Vee

I don't think they are right. I think everyone but his hardcore thought Trump looked terrible whining and bitching at Martha Raddatz, who rightly treated him like a child. He was being snippy with them from moment one. I think Cooper and Raddatz did the best they could, but the fact is Trump requires extreme moderation that almost goes over the line to corral him. Raddatz in particular tried hard.

MAGA is 'make America great again.' Important to remember: The Trump brand is also irrevocably damaged, especially after Pussygate. It will never recover globally, let alone nationally. Ivanka may be driven by her adoration of her distant, egocentric father, but she (if no one else) is smart enough to know this. Oh, and: Pence just cancelled on another event tomorrow.

From the Esquire profile I've posted too much:

Yes, I think it's creepy. Paul Ryan mulls getting out. Trump had to be stopped from trying to make Clinton's mistresses 'confront him' during the debate.

The real problem for the GOP, as many commentators are saying: She won the debate and he lost and turned off everyone but his base, but she didn't end him, probably because she didn't want to. So unless Pence drops out as is increasingly rumored, they're stuck with him all month, and she's got plenty more where the !@#$%^&*] tape came from.

That's fine. She doesn't need to finish him yet. There's a lot more tapes waiting.. Keeping him on life support means he stays on the ticket.

CNN seems to be calling it a wash with Hillary having the edge. MSNBC the same, I think. It's just such a tiresome thing, all he did was go out there and play to the Breitbart base.

Chuck Todd says he played to his base but did nothing else: "Trump will have a very bad 48 hours. He did his best 90 minutes, the problem is the background, and that's where it falls apart."

He looks miserable as he leaves. He didn't collapse onstage, but he couldn't really hurt her. He did nothing to help himself outside his base. He dismissed Pence, who may or may not still be on the ticket. He was cold, sarcastic, combative and petulant to the moderators and Raddatz humiliated him, and he confirmed he has paid no taxes. No needle moved. It's just deeply depressing and tiring - another month of this crap before we finally get rid of him. It's a grim death march.

Cooper invokes Machado. Trump loses it.

Every two minutes he whines about the moderators being unfair to him. "It's very interesting."

Raddatz embarrassed him. His saying Pence was wrong was just the beginning.

Raddatz won't let him go: "Tell me what your strategy is!"

Yeah, not really. There is no coming back. He's a mess. Bitchily arguing with the moderators. Raddatz: "Let me repeat the question." Laughter in the gallery at Trump. He's terrible. Saying he and Pence have not spoken about Syria.

This is like a suicide tape. He is just staring at her and sniffing and rambling. She is just laughing. A complete disaster. He is pacing around like a sleepwalker. The Trump plants keep hooting and hollering in the audience, while Clinton's fans also applaud (and drown them out).

This is already a snuff film. Only babbling about talking points in regards to pussygate and Cooper cuts him off. He seems drugged, listless. Trump snaps at Martha Raddatz as she tells him to have to go to viewer questions and he can't just ramble about Hillary. "Sounds fair."

The Trump children look absolutely miserable. Eric looks ready to cry.

Hallie Jackson gets word from within the Trump campaign: "Dismaying", "what the hell are we doing?"

Jared Kushner may have started out a kind young man, but he's always been spoiled and quick-tempered, and myopic about loyalty, which led him to his current doomed hero worship of his father-in-law. He has channeled his anger and frustration about his own father's prosecution and public shaming into some kind of weird do-over with Trump. He has abandoned his family's proud tradition of liberalism to fiercely defend Trump and tells anyone who doesn't care for the hateful rhetoric that they just don't know "the real America." He also used his purchase of the Observer to settle petty family scores. It's all in this profile of him. Meanwhile: Pre-debate, Trump is doing this.

The big takeaway here for me also is the anonymous adviser griping that Conway lies about budgeting and such to appease super-cheap Trump. I think she is skilled at polling and talking fast and soothsaying Trump who has the mentality of a toddler, but it's clear she was way out of her depth trying to run a major campaign. Many have said it, there's no grown-up in the room. I expect Trump to attack with everything from Juanita Broadderick to Monica tonight. He's too stupid to realize that this is not another dominance ritual, that doing that will kill him with a live audience, women and independents, and as the evening gets worse he will only get angrier and crazier. We've never seen anything like what's coming before and God willing we never will again.

Interesting profile of Kellyanne Conway, done on the eve of Pussygate, only updated the night of. Insight into Trump's blinkered and myopic view of campaigning as nothing more than another PR tour - that is why his work ethic is nothing and why his ground game and preparation for November are nonexistent. Then there's Jared Kushner, the boy prince who past articles have indicated has developed a daddy/hero worship towards his father-in-law:

That's a Republican voter poll! Of course they worship him, that's his hardcore base. But it is shrinking. What you have to look at is not only the undecideds, but the women who are pulling Trump signs off their lawns - something that is apparently happening, even when they're not being polled. You can't go by random internet comments sections mobbed by trolls and polls of Republican voters to determine that this did nothing to the race.

Kellyanne Conway is walking on sunshine.

This segment of a (surprisingly good) SNL sketch tonight about sums up what Hillary is probably doing to prep at this point -

She's got no reason to want to skip the debate. There is zero room for error for Trump, and he is now considered a national disgrace ready to humiliate himself anew. She has every reason to attend and put him in the ground. The only spin claiming he has a ghost's chance or that Hillary is in any danger is from his remaining Republican loyalists and a few desperate GOP pollsters. Even those are few and far between. Re: Kaine, everyone forgot that debate an hour after it happened. The only takeaway that mattered was the one prescient of this weekend - Pence unable to defend Trump.