He Lost. Period.

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

Let's get one thing straight:

     Last night's spectacle wasn't a presidential debate.

     It wasn't, really.

    What it was, instead, was a relentless cross examination of a convicted felon by a skilled prosecutor. But that's exactly what Trump is and what Harris is. A skilled prosecutor will set traps and get a criminal defendant to incriminate themselves before their lawyers can advise them to plead the 5th. A skilled prosecutor will know what buttons to push to get the defendant to reveal their true motivations, their true natures.

     And last night was like a 100 minute-long Perry Mason episode come to life.

     And while Harris had the floor, she indeed knew exactly what buttons to push. She ridiculed Trump for his crowd sizes, mentioned the attendees would leave early out of boredom (something proved by tons of video evidence). And, of course, since crowd sizes mean so much to him, he rose to the occasion and, when asked a question about something else entirely, he felt the need to set the record straight by saying his rallies were "the biggest in political history" and that no one went to Harris' rallies.

    Generally, Trump trotted out his old emoji faces from 2016, smirking and shaking his head while Kamala Harris indicted him for one crime and transgression after another. Because that, and his insane conspiracy theories, were his only defense. And, while he spoke, Harris entertained us with an endless series of incredulous smiles and black woman side eyes.

     It didn't take Harris long to get Trump to reveal his true self, to give the national audience that long-awaited Perry Mason moment. Trump must've known this wouldn't be a reprise of June 27th, in which Biden walked out of Atlanta with Trump's footprints on his back. Just before the debate started, the vice president strode to Trump's podium, knowing he wouldn't greet her on his own. She grabbed his hand and introduced herself by name, forcefully pronouncing her first name just so there wouldn't be any mistake.

     The lead image above shows the only time Trump looked at Kamala Harris.

     So he smirked, he sniggered, he looked up from time to time and shook his head. Meanwhile, the former California prosecutor filleted him as with a scalpel. Well within the first hour, he started sounding loud, sour and unhinged, like the drunk uncle who gets all his news from Nextdoor or Fox. Even though Trump has lunatics working for him, one more than suspects they told him to keep his cool, stick to the issues, etc.

     He talked abut Haitians eating dogs and cats.

    

The Spin Room

Of course, Trump wanted, needed, to remain the center of attention so he broke his neck shambling into the spin room. For those who don't know it, the spin room is not for candidates but their surrogates who then give the press their impressions of the debate. But Trump couldn't wait to walk in and suck all the oxygen out of the room so he could cock wand about how great he did. Essentially, it was the same exact version of Trump on Election Night 2020 in which he took to the podium and declared himself the winner of the election.

     Except Trump had bad news waiting for him.

    Because, you see, minutes after the debate ended, Taylor Swift took to her Instagram account and publicly endorsed Kamala Harris and within minutes, it got well over a million and a half views (as of this moment, it's up to 9,550,155 likes). A reporter asked Trump what he thought about it and it was obvious he was blindsided. By today, when he called in to Fox and Frauds, he was threatening Taylor Swift, saying she'd pay for it. And. of course, Elmo had to get in on the act:

 

     But the damage was already done. As Ivan Vanko told Tony Stark in Iron Man 2, "If you make God bleed, people will stop believing in him." Kamala Harris put on her prosecutor hat last night and eviscerated him. If she'd spanked him any harder, he would've had to pay her hush money.

     As expected, the negative reviews for Trump began cascading in immediately. Fox was down in the mouth about Trump's performance. So, naturally, Trump attacked Fox this morning. It got worse.

     Even Germany got in on the act, pushing back aggressively against Trump's fact-free assertion that Germany tried and failed to be energy independent before going back to fossil fuels within a year. In fact, the German Foreign Ministry said,

     "Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables. And we are shutting down—not building—coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest."

     They then twisted the knife a bit more by adding, "PS: We also don't eat cats and dogs."

     The consensus, even on some right wing media, was that Harris won and Trump lost. Now Trump is finding himself in exactly the same position as Joe Biden on June 27th. Was Harris' debate performance flawless? Not at all. She failed to fully articulate how she'd end the war in Gaza and bring about a two state solution. She didn't fully articulate her own economic plans. But she did the next best thing:

     She put and kept Donald Trump on his back foot the whole time.

Coda

Today is the 23rd anniversary of 9/11. And this brought about the bizarre reprise as only American politics can bring about. The annual commemoration of September 11 was held at Ground Zero. And it reunited Trump with Harris less than 24 hours after their debate. It brought out a political Who's Who. Even Rudy Giuliani managed to stay off the pavement long enough to solemnly bow his head as everyone remembered the victims. All, that is, except one.