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As my colleague David Corn put it, Donald Trump lost the first presidential debate against Kamala Harris by simply being himself: He spent the night ranting, raving, and peddling his favorite conspiracy theories and untruths.
It was a performance so on-brand for the former president that you could be forgiven for wondering if Trump had relied on an AI-generated script. Meanwhile, Harris successfully baited her opponent into garbled tangents about the size of his rallies.
Harris’ victory on Tuesday was so clear that even Fox News had to accept reality.
“Make no mistake about it: Trump had a bad night,” Brit Hume, Fox News chief political analyst, said shortly after the event. “He lost the debate repeatedly when she baited him, something I’m sure his advisors had begged him not to do. And we heard so many of the …