Donald Trump still thinks highly of his Tuesday debate performance, and lashed out at a Fox News reporter Friday who suggested it didn’t go too well.
After a long, rambling speech by Trump, the reporter mentioned the former president’s recent admission that he doesn’t want another presidential debate, and noted that some of his Republican allies said that he “missed the mark” during the debate. Trump cut her off, and dismissed the characterization.
“No, no, no, excuse me. Most of my Republican allies have said I was great. You’re just like a lot of other people at Fox. Why don’t you say, 94 percent of the Republicans said I did phenomenally in the debate,” Trump said.
“Some said that I could have been tougher. I don’t know how I could have been tougher when I said he’s the worst president and she is the worst vice president in the history of our country,” Trump continued.
a Fox reporter tries to ask Trump about the debate but he gets mad and cuts her off when she cites Republicans criticizing his performance pic.twitter.com/nEFOzD7wIH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2024
Trump is notoriously thin-skinned, and has a love-hate relationship with Fox. The morning after Tuesday’s debate, he vented on Fox & Friends and demanded Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham moderate a future debate. In the past, he’s complained that the network hasn’t been doing enough to help him, even though they’ve long been a conservative entity, and have spread even his most far-fetched election conspiracies.
Is this another example of Trump’s ongoing cognitive decline? During Tuesday’s debate, the former president was easily baited and outwitted by Kamala Harris. He couldn’t stick to the game plan made by his advisers of tying today’s problems to the vice president, and he even tried to combine right-wing talking points on transgender people, migrants, and criminals. On Afghanistan policy, he gave a word-salad answer.
There are also his various mental lapses during the presidential campaign. He’s seemingly forgotten who he’s running against, made weird rants about subjects like bacon and wind power, and accidentally praised Harris and President Biden’s record at one point. Perhaps Fox needs to wait a few more days and treat the former president with kid gloves. They seem to be doing so already, editing out his criticism Friday when replaying his comments. Soon enough, he might even forget this exchange even happened.
