The reviews are in and the general consensus supports my own immediate reaction last night which was that Kamal Harris cleaned creepy Donald Trump’s clock in the debate. At many points she was openly laughing at his nonsense.

Stephen Colbert gave his hot take soon after the debate ended and did a pretty good job at identifying the key points.

Jon Stewart also gave gave his hot take but it was not as good as Colbert’s.

Even conservative commentators felt that creepy Trump had a bad night, with Christian conservative Rod Dreher saying “I think she’s winning this. She comes across as normal, clear, and strong. Trump can’t land a blow — he is blustering and unfocused.” Chris Wallace, the longtime Fox News host who now works for CNN said, “Trump looked old tonight.”

Erick Erickson, the conservative commentator, wrote on social media, “Y’all, this is not going well for Trump. Don’t get mad at me for saying so.” Erickson was particularly incensed that the ugly, stupid, and racist lie about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pet dogs and cats was picked up by creepy Trump who repeated it in the debate and was immediately fact-checked by the moderator.

YOU STUPID MF’ers JUST GOT TRUMP TO REPEAT YOUR LIE ABOUT THE PETS. CONGRATS ON SETTING THE NEWS STORIES TOMORROW BY LYING SO TRUMP PICKS IT UP AND SAYS STUPID SHIT.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 11, 2024

Republicans in general were dismayed.

Donald Trump’s campaign was in damage control mode on Wednesday amid widespread dismay among supporters over a presidential debate performance that saw Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, repeatedly goad him into going wildly off-message and missing apparent opportunities to tackle her on policy.

Republicans were virtually unanimous that had Trump had come off second best in a series of exchanges that saw the vice-president deliberately bait him on his weak points while he responded with visible anger.

“Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night,” the Fox News analyst Brit Hume said immediately after the debate. “We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.”

The tone of the event, said many commentators, was set at the beginning when Harris walked on to the stage and – after a slight hesitation – approached Trump’s lectern to introduce herself and shake his hand. It was the first handshake at a presidential debate since 2016.

The gesture enabled Harris to turn the tables on Trump – who has a track record of condescension towards women – by establishing dominance, wrote Politico.

Another defining moment of the 105-minute encounter came when Trump’s eyes flashed as Harris depicted people leaving his rallies “early out of exhaustion and boredom”. Rather than let the jibe go or respond to a follow-up question by the ABC moderator, David Muir, on an immigration bill, Trump went off on a tangent to compare the two candidates’ rallies. Harris smiled and stared at him, resting her chin on her hand.

That exchange – along with several others – crystallised what many Republicans described as a clear defeat for Trump. There was also grudging praise from Republicans for Harris, who won respect for being well-prepared.

“She was exquisitely well prepared, she laid traps and he chased every rabbit down every hole instead of talking about the things that he should have been talking about,” Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who helped Trump prepare for his 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton, told ABC.

“This is the difference between someone who is well prepared and someone who is unprepared. Whoever prepared Donald Trump should be fired.”

“Trump was unfocused and poorly prepared,” agreed Guy Benson, editor of the conservative website Townhall on X . “[Harris] basically accomplished exactly what she wanted to here. I suspect the polls about the debate will show that she won it.”

I don’t expect the debate to change the polls much. But it will have effect of enthusing Harris supporters and depressing creepy Trump supporters.