in the remaining verbal contests.
“President
Trump controlled the entire conversation … and kept Joe Biden on his heels and
looking weak and unable to defend his 47 years of failure in Washington,” said
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “We are enthusiastic about
the upcoming debates and look forward to them.”
