The ABC Presidential Debate was viewed by over 67 million people on television networks, up over 14 million viewers from the Biden Trump debate and that's excluding number of people that watched via streaming.
Most credible political analysts said Kamala Harris clearly won the debate. RFK Jr., a new Trump surrogate said she won. Even Fox News hosts and analysts said it was a bad night for Trump.
However, the MAGA cult is using former CNN's Chris Cillizza to try and throw cold water on her excellent performance and claim it was not a big defeat for the former guy and it won't matter much anyway.
CILLIZZA: You said two things can be true. And while you were doing your open, I was thinking to myself, two things can be true. So my two things that can be true are, I believe Kamala Harris won the debate. It wasn't a knockout, but won the debate last night.
And predictions that Donald Trump, I woke up this morning and I saw, uh, um, Kamala Harris destroys Donald Trump, the end, the beginning of the end for Trump. It's like, man, we've been down this road, right? Like I feel like it's like Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football. Like he's not going to just go away.
I think, I think a lot of people on the left are waiting for this like magic wannabe way for everyone.
It was a knock out, Chris, but that's beside the point. Sure, a few people might have believed after the debate, the election was over for Trump, but most Democrats do not.
CILLIZZA: And to my mind, if you were for Donald Trump, there's nothing in that debate that's going to take you off that.
If you're for Harris, there's nothing in that debate that's going to take you off it. And we talk about this all the time. If you are an undecided voter, the chances are high. You probably didn't watch all 105 minutes of the debate.
If you watched any, I'd be a little surprised.
And so I just think making predictions about, oh, well, this will swing the race.
Hillary Clinton, by my likes at least, won all three of the 2016 debates.
And we know how that race turned out.
Hillary Clinton's campaign has nothing to do with this election cycle. Cillizza forgets how James Comer helped Trump win, but I digress.
Kamala Harris just became the Democratic presidential nominee at the end of June.
Let that sink in.
As Vice President, she wasn't in the limelight much of the time except when Fox News attacked Harris after Biden was sworn in by playing edited clips to make her look stupid when she laughed.
The Beltway media and MAGA GOP were taken by surprise by the enthusiasm and fundraising for Harris as soon as her candidacy was announced. Yet, the Harris and Walz campaign haven't done any media before the debate. It takes time putting together a staff, working on policies and ramping up a strategy. It was imperative that Kamala Harris performed well. Her candidacy could not have survived a bad outing.
So this debate was an introduction for VP Harris to America, to see if she's qualified to be president. Trump's supporters have been baked in for a long time. He has an entire media infrastructure dedicated to his victory on top of it. (And it's not his social media company.)
Trump had little to lose in overall polling, but Harris had everything to lose. If the VP looked weak and diminutive to Trump, her polling numbers would have cratered. The impressive gains she made pre-debate would have begun to slip. The beltway media would have drubbed her.
Harris proved she not only could hang in with Trump during a debate, she throttled him for all of America to see.
That's the point, Chris. Trump would never take his ball and go home after a poor performance. A performance he claims he won easily by using wingnut online snap polls. Harris had her entire campaign at stake.
Harris could not afford a downturn at this time in the cycle.
The debate didn't swing the race entirely in her favor but it was a monumental moment as she heads towards November 5th.
To your point, Chris. The debate was a knockout for Kamala Harris.
