The Beginning of Donald Trump’s Final Unraveling

Michael Tomasky: “Kamala Harris was really good Tuesday night—really, really good. She accomplished everything she needed to accomplish. She sliced and diced him. She dangled bait and he leapt at the hook. But as good as she was, Trump was more bad than Harris was good. Or maybe he was bad because she was good: That is to say, she wrong-footed him time after time after time in ways that President Joe Biden did not, throwing him off his game, staring him down, speaking directly to him, challenging him, saying ‘you’ and pointing right at him. She spanked him. Said Stephanie Ruhle, in a judgment Trump would consider crushing: ‘She beat him at the business of television.'”

“In sports, when Team A looks shaky, the announcers don’t often point out that Team A looks shaky because Team B is just so goddamn good. Well, that’s what was happening here. Harris was consistently sharp, and Trump was consistently tripped up.”

“It’s still true that he got in a few good licks here and there. He landed a punch or two on the border. And now, simply by virtue of having been the president for four years, he knows some stuff that he didn’t know in 2016… But overall, Trump was just, well, sad. He needs to reach for a world leader who vouches for him, and the wheel lands on…Viktor Orban?”