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Former President Donald Trump’s volume slowly but surely ratcheted up over the first hour of the debate on Tuesday. He started off relatively calm, but as Vice President Kamala Harris needled him on his rallies, his standing in the world, and his legal troubles, he eventually blew up.
There was no sign of him calming down as the debate hit the home stretch and, as a result, his answers began falling apart, drifting into the same disjointed, incoherent ranting that Harris invited people to watch at his rallies.
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It’s to the Democratic nominee's credit that her team has been telling the press for days now that her strategy was to push Trump’s buttons enough that he loses focus. That’s exactly what we saw during the debate as she kept her poise — the stray smirk or baffled face aside — and stuck with her talking points and digs. In contrast, Harris brushed off all of the Republican nominee’s attacks, leaving him to bluster even harder at her and the moderators alike.
It’s also exactly the scenario that his advisers were reportedly worried about, with their boss showing up angry and raving versus the hopes that he might against the odds actually focus on Harris’ policies. Even when he tried to do so on Tuesday, there was simply no following his train of thought as he lacked a throughline to come at her.
Harris called him “weak and wrong on national security,” throwing the numerous people who worked for him who have endorsed her into his face. And as I wrote earlier, even with his mic muted when it’s not his turn, there was no shortage of wild things coming out of his mic when it was his turn to speak.
This was probably the worst performance that Trump could have turned out for anyone who was still unsure whether he has the temperament to return to the White House.