Lindsey Graham Leads Right-Wing Freak-Out Over Trump’s Debate

For Lindsey Graham, there was only one word for Donald Trump’s Tuesday night debate performance against Kamala Harris: “Disaster.” Trump was unprepared, and his debate team should be fired, Graham told Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast.

However, other right-wing figures claimed it was the debate anchors who were the villains of the night, making it into a “three-on-one attack” on Trump—as the former president himself put it, declining to commit to a second debate.

Even Fox News’ Jesse Watters had to acknowledge Trump’s chaotic debate performance on Tuesday, claiming that Americans didn’t think “any of these people won”—while still trying to paint Trump as a stand-out titan.

“He had some moments where you were like, ‘Oh, my God, where are we going with this,’ and then he just had some great knockouts,” Watters said. “And so this race just got tighter.”

Laura Ingraham even acknowledged the same: “Did Donald Trump miss a few opportunities? Absolutely.”

Still, she claimed, “ABC did help Kamala Harris.”

It was the same for Sean Hannity, who tried to frame ABC as “the biggest loser in the debate.” He said the network didn’t press hard enough on Harris’ past policies and that he still didn’t know much about her.

“In many, many ways that pass that she’s gotten has been the greatest disservice, I think, tonight, to the American people,” Hannity claimed. “That’s on ABC-Disney.” (Disney is the parent company of ABC.)

Right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh tried to offer a dose of reality to an X user aghast at his belief that Trump “rambled too much.”

“Do you need me to lie to you and tell you this was a brilliant performance by Trump?” Walsh asked.

After the debate, right-wing politicians, pundits, and journalists attempted to defend the former president and attack those they believed were against him, namely ABC. Throughout Tuesday’s presidential debate, a consortium of conservatives claimed moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were in the bag for Harris—all as Trump flailed throughout the debate.

“Must be so nice to have the moderators running cover for you as a candidate,” podcaster Megyn Kelly wrote on X. “Makes it so much easier.”

“These moderators are a disgraceful failure and this is one of the most biased, unfair debates I have ever seen,” she later wrote. “Shame on you @ABC.”

“The moderators are letting @KamalaHarris get away with murder in this debate,” Arizona’s GOP U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake wrote on X. “She’s repeating every debunked left-wing talking point from the last decade. But Moderators always make sure to make bogus ‘corrections’ for Trump after he makes a point.”

“These are elite Manhattan debate questions – the American people are suffering and can’t pay for groceries and deserve answers how it will get better,” Meghan McCain wrote on X. “I don’t know what the hell this is but these moderators are doing the American people a grave disservice.”

“It is laughable how ABC choreographed this to help VP Harris but it isn’t working because it is so obvious,” radio host Hugh Hewitt wrote on X.

“David Muir is criticizing and attacking Trump more than Kamala is,” Glenn Greenwald wrote on X. “Kamala can relax because the ABC ‘moderators’ are handling the debate for her.”

Muir and Davis consistently fact-checked the former president as he spouted falsehood after falsehood from the idea that parents in some states can choose to kill a baby after they are born to the claim that illegal immigrants are eating pets.

But even Fox News commentator Brit Hume had to admit it: Harris stuck the landing—and proved, he said, she was not “the absolute dunderhead so many of us thought she was.”

“She was composed, she was prepared, she kept her cool,” Hume said. “She saw advantages, she took them. She baited him successfully, which is the story of the debate.”