Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered a candid assessment of Donald Trump’s debate performance against Vice President Kamala Harris, saying the former president missed an opportunity within the first few minutes.
Kennedy has been a prominent surrogate for Trump since he dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed the GOP leader, and he made the media rounds for the former president after Tuesday’s presidential debate.
“I think that Vice President Harris clearly won the debate in terms of her delivery, her polish, her organization, and her preparation,” the former Democrat said Wednesday in an interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto. “I think on substance, President Trump wins in terms of his governance, but he didn’t tell that story. In fact, the first question was an extraordinary lost opportunity because it was a question … which is ‘Are Americans better off four years later?’ And there’s really no argument for saying that they are.”
Trump has been criticized as having fallen into traps set by Harris and falling off subject. Harris teased Trump about his rallies’ crowd sizes at one point, and he responded, claiming Harris bussed in crowds to her own. The overall media sentiment appears to be that Harris won the debate, and a CNN snap poll post-debate showed viewers favored her performance 63% to 37% over Trump’s.
Another part of Harris’s performance that many observers keyed in on was her quick strides over to greet Trump with a handshake at the start of the debate, a move many thought asserted her dominance.
Kennedy then noted several points that Trump could’ve hit Harris on, such as inflation, rising overdose rates, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
“And all of these things can be attributed to the poor leadership from the Biden-Harris team,” he claimed. “And that’s the argument he should’ve been making. But he got distracted, and I think it’s unfortunate because I think he really had an airtight argument for his presidency. But he was not able to make that case to the American public.”
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Cavuto himself said Trump “decisively lost” the debate, a comment that drew the ire of the former president on Wednesday.
“Neil Cavuto, Fox’s Lowest Rated Anchor, is one of the WORST on Television. I actually prefer the losers at CNN and MSDNC!” the former president wrote on Truth Social.