OPINION:
By now, even the most sympathetic commentators agree that former President Donald Trump was off his game in his debate with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The good news is that several polls and focus groups show that most viewers didn’t buy Ms. Harris’ prevarications.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump’s missed opportunities to expose her extreme record were legion. And he took the bait every time she dangled a personal insult, wasting time on unneeded responses.
She was combative, condescending and dishonest. She ducked all specifics and unleashed more than a dozen whoppers, most of them personal attacks. She had enormous help from ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who should have been wearing blue Harris-Walz 2024 sweatshirts.
Still, with what Democrats have done to America, Mr. Trump should have been able to take Ms. Harris apart the way Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis destroyed California Gov. Gavin Newsom in their debate last November on Fox News. The Florida governor’s command of the facts and his exposure of Mr. Newsom’s extreme record often left the California governor smiling sheepishly.
I think Mr. Trump needs a little R&R even though the election is fast approaching.
His stamina is amazing, and he has endured more than any of us could: a questionable 2020 election outcome, a Russian collusion hoax, the weaponization of the FBI and other agencies against him, two phony impeachments, a raid on his Florida home, trials in four Democratic jurisdictions on trumped-up charges, the jailing of his top aides, being wounded in an assassination attempt and constant media vilification.
No wonder he looked tired and angry. Anybody would. At his best, he deploys zingers and speaks about American greatness. There was little of that last Tuesday. He looked different from the man who ended President Biden’s campaign.
He needs to refuel and arm himself with facts about what a Democratic White House plus a Democratic Congress could do to America. Calling Ms. Harris a Marxist is accurate, but millions have no idea what that means. Let the facts speak.
She sponsored a bill to take away private health insurance and force all Americans into government-run health care (Medicare for All). She has promised free, taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens. The Biden-Harris administration has effectively banned gasoline-powered cars and trucks by 2035, pushing unwanted electric vehicles while undermining the power grid. She wants to raise taxes by $5 trillion. Seriously.
Inflation was 1.2% when Mr. Trump left the Oval Office. It soared to more than 9% shortly after Mr. Biden attacked America’s fossil fuel industry.
The Harris team boasts that inflation is around 3%, but that’s on top of nearly 20% of earlier increases. Citing $20 meals at McDonald’s or $7 for a pound of bacon would resonate.
Gasoline was $2 a gallon when Mr. Trump was in the White House.
Fracking for oil and natural gas has bolstered American energy production and given Pennsylvania enormous wealth and jobs. She pledged to ban fracking completely, and Mr. Trump needs to quote her directly. After all, she says, “My values haven’t changed.”
How about buying a home? The rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage went down from 4.09% to 2.77% between January 2017 and January 2021, when Mr. Trump was president. Under Biden-Harris, it shot up as high as 7.09% and is now 6%, putting ownership out of reach for many.
The average monthly mortgage payment for existing homes was $977 in March 2020. Today, it’s $2,309.
Mr. Trump did say over and over that “millions” of aliens were entering the country illegally. That began when Mr. Biden effectively erased the U.S. southern border on his first day as president . Fentanyl overdose deaths of Americans, along with crime, have soared.
Instead of citing these markers, Mr. Trump jumped into the “Haitians are eating cats in Ohio” tar pit.
The next time Ms. Harris repeats Mr. Biden’s favorite lie that Mr. Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” he can explain in 10 seconds that the phrase was solely about people debating the removal of historical statues and that he “condemned” the Nazis in no uncertain terms. Don’t just say it was “debunked.”
There’s also the Democrats’ bizarre sexual agenda, especially for children, which repels a majority of Americans. He alluded to Ms. Harris backing free sex-reassignment surgeries for inmates. He also touched on Democrats’ abortion extremism but got bogged down because his own stance on the issue has moved leftward. And Ms. Davis helped Ms. Harris by issuing a false “fact check” about late-term abortions.
Mr. Trump was strongest on foreign policy. He noted accurately that Ms. Harris skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress to attend a “sorority party.” And Democrats were notoriously complacent about Jewish students being attacked by pro-Hamas activists on college campuses.
After Ms. Harris boasted about aiding Ukraine, he might have said, with a Reaganesque sigh, “I just wish you were as passionate about defending America’s borders.”
It’s easy to be an armchair adviser. Theodore Roosevelt said: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who spends himself in a worthy cause.”
Rest up, Mr. Trump. Your country needs you.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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