Donald Trump flubbed the last debate. His allies know it, his fundraisers know it—but that doesn’t mean they’re willing to admit it.
On Thursday, the Republican presidential nominee announced that he had decided not to debate Vice President Kamala Harris for a second time, writing in a lengthy rant on Truth Social that “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” (Apparently he’s counting his debate against Joe Biden.)
But less than 24 hours after the major reversal, Trump’s team was already working to explain away why the country would be getting less of their candidate.
“I admire President Trump for not debating her again,” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem told Fox News. “He is recognizing the fact that it is a waste of time, that she is not going to say what she truly believes, she’s not going to be truthful with the American people, and he’s going to take his argument directly to families and to people that live in this country that are impacted by her policies.”
Noem: I admire President Trump for not debating her again. pic.twitter.com/175URFOat8
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2024
In an interview with CNN, former J.D. Vance Senate staffer Ryan Girdusky argued that Trump was vindicated in his decision on the basis that the vice president is “the least vetted candidate” in U.S. history.
Former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard touted a stale campaign line, telling Fox News that the debate was fundamentally flawed because of the presence of two ABC moderators.
“President Trump went into a debate where it was three versus one. It was completely biased,” Gabbard said. “Why would he walk into that again?”
(In reality, ABC actually allowed Trump to speak for six minutes longer than his Democratic opponent over the duration of the debate.)
But Republican donors saw through the act. Behind the scenes of the political theater, conservative fundraisers saw Trump’s reversal as a candidate left with no other options following a “disaster” debate performance.
“I think a lot of the donors, or at least the ones that I was texting with the night of the debate, were not exactly thrilled about how that debate went down,” GOP fundraiser Noelle Nikpour told Fox News Thursday. “What I will tell you, I do think it’s smart for Donald Trump not to do the debate. I think that that was a good decision with the campaign, and I’ll tell you why. Because depending on when that debate will be scheduled, and if he has another repeat performance like he did, I don’t know if the campaign can recover that quickly. I don’t think they have enough time to recover from that.”
