Members of the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board on Wednesday gave former President Donald Trump decidedly poor marks for his debate performance against Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a reaction roundup, many of the editors slammed ABC News for what they claimed was a biased moderation of the debate that saw Trump get put on the defensive for much of the night.
Nonetheless, many of these same editors pointed out that Harris successfully baited Trump multiple times throughout the debate and he had no excuse for so eagerly taking it.
"But as unfair as [the debate] may have been, it doesn’t change the fact that Tuesday night Kamala Harris baited Donald Trump," argued William McGurn. "The result was that he appeared angry and defensive most of the night, while she remained calm and cool and smiling. It worked. Decision for the vice president."
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Editor Barton Swaim gave a similarly scathing review of Trump's debate.
"As for Mr. Trump’s presentation Tuesday night, it was terrible," he contended. "He let Kamala Harris provoke him to anger, ranted about the 2020 election, constantly interrupted his own assertions, and failed to capitalize on obvious vulnerabilities. Mr. Trump was handed an opportunity to call attention to Ms. Harris’s many and dramatic policy reversals, but he spoke in circumlocutionary fragments."
Editor Kyle Peterson, meanwhile, singled out the moment where Harris mentioned Trump's rally crowds as the point where the debate went off the rails for the former president.
In fact, he notes, it was shortly after that where Trump began ranting about false claims of Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio and then ranted about World War III, purportedly fraudulent FBI statistics, and the January 6th riot at the United States Capitol building.
"What of this is supposed to reassure suburbanites who worry that Mr. Trump is too erratic to put back in the Oval Office?" he asked.
