A debate moderated by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television channel was not expected to be in favour of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. If you consider that ABC news executive Dana Waldman’s husband and the Harris couple are friends, you would know better than to judge either candidate by their performance in the debate. To make matters worse for Trump, the debate co-host David Muir, reportedly, has done 100 percent positive shows about Harris since she was declared Democratic presidential nominee and 93 negative ones on Trump.
So, did the channel brief Harris about the questions coming her way? The best answer came from a wisecrack on YouTube: “It is the Harris campaign that gave the questions to ABC.” On a serious note, pollster and former Democratic Party election strategist Mark Penn, has demanded a “ full investigation” into the debate and how it was “rigged”: “To what extent they were planning on an effect, fact-checking just one candidate (Trump) and in effect rigging the outcome of the debate.” He called for a “review of all their (ABC’s) internal texts and emails.”
As to who won the debate, and whether it would help or harm either candidate’s winning chances, is just an academic discussion. The impression made on the voters by the performance during the debate is bound to fade by the time elections are held. There are still seven weeks of campaigning to go. About Harris’s call for another debate, Trump said, “a loser in a prize fight always asks for a rematch, she is like a prize fighter who lost the fight” as he ruled out a third debate. Trump debated President Joe Biden before Harris.
The headlines we saw in the mainstream media, like “Kamala crushes Trump,” are hyperbolic. It is not at all easy to crush Trump, and despite the celebration of Harris’s performance we see in the Democratic Party and the media channels that support it, facts speak otherwise. Over 67 million people watched the ABC debate and 17 million people watched the two-minute conclusion, out of which a whopping one million people liked the way Trump clinched it–with a question at the end.
“She says she is going to do this and she is going to do that and all the wonderful things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it? She has been there for three and a half years, they had three and a half years to fix the border, to create jobs…why hasn’t she done it?… I just ask one simple question, why hasn’t she done it?”
This question really sealed the debate, for this is a question most Americans are asking. The consolation prize in the debate, of course, went to Harris. Aided by the ABC anchors, who put on kid gloves for her, the long and dramatic rehearsal for the debate done by Harris paid off. Her supporters must be heaving a sigh of relief that she did not make any embarrassing gaffes she is notorious for.
Harris herself looks more self-assured after the debate. As for Trump, he is ever confident and despite knowing the odds against him, took the challenge well. It is an open secret that, unlike Harris, who was sweating it out in her practice sessions on an actual set in a hotel suite, Trump had a totally relaxed approach towards the debate–his seventh since 2016, and was merrily campaigning until the last hours.
Given the unfair advantage the channel was expected to give Harris, why did the former president agree to be on ABC? A lot of people are asking this question. For an answer, we need to know who Trump is: A fighter. Backing down from an odd situation is simply not him. The most recent and solid evidence Trump gave of his intrinsic strength was his response to the assassination attempt on him at a rally in Pennsylvania.
With his ear bleeding after he was shot and the secret service team covering him, Trump, fist held up, shouted, “Fight. Fight.” Nobody can fake such a brave response in a situation like that. Trump has, undoubtedly, won a lot of hearts with that. His response was, indeed, a big statement on Trump’s physical and mental strength. At his age, anybody else would have crumbled in that moment.
Some analysts went to the extent of saying that the incident also underlined his leadership qualities, and it was thanks to Trump’s courageous and collected response that there was no scramble around the stage or among his supporters, who just sat patiently as Trump was ushered away. Even later on Trump did not whine, he did not play the victim card, and he did not level accusations at the Joe Biden government for the lapses in his security. In fact, he had high praise for the secret service men who had covered him after the shooting.
With a bandaged ear, he appeared at the Republican National Convention two days later and let it be known that his fighting spirit was intact. If the general impression about Trump since he first ran for president in 2016—and won—has been negative, it is mainly because of his much-publicised offensive remarks against women, but also because of the excessive negative propaganda against him in the mainstream media. In fact, Trump has been demonized by the media since he entered politics.
In order to get an objective picture about the former president, one has look into his past. Watching his interviews with the BBC and American television chat shows from the 1980s to 2010, one cannot help noticing his articulation and originality, both as a business leader and a person, especially as a husband and father. However, wild stories of his sexcapades so jammed the airwaves after Trump stepped into politics that people began to identify Trump with them. So heavy was the propaganda that the late Barbara Bush thought Trump was not qualified to get the votes of women. Here is what she told CBS about Trump in a 2016 interview.
“He just makes faces, says insulting things, terrible things about women, I don’t know how women can vote for him.”
“How he’s treated women, it is unbelievable. I don’t know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly. It is terrible and we knew what he meant.”
Mrs Bush was referring to the 2016 debate at the Republican Convention in which Megyn Kelly, then at Fox News, threw a point blank accusation at Trump: “You have called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs’, ‘dogs’, ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals’.” With a straight face, Trump answered “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” as his audience burst into loud applause. Trump had been having a running verbal duel with comedian Rosie he said was “dumb” and “obnoxious”.
Trump also retaliated to Kelly’s “highly inappropriate question” through tweets, calling her “overrated” and a “bimbo”, “who does not know her job”. He is alleged to have made an obscene insinuation against Kelly (the comment Mrs Bush found shocking), but Trump denied it.
Kelly reported being “tormented” by Trump, but a few months after the spat, they buried the hatchet following a Trump-Kelly meeting. Not only did Kelly make her peace with Trump, in an interview with ABC, she praised him: “Donald Trump is thin-skinned and he can be mean-spirited, he can be vindictive when attacked, but my own experience with him proves a magnanimous and charming (side to him). He is able to let go off if he chooses.”
Coming from Kelly, neither her criticism nor praise is credible, though. She herself uses four letter words during her shows on her YouTube channel without blinking an eye, the latest against Taylor Swift for the singer’s endorsement of Harris. Kelly seems to be in line with Trump, who, explaining the profanities he employs, said, “this is the modern way of hitting back.”
However, when bitter political rival Hillary Clinton, who Trump calls “crooked Hillary”, pays him a compliment, it is another story. During the 2016 presidential debate with Trump, when asked to pick one good thing she could say about him, Clinton praised him on his parenting. “I don’t agree with anything he says or does, but I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted, and that says a lot about him.” Coming from a bitter opponent, the words prompt one to look anew at Trump’s personality, largely obscured by the well-earned, negative publicity he gets in the mainstream media.
That Trump is impulsive, volatile and has no patience with political correctness or niceties, is well-known. With his blunt, take it or leave it style, he continues to win the ire of his opponents, but that is precisely what brings him admiration from his supporters. They find him “unpretentious” and “more honest than rude” as they cheer him at his rallies when he underlines his “I tell it like it is” approach.
Personal attacks do not seem to rattle Trump and he hits back without wasting time. He is is on record as having said, “I go hard after people (who attack me).” Trump comes across as the sort of personality that is empowered by opposition. His 17-year-old grand daughter, perhaps, described it best. In a brief speech at the Republican National Convention on the day Trump was nominated as the presidential candidate, Kai Trump said, “A lot of people put my grandpa through hell, and he is still standing.” That, he sure is.
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