One measure of how badly Donald Trump did in the debate last Tuesday night is how desperate his backers are to cry that it was rigged, fixed, crooked, whatever. They're complaining that Kamala Harris somehow got the questions in advance and I'll tell you why that's ridiculous. Here's the first question she was asked…
I want to begin tonight with the issue voters repeatedly say is their number one issue, and that is the economy and the cost of living in this country. Vice President Harris, you and President Trump [SIC] were elected four years ago and your opponent on the stage here tonight often asks his supporters, are you better off than you were four years ago? When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?
It didn't take collusion or espionage or any dirty-dealing to know that a question like that would probably be asked. It's probably been asked in every Presidential Debate since Reagan. And just about any answer about the state of the American economy would fit that question. If you don't have an answer for that one, you have no business setting foot on the stage of a debate like that. The next one was directed to Trump…
Mr. President, I do want to drill down on something you both brought up. The vice president brought up your tariffs you responded and let's drill down on this because your plan is what she calls is a essentially a national sales tax. Your proposal calls for tariffs as you pointed out here, on foreign imports across the board. You recently said that you might double your plan, imposing tariffs up to 20% on goods coming into this country. As you know many economists say that with tariffs at that level costs are then passed onto the consumer. Vice President Harris has argued it'll mean higher prices on gas, food, clothing medication arguing it costs the typical family nearly four thousand dollars a year. Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices because of tariffs.
Would anyone like to suggest that that was an unfair question? That it was one he couldn't answer? That it was one that he and his aides couldn't have anticipated? More to the point, isn't that a question he would have wanted to answer? Tariffs seem to be his answer to every question about the economy.
And it kind of went on like this. The next two questions were about immigration and abortion — two topics a nine-year-old child (or whoever prepped Trump for the debate) could have told you would be brought up. If the moderators hadn't asked about it, Trump would certainly have raised the topic of immigration. He even brought it up a couple times in response to questions about other matters. And Harris would surely have raised the issue of abortion.
Read the transcript. There were no questions the candidates' handlers couldn't have expected and I don't think Trump was caught off-guard on any of them. I just think he gave bad answers and worse facial expressions.