Why did Trump believe it was a good idea to drop out of the second debate? Because he believed it was a good idea to drop out of the second debate. It’s as simple as that. There’s no master strategy, no art of the deal, no nothing going on behind the scenes. It, and virtually every other action Trump takes, is the product of circular reasoning by a mind caught in the endless loop of its own self-delusion.
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Going into the debate, the election was a referendum on Trump, and nothing about the debate changed that — nor could it have, no matter what happened. The thing that saved Pence was that this was a vice-presidential debate, and those almost never matter. It won’t this time, either, which is a good thing for Pence, because he lost. Bigly.
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Asking journalists to moderate a presidential debate is like asking ballplayers to umpire the World Series. Yes, they know the game, but no, they’re neither trained nor qualified to call balls and strikes. Even then, baseball umpires have a relatively easy job compared to, say, basketball referees. On the hardwood, refs have to deal with rapid-fire challenges and players who whine about every call they make.
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Donald Trump told a white racist group to “stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate. Other than Trump’s steamroller-on-steroids approach to his (so-called) debate with Joe Biden, it was the big news Tuesday night. But language is a tricky thing. It’s easy to misspeak in the heat of battle, especially with so many words being shot from the hip. So was Trump’s comment on race just verbal shrapnel?
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