Former President Trump and his allies are taking a victory march, basking in the afterglow of Thursday night’s debate with President Biden, which cemented his position as the presidential front-runner.
Biden, 81, received poor reviews, particularly in the first 30 minutes of the debate, when he stumbled over his words and struggled to clearly explain his positions.
Trump, 78, drew criticism for a number of misleading or false statements but came off as more pointed with multiple successful attacks on Biden, a night that gave his campaign new momentum and put him ahead of Biden in many national polls.
The morning after the debate, the Supreme Court handed Trump another important victory, ruling that the Justice Department overreached in its prosecution of Trump and many of the charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The ruling could weaken the charges against Trump and give him ammunition to argue that he and others are victims of political prosecution.
President Trump and his allies received another victory from the Supreme Court on Friday in a major regulatory decision that significantly curtails the power of federal agencies.
All in all, it was a remarkable 24 hours for Trump, who quickly sought to parlay his debate performance into a rally in Virginia.
“Villain Joe Biden studied so hard, even though he took a week off at Camp David, working and studying, he studied so hard he didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Trump told supporters in Chesapeake, Virginia.
“He got the debate rules he wanted. He got the dates he wanted. He got the network he wanted. [moderators] “That’s what he wanted,” Trump continued. “No amount of resting or rigging can excuse his terrible record. There’s no defense.”
Trump, the first former president and presumptive nominee of a major party to be convicted of a felony, was convicted in New York in May. He faces a range of charges for which he has yet to stand trial. But Biden has faced widespread doubts about his cognitive fitness to serve a second term, and his performance on Thursday likely did little to assuage voters’ concerns.
“Immigration, crime and inflation were top of mind and if there were any concerns about Donald Trump, they were completely blown away. Trump laid out his policies and ideas very clearly,” said Republican strategist Nicole Schlinger. “And Joe Biden has given America great concern about his ability to get the job done.”
Biden was suffering from a cold that sources said made his voice hoarse overnight, but that did little to ease Democrats’ concerns about his chances of success in the November debate. In a post-debate poll, respondents picked Trump as the winner by a 2-to-1 margin.
Republicans said Trump did what was necessary to appear more competent and measured during the debate while letting Biden speak his mind.
“I actually think Trump didn’t need to throw the same hard punches that we normally see on the debate stage and was very measured, focused and consistent in his messaging this time,” said Republican strategist David Capen.
Capen said Trump had clearly prepared for the debate and shown discipline, regularly making immigration one of his top priorities.
“He stayed focused and got the message across,” he said.
Schlinger said the lack of an audience at the debate allowed Trump to focus on responding to the moderator, rather than focusing on the audience and energizing them.
Trump avoided answering several questions on topics such as climate change and whether he would accept the results of November’s election until pressed by the moderator, but he stuck to the message he appeared to want to stick to.
“He’s a guy that certainly knows how to wow an audience, play to an audience and get an audience going,” Schlinger said, “so without an audience, there was simply no room to concentrate.”
Republican strategist Josh Novotny said that while preventing Trump from talking too much or becoming too aggressive may not be why the Trump campaign agreed to muting his microphones, Trump still benefits from it.
He said both candidates likely wanted to avoid the back-and-forth battles seen in the past, which would have worked to Trump’s advantage.
“They both behaved well in terms of not interrupting each other and in terms of debate etiquette, but if that was intended to give Biden an advantage, I think it probably backfired,” Novotny said.
But strategists are divided on whether the debate will ultimately determine the outcome of the election.
Schlinger said the debate would be a “turning point” in the race, adding that while debates don’t necessarily affect the election, they will have an impact at least until the next debate in September.
“It’s going to be hard to change that before September. This is going to be burned into the minds of Americans,” she said.
Novotny said that while enthusiasm for Biden may have waned since Thursday, he remains skeptical that voters will turn to a third-party candidate like Trump or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“They’re probably not excited enough to go and vote for Biden, but Trump is a polarizing figure and a negative motivator,” he said.
“I think it will be effective, and I think Biden has plenty of time to reverse course and minimize the negative impact, but he has to hit back hard against Trump now.”
