Donald Trump’s debate performance was far worse than even his inner circle anticipated.

While Donald Trump’s team is publicly pushing a postdebate victory lap, many in his camp were privately disappointed in the Republican candidate’s performance on Tuesday.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported Wednesday night that several Trump insiders were “stunned” by his poor performance and by just how easily he fell for all of Kamala Harris’s attempts to provoke him.

“I’m told that as soon as Donald Trump exited that debate stage, he immediately began quizzing those waiting in his viewing room about how the last 90 minutes had gone,” said Collins. “While several people praised him to his face, telling him they did a great job, that’s not what a lot of them are saying privately today.

Apparently, all that practice with members of his team, such as former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, had ultimately amounted to very little when it came time to debate.

  • AnitaAmandaHuginskis@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Apparently, all that practice with members of his team, such as former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, had ultimately amounted to very little when it came time to debate.

    Well, in his defense, you try to teach this idiot anything. It’s impossible. /s

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    “Several of them told CNN they were stunned that the former president failed to do a better job executing on the talking points that he had been preparing with his team for weeks against Vice President Harris, her record, her policy reversals.”

    Apparently, all that practice with members of his team, such as former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, had ultimately amounted to very little when it came time to debate.

    Oh please. If there is a trump “insider” who thinks for one hot second this demented chattering rapist can stay on message without large-type notes and a shock collar, then they’re as big an idiot as they sound.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      "We have always been at war with Eureast Asia Trump will absolutely dominate the debate. "

      It doesn’t matter what they believe, as long as the repeat what the party wants them to say.

  • StrongHorseWeakNeigh@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Considering his rapidly deteriorating mental faculties and the fact that’s he’s surrounded himself with yesmen; he probably really believes that he did well in that debate.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      A person like this does not have inner reflection the way you’re imagining. I vouchsafe this fact to you: he sought external validation immediately, real and imagined, and then moved on to the next pissing contest without ever thinking genuinely about his choices leading up to that display

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Spot on. I’ve read 10,000 comments regarding Trump that miss the most basic aspect of the man: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Everything he says or does flows from this.

        I don’t mean narcissist in the way most people sling the word around, I mean the actual mental illness. People slap that title on anyone selfish, lying or bullying. No, words have meaning.

        No he doesn’t have any sort of internal reflection. My mother suffered NPD, I can tell you all about it. She didn’t have the mental space to consider, “Am I wrong?”. Such thoughts were literally impossible, her brain could not work that way. In the 50-years I knew that woman I never heard her admit fault or apologize. Not once. That’s pretty stunning if you think on it a few. And Trump makes mom look positively of sound mind!

        Nothing the man says or does surprises me, yet people continue to be appalled. We keep trying view his thought processes through the lens of our own. Nah. That dog don’t hunt.

        • Valmond@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          Nmom kid here too, you’re spot on. It’s actually fascinating if you forget the horrors. Like for example no empathy, and not like very very very low (hi dad!) empathy, but totally devoid of it. Just ‘cannot compute’ level.

          Hope you’re doing fine btw!

          • gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 days ago

            I agree. Nmom kid here. I thought she didn’t have a concept of “truth”. To her, every statement was equally valid as long as it was useful to her. Just complete and total lack of a consistent worldview.

      • Tyfud@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I’m not entirely sure he doesn’t stew on this.

        Hitler, famously, obsessed over negative news coverage/press about him. Even to the point where he threatened violence/war with New York if they didn’t redact a column about him being a wannabe dictator.

        Trump is the same kind of narcissist Hitler was, and gets similarly obsessed with negative press about him.

        I agree that I doubt he’s reflecting on this, but he’s absolutely aware the rest of the world thinks he screwed up and that’s why he thinks they’re lying. Because everyone else around him says he won, so how could, literally every news agency, including Fox Entertainment “news”, say Kamala beat him?

        But he is absolutely pissed and stewing in his own piss right now at all the negative coverage after his debate performance.

        • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          Yep.

          Isn’t it crazy how common it now is to understand and converse with people about the specifics of an otherwise rare personality disorder?

        • meep_launcher@lemm.ee
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          There is one exception to the “Trump hates negative press” that I’d like to note. When Dr. Fauci was called to meet with Trump after he corrected him on live TV about drinking bleach, he found Trump in his office saying “My god these ratings are amazing, they’re better than cable”. Oddly enough sometimes Trump sees any news is good news so long as he’s the main focus.

          The times I’ve seen him really go off is when the news cycle stops paying attention to him.

    • paddirn@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I’m sure he doesn’t even care that people are mocking him about it, the fact that everybody is talking about “concepts of a plan” and “they’re eating the cats” is still a victory in his mind. Good attention or bad attention doesn’t matter, attention for the sake of attention is the only thing he cares about. Nobody is really talking about anything specific Harris said or did, she didn’t really have any really breakout moments that I can recall after having watched it, it was just Trump being a jackass and saying dumb shit.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      No one is surprised he did poorly, but I don’t think anyone expected him to do “immigrants are eating your pets” levels of bad.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          6 days ago

          Anything would work on those followers. They are not the people anyone is trying to convince with the debate.

      • auzy@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        What’s surprising is all the people who on Facebook are now saying it’s true lol

        It’s literally the most absurd claim ever lol.

        It’s possible it happened once probably by some druggie

        But it’s definitely not something that happens regularly 😂

        It’s crazy how these people literally see immigrants as animals or a different species lol

        They’re just normal people

      • Naz@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        They’re eating your cats! They’re eating your dogs!

        They’re eating your babi aborting your babies!

        Me, making sure I’m not watching The Onion News

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    That’s just testimony that his cadre of sycophantic deer ticks are just as stupid as he is deranged.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    TBF he did terribly on the first debate as well, however he was able to form up his “terrible” strongly in mostly coherent lies that left Biden’s mumbled and lost “decent” truths in the dust.

    This time Harris led strongly and let trump hang himself, which he did admirably at.

  • hate2bme@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    This kind of article is such a joke. This is the same as them saying they are told people are eating dogs.