MAGA Suddenly Praises Biden-Trump Debate Format They Flipped Out About

Trump supporters spent weeks railing that Thursday’s presidential debate between Biden and Trump would be rigged in favor of Biden, fuming about CNN’s moderation restrictions and spinning conspiracies that the debate moderators were biased against Trump. After insisting Trump would lose the debate and raging that CNN’s fact-checker would be fact-checking the debate, Trump supporters quickly changed their tune.

Trump supporters and Trump himself spent the lead-up to the debate claiming that Biden would be buzzing out of his skin doped up on drugs, and instead found themselves—like most viewers—stunned at Biden’s mellowness, which the Biden team claims is due to a cold.

Donald Trump was asked during Thursday’s presidential debate about concerns from voters about the January 6 riot and that he may lead his supporters to do the same again. In response, Trump promptly began spewing falsehoods surrounding the insurrection.

“What do you say to those voters who believe that you violated your constitutional oath through your actions and inaction on January 6, 2021, and worry that you’ll do it again?” moderator Jake Tapper asked. Trump initially denied that voters have that concern, then delved into a spree of falsehoods.

Trump responded somewhat quizzically, saying, “Well, I didn’t say that to anybody. I said peacefully and patriotically,” apparently in reference to his directive to his supporters to go to the Capitol.

Here’s what he actually told the crowd before the riot:

We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.

And hours later, he posted on X (formerly Twitter):

I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order.

Trump then stated then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed responsibility for the riot. “I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard and she turned them down and the mayor, I have it in writing, by the way, the mayor in writing, turned it down. The mayor of D.C. They turned it down. I offered 10 times because I could see. I had virtually nothing to do.”

Recently released video during the Capitol riot shows Pelosi asking why the National Guard wasn’t present as she was evacuated from the Capitol, and later shows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also demanding answers about why the National Guard isn’t mobilized.

“We need them fast. We’ve all had to—I’ve never seen anything like this. We’re like a third-world country here. We had to run and evacuate the Capitol,” Schumer snapped.

Trump has long falsely claimed that he signed an order for 10,000 National Guard troops to mobilize to Washington prior to the insurrection. Trump and fellow conservatives have also falsely claimed that Pelosi was responsible for preventing their deployment.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser failed to mobilize a sizable National Guard presence based on “intelligence failures” that believed the far-right extremists would be “friendly” to police, but she did in fact call for a limited National Guard mobilization ahead of the January 6 riot.

Donald Trump claimed during Thursday night’s debate with President Joe Biden that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have happened on his watch.

Trump claimed that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was so chaotic that it encouraged Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

“When Putin saw that, he said, ‘You know what? I think we’re gonna go in and maybe take my …’ This was his dream. I talked to him about it. His dream,” Trump said. Did Putin actually speak to Trump about attacking Ukraine, or is this Trump being braggadocious? But Trump has made no secret of his close, sometimes subservient relationship with Putin.

Trump also blamed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel on Biden, claiming that Iran was broke during the Trump presidency and couldn’t fund Hamas.

Watch Trump’s bizarre recollection here:

Donald Trump suggested President Joe Biden has “become like a Palestinian,” during Thursday night’s presidential debate.

“But he’s like a weak one, they wouldn’t like him,” Trump sneered.

This isn’t the first time the former president has made this particularly racist remark: Earlier this month, Trump said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had become “like a Palestinian” after the staunchly pro-Israel Democrat supported a cease-fire.

Donald Trump just took offense during Thursday night’s debate at the revival of his infamous quote where he allegedly described American World War I veterans as “suckers and losers.”

Trump said, “It was a made-up quote by a third-rate, failing magazine,” referring to The Atlantic, after Biden confronted him with it. But the truth is that the quote is corroborated by multiple sources, including John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff and a retired general himself.

Trump demanded that Biden apologize for bringing up the quote, and Biden refused, saying that it was corroborated by a four-star general on his staff, referring to Kelly.

In 2018, Trump refused to visit the graves of American soldiers buried near Paris because the cemetery is “filled with losers,” and he also said that 1,800 U.S. Marines who died in the Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed. Kelly later confirmed the story in an October 2023 interview with CNN, and Biden put out a pro-veteran ad highlighting Trump’s comments earlier this month.

Watch the exchange here: