Former President Donald Trump wrote on social media on Saturday that he didn’t get enough praise for his “fantastic” debate performance against President Joe Biden during this week’s presidential debate.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and Biden faced off in the first presidential debate of this election cycle on Thursday evening, with a second scheduled for September, just two months before Election Day. The debate was hosted by CNN in Atlanta and featured no live audience.
In the follow-up recap, John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent, said Biden’s performance sparked a “deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party” following the president’s stumbling and at times incoherent and hard to hear responses. A Biden aide, meanwhile, told Newsweek late Thursday night that the president was battling a cold during the debate.
On the other hand, Trump repeatedly made false claims about the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, his environmental record, abortion and the economy. While there were misleading statements from both sides, the former president made more than Biden. CNN counted over 30 false statements made by Trump while the network said Biden made at least nine false or misleading statements during the debate.
“As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reporters and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of Presidential Debates. They all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!'” the former president wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday morning.
He added: “This theme was universal, even at CNN & MSDNC, but by Friday evening it was all about the poor performance of Crooked Joe, and not so much about how well I did. Oh well, that’s the way it is but, importantly, the result is the same!!!”
“MSDNC” is Trump’s term for MSNBC, suggesting the network shows bias toward the Democratic Party.
Newsweek has reached out to the Trump and Biden campaign for comment via email on Saturday.
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The presidential race has been neck-and-neck. Days before the debate, national poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight showed Biden leading Trump by a narrow 0.1 to 0.3 points. As of Saturday morning, the aggregator now shows Trump ahead of Biden by 0.6 points.
Age is a hot topic this election cycle, with Trump having just celebrated his 78th birthday and Biden being 81. Biden’s debate performance has led some members of the Democratic Party to consider replacing him as its nominee. There is no indication of who would be proposed as a candidate and Biden’s campaign has not signaled stepping down.
Trump is set to accept the GOP nomination at the Republican National Convention, just days after his July 11 sentencing for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, following a guilty verdict by a New York jury late last month.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment that Michael Cohen, Trump’s then-attorney, made to former adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, allegedly to keep her quiet about an affair she said she had with Trump. The former president has denied the affair and maintains his innocence, saying the case is politically motivated. He is the first former president convicted of felony crimes and has already announced plans to appeal the verdict.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.