Former CNN political analyst Chris Cilizza on Wednesday refuted Democrats’ post-debate claims that Vice President Kamala Harris critically damaged former President Donald Trump’s campaign during their first faceoff.
Harris and Trump squared off on Tuesday on ABC News, prompting commentary following the debate suggesting the former president may struggle to recover.
Cillizza, on “On Balance with Leland Vittert,” said he thinks Harris beat Trump in the debate, but that it was not as harmful to the former president as “the left” made it out to be, cautioning them not to count him out.
“I believe Kamala Harris won the debate. It wasn’t a knockout, but won the debate last night … I woke up this morning and saw ‘Kamala Harris destroys Donald Trump,’ ‘The Beginning of the End for Trump.’ It’s like, man, we’ve been down this road, right? … He’s not going to just go away,” Cillizza said. “I think a lot of people on the left are waiting for this like magic wand to be waved for everyone’s like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I actually don’t support Donald Trump anymore.’”
“I think so he mostly did what he does. Like this idea that he melted down feels to me like the same people who say, like, ‘Things are getting much worse for Donald Trump, he’s panicking.’ I’m like, he’s been like this since he came down the gold escalator in 2015. Not that much has changed,” he added. “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’s going to take you off it.”
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Cillizza also said most undecided voters likely did not watch the entire debate and noted that despite the perception that former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton beat the former president in most of the 2016 debates, Trump won the election.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X on Tuesday that the debate “was a knockout” and that he was “looking forward to seeing how Republicans try to spin” it. Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin posted that “Kamala just destroyed the remnants of Trump’s flailing career.”
According to the RealClearPolling averages, Harris is currently only leading Trump .2% in the top seven battleground states.
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ABC News debate moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir on Tuesday faced criticism for repeatedly fact-checking Trump while allowing Harris to state falsehoods without challenging her.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.