Republican Karl Rove says Trump's got 'crushed by a woman he called dumb as a rock' during 'train wreck' debate | The Independent
By: Oliver O'Connell (The Independent)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Veteran Republican strategist says Trump's 'furious' performance 'catastrophic' whereas Harris was 'calm, confident, strong and focused on the future'
Karl Rove, the Republican political consultant and deputy chief of staff in the George W Bush administration, has pulled no punches in an op-ed saying that Donald Trump's debate against Kamala Harris was a "train wreck" for him.
Calling Trump's debate performance "catastrophic", he goes as far as to say that he was "crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as 'dumb as a rock'."
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Rove says the former president's performance was "far worse than anything Team Trump could have imagined" and Trump was "visibly rattled" as Harris "launched rocket after rocket at him."
Rove notes that according to an analysis by The New York Times, Harris spent 46 percent of her time on the attack, while Trump's attacks only amounted to 29 percent of his time.
"Debates aren't won on defense," he wrote.
Going deeper, Rove writes that Trump was bested by his emotions when he must have known Harris would try and get him to lose his cool.
"He took the bait almost every time she put it on the hook, offering a pained smile as she did," Rove said. "Rather than dismissing her attacks and launching his strongest counterarguments against her, Mr Trump got furious."
Things only got worse as her attacks continued, says Rove, noting: "He gripped the podium more often and more firmly. He grimaced and shook his head, at times responding with wild and fanciful rhetoric."
Trump failed to deliver the short, deft replies and counterpunches that would have been effective, the political consultant writes, and the former president failed at his most important task of tying Harris to President Joe Biden's failed policies.
Offering his opinion of Trump's demeanor, Rove says: "It matters how debating candidates carry themselves. There, it was no contest. Ms Harris came across as calm, confident, strong and focused on the future. Mr Trump came across as hot, angry and fixated on the past, especially his own."
Further, he says of Harris: "She mastered the split screen, projecting confidence and wordlessly undercutting him by smiling while shaking her head as he spoke."
It is this impression, he writes, that will help many undecided and swing voters make up their minds. Others will have wanted to learn something new and reassuring about the candidates, and Harris, he says, provided them with plenty.
"He took the bait almost every time she put it on the hook," Rove said after Trump's at-times bizarre performance during the debate. (AFP via Getty Images)
In conclusion, Rove writes that while the debate will have an effect on the election, it is probably not as much as the Harris campaign hopes for, nor the Trump team fears.
"But there's no putting lipstick on this pig," says Rove. "Mr Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as 'dumb as a rock'. Which raises the question: What does that make him?"
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And in his usual form, Trump is out bragging that he won the debate. And his supporters believe the piece of shit.
She played him like a fiddle. She got him to reveal his worst side every time he responded to her.
Trump is definitely senile.
I would say that he is dulling with age and, in result, his true character is more evident. He is not as good at weaving a facade of bullshit so we can see the miserable, vindictive, narcissistic scoundrel more clearly.
Case in point, the Archie Bunker moment of migrants eating pets.
Post debate, Trump has not changed or adjusted a bit. Ina rally yesterday he rambled, bumbled, and of course constantly lied.
I was watching a video of the Piers Morgan show which was made right after the debate. He had a couple of liberals and a couple of conservatives as the panelists. The conservatives, including Morgan by the way who is a big Trump fan, said that even though he lost the debate, all Trump has to do to get back on track is stick to a narrowly defined set of talking points about the economy, immigration, and "crime". The two liberals started laughing. Trump is Trump, a mentally ill extreme narcissist. There is as much chance he will levitate into outer space as that he will "change" in the way they want. He's unfit, ethically, mentally, psychologically, and morally, to be president of the United States. That has been completely obvious for some time now. Hopefully after Nov 5th that lesson will have been learned.
Trump's base is of course dug in. They are not going to move from their confirmation-bias-induced support for this scoundrel. Just look at this microcosm ... no change whatsoever ... just more (feeble) excuses trying to prop up Trump.
I believe those who pay attention to politics made up their mind prior to the debate and little will change. But I do expect that the less politically aware voters who make their decisions based on less-than-in-depth-analysis will be persuaded by the optics alone. I believe plenty of people do not pay attention to politics and unfortunately vote based on buzz, habit, single-issues, etc. There is gold in this debate and the Harris campaign will be playing Trump's lunacy in ads for the rest of the campaign. They will be generating plenty of fodder to encourage negative buzz regarding Trump.
As with Biden's debate performance, I do not see Trump recovering from this.
Not too long ago we all held the strong belief that either Biden or Trump would be the next PotUS. Today, it looks like neither will be PotUS.
Oh, one more thing, on that same Piers Morgan video Robert F Kennedy Jr. calls Trump the greatest debater in American history. No, that is not a typo.
Could his nose be any browner?
One of the great tragedies of the Trump era is that he has encouraged people to lie. Trump has demonstrated in clear terms that it really does work to just keep pushing the same alternate reality no matter how ridiculous and many will eventually believe it.
He has single-handedly emboldened politicians to lie even more ... the exact opposite of what the American people want.
Ego stroking is the only way to keep Trump on one's good side.
“Ego stroking is the only way to keep Trump on one's good side.”
It is one thing to endure the sycophantic nature of the comments here. It is another, and is potentially fatal to our entire system of governance, to witness the pull he inexplicably commands amongst those who swore an oath to defend and uphold our Constitution.
that's what really pisses me off ...
making ads for kamala from trump videos has got to be the most fun job in the harris/walz campaign...
You think it pisses you off....
Ask McCarthy how that works - if they piss of the Don they have to go find a real job.
his cognitive decline could not be more evident. imagine the maga reaction if biden performed like that...
Dumber than a rock
trump lost to a black woman that he claimed is dumb as a rock. add that to the list of things he'll never be able to accept.
Frank Luntz also said Trump's campaign is toast...
Yeah, the same Trump we've seem many times before made an appearance at the debate. You'd think Donald Trump was a 4 star general the way he 'debates'. Donald Trump has the gravitas of a hog in a mudhole. By now everyone should know that. Trump's behavior at the debate was not a surprise.
But that doesn't explain why Democrats are now kissing Karl Rove's ass. The only reason Donald Trump was on the debate stage is because Republicans like Karl Rove aren't important any longer.
And after all that, Donald Trump is still the better choice than Kamala Harris. That's why the election is still close.
oh look, another alt-right rabbit hole for republicans to go down ...
Lets see, we cant mock the candidate anymore. Can we mock his followers and supporters?
If we have to take Trump and Trump supporters seriously the world will come to an end.
Today's news is as good as any other criteria for riffing through the album collection.
"If I don't meet you no more in this world then I'll meet you in the next one and don't be late."