After fiery debate, Harris and Trump camps wrangle over a second one

Some allies of former president Donald Trump conceded privately Wednesday that he performed poorly in Tuesday’s debate and were deliberating over whether a rematch would help or hurt, even as Vice President Kamala Harris’s aides were pushing for a second faceoff as another opportunity for her to get out her message in a shortened campaign. The Harris team believes a second debate could give her another valuable platform to reach voters who are unlikely to attend her rallies or be swayed by her television ads, according to people familiar with its thinking, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. The Harris campaign had been planning for weeks to press for a second debate, the people said, but ultimately concluded it would be best to wait until the first debate was over before pushing for another. But another person close to the campaign, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they hoped Trump would not agree to a second debate unless it was hosted by Fox News, reflecting Republican complaints that ABC News had been unfair to their nominee by fact-checking his assertions on several occasions. “We want as many opportunities to talk about her as we can, given that a lot of our voters are still just learning about her and we have the most truncated election calendar in history,” said one person involved in the process, granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Advertisement Inside Trump’s campaign, the former president’s associates were working to shape an argument that he had won. “It’s a little bit surprising that instead of talking about her vision and record for America, she attacked Donald Trump,” said Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee. They don’t want to make it about her failed record.” In a sign of how the candidates were processing the aftermath of the debate, Harris largely stayed quiet as she marked the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, while Trump —who also attended 9/11 memorial observances — aired his grievances about the moderators and suggested Harris wanted a do-over only because she had performed so poorly. Advertisement “In the World of Boxing or [Ultimate Fighting], when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’” Trump wrote Wednesday afternoon on his Truth Social platform. Every Poll has us WINNING, in one case, 92-8, so why would I do a Rematch?” But polls largely show Trump lost the debate. While some of Harris’s lines goading Trump on Tuesday night were rehearsed, she improvised several key moments, according to one campaign official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Harris’s skeptical expressions, questioning stares, dismissive laughs and spontaneous interjections drew on her record as a prosecutor and a senator accustomed to high-profile interrogations, the official said. A person who was in the room with Trump campaign aides Tuesday said the “vibes were night-and-day different from Atlanta,” describing the mood as “subdued and quiet.” As Trump entered the spin room afterward, Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), a close friend of Harris’s, laughed. Asked why he would feel the need to show up instead of letting surrogates speak for him, Butler said, “That’s what losers do.” The Trump campaign argued that Harris had been woefully short on policy specifics. It also sent out talking points to allies after Tuesday’s debate, including a section titled, “Kamala’s Lies and Platitudes vs. President Trump’s Plan of Action.” The fiery night left both campaigns plotting the path forward in a complex and increasingly heated contest. Advertisement Alex Conant, a GOP strategist, said that Tuesday’s debate was “at best a missed opportunity, potentially much worse” for Trump, pointing specifically to the former president’s false claim that migrants were eating people’s dogs and cats in small-town America. “If he loses the election, people can point to the debate as the key reason why,” Conant said. I don’t think he wants the last image in the minds of voters to be him spouting conspiracy theories about pets.” More than 67 million people watched Tuesday’s debate, according to figures released Wednesday by Nielsen. After the debate, spokesman Brian Hughes said that Trump was interested in debating again and was open to a rematch hosted by NBC later this month. Advertisement “When you win the debate, I don’t know that I want to do another debate,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” Hours later, during an appearance in Shanksville, Pa., Trump expressed openness to a rematch, including on NBC or Fox. Advertisement The Harris campaign has been in talks with both CNN and NBC about possible dates, though the door has not closed on other networks, said a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Harris’s aides believe that she urgently needs to introduce herself more fully to the public, a sentiment that explains some of her campaign’s nontraditional moves in recent weeks, including a decision to buy ads on taxis in Philadelphia and to pay for a drone light show over the Schuylkill River. Advertisement Despite Trump’s insistence that he had won Tuesday night, an instant CNN poll showed Harris winning the debate 63 percent to 37 percent among debate-watchers, while a YouGov poll showed her winning 54-31 among registered voters who watched at least some of the debate. “But he’s going to be himself,” said one of those people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a frank assessment. The Harris campaign began preparing for Tuesday’s event with the hope that the candidates would directly engage each other, with their microphones on throughout the event. Harris was preparing for those exchanges until it became clear that Trump would not move away from the terms established by the Biden campaign, providing for the mics to be turned off when it was not a candidate’s allotted time to speak. The strategy paid off when Trump became agitated as Harris needled him over such matters as the inheritance he received from his father, the ostensible “exhaustion and boredom” of his rally attendees and his legal problems. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/11/harris-trump-debate/