Donald Trump’s campaign publicly claimed victory in the debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday night, but at least some of his aides privately conceded it was unlikely that he persuaded any undecided voters to break for him, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Will tonight benefit us? No, it will not,” one Trump aide said.
The sentiment summed up the predicament for the Trump campaign that with 55 days until the election, Trump is still casting around for a moment that could allow his attack lines against Harris to break through and overwrite her gains in key battleground state polls.
And it was an acknowledgment that despite their hopes of getting Happy Trump on stage, they got Angry Trump, who seemingly could not shake his fury at being taunted over his supporters leaving his rallies early and being repeatedly fact-checked by the moderators.
The Trump campaign for weeks had viewed the debate as a prime opportunity to get through to a national, primetime television audience of millions, his attacks against Harris on policy that they believed had not been delivered in mainstream news coverage.
As the reasoning went, even if the television networks declined to air Trump’s rallies or remarks at campaign stops, they would be forced to carry him live and uninterrupted when he had the floor during the debate.
But Trump got baited by Harris less than 10 minutes into the debate, and even on his favorite topics such as illegal immigration, Trump missed multiple opportunities to land attacks and ultimately argued with the moderators about whether Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio.
The original plan to manipulate the supposed targeting of pets by immigrants, if disputed by the moderators, was to say it was hearsay – and then pivot to attacking Harris on the ramifications of illegal immigration on crime.
The trouble was that Trump struggled to execute the plan, according to people briefed on the prep work. He got stuck on Harris’s jibe about his rallies and then got tangled in a back and forth over the truth or falsity of the story.
The one high point that several Trump advisers noted was Trump’s closing statement – which were rehearsed remarks – in which he questioned why Harris had not already enacted her proposed policies as part of the Biden administration’s agenda.
In a statement, the Trump campaign chiefs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita publicly echoed their boss and declared victory. “The choice could not be more clear – President Trump was the clear winner tonight, and he will win for America when he returns to the White House,” they wrote.
Trump’s advisers were also universally critical of the debate moderators, the ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, and their repeated fact-checks of Trump’s more extreme claims, suggesting it looked like a pile-on with three against one.
Still, their private assessment of the debate was not the victory declaration that Trump made on Fox News as he visited the spin room and then used to justify demurring on whether he would have a second debate against Harris with 55 days until the election.
“I don’t know, I have to think about it, but if you won the debate, I sort of think maybe I shouldn’t do it. Why should I do another debate?” Trump said when pressed by the Fox News host Sean Hannity.
