Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
This is the day Donald Trump truly became president. He is a changed man. He’s had an “existential” shift. He’s now more spiritual. He’s going to tear up his original convention speech to “meet the moment.” His economic speech was totally coherent.
For some unfathomable reason, the political press loves to take Trump’s bullshit at face value, despite being proven time and time again that he is only himself—a bitter, stupid, angry, and bigoted demagogue who will never change. And the same was true when it came to the press’ stories about Trump’s supposedly serious approach to debate prep.
This was tweeted by a reporter at The Guardian, shortly before Tuesday night’s presidential debate:
Given Trump’s abysmal performance during the debate, it is very clear he did not take prep “unusually seriously.” In fact, he has benefitted from a lifetime of success without having to really work for any of it. In 2016, Hillary Clinton trounced Trump in all their debates, and what did it matter in the end? He literally made fun of Clinton for preparing for those debates, calling her prep “resting,” which betrayed his dismissive attitudes toward studying up.
Today, polling shows that the race is essentially a coin flip, despite Trump’s lazy campaign trail schedule and refusal to engage in basic message discipline, ad spending, or campaign building. He seems to think that calling into “Fox & Friends” and the far-right outlet Newsmax are equivalent to doing the hard work of winning votes. At the debate, he admitted he doesn’t talk to his running mate about some key issues.
The world has consistently rewarded his laziness and lack of preparation. And President Joe Biden’s painful performance in their first (and only) debate, on June 27, further persuaded Trump that he didn’t have to work to win. Trump believes his own narcissistic drivel about being a “very stable genius,” that his ramblings are “brilliant,” and that he is “like, really smart.”
His own campaign is designed to feed his ego. Here’s The New York Times on Aug. 16:
[Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline] Leavitt said the former president has “proven to be one of the best debaters in political history as evidenced by his knockout blow to Joe Biden. He does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisers and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage in 2020.”
His campaign was literally saying he didn’t need debate prep!
The article further noted that “Mr. Trump likes to say he doesn’t need to prepare for debates, and his team is under instructions to use the term ‘policy time’ to describe their sessions.”
But if you’re taking the debate seriously, you certainly shouldn’t put Gabbard or Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz in charge—as Trump very much did, according to The New York Times. As our own Mark Sumner wrote on Monday:
Ever since 2019, Gabbard has been trading on that single exchange with Harris, becoming a MAGA star mostly based on having "bested" Harris in a debate. It’s been extremely rewarding for her. She has not just continued as a repeat guest on right-wing shows, she has also been a featured speaker at the last two Conservative Political Action Conference gatherings and gone on tour with Nazi-loving Tucker Carlson. Trump has placed Gabbard at the head of his transition team alongside conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Perhaps Trump’s advisors thought Gabbard could talk some sense into Trump? NBC News reported on Monday that “a Trump campaign official said [Gabbard] had been helpful getting Trump to think about the pivot from attacking Harris to highlighting his policies or what he would do differently. That included talking through how to take things one step beyond the attack lines he gives at rallies into cohesive debate answers.”
Hoo boy, none of that happened. Not only was Trump unable to give cohesive debate answers, but also he went even further into la la land by bringing up a debunked, racist hoax about migrants eating local pets. Was that Gaetz’s role in that debate prep? To get Trump to talk about even crazier things?
The reality is there isn’t a person in this world who could’ve gotten Trump to do the work to meet the moment. At the bare minimum, it would’ve included ignoring Harris’ jabs at the size of his crowds or his COVID-19 record. It would’ve required him to keep his composure, engage in basic human behavior like looking at his opponent, and offer concise, coherent answers to questions. Harris did all of that—and made it look so easy that conservatives are falsely claiming her earrings were earpieces through which she could be fed answers.
Last night was a stunning success for Harris. But tarring Gabbard with the blame for Trump’s catastrophic performance is the cherry on top.
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