Trump Takes Teleprompter To Florida To Stop The Bleeding After Disastrous First Debate

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:15 pm

After bombing in front of 80+ million people in the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump arrived in Florida on Tuesday to do some damage control. This time, though, he came with an old friend and something he sorely missed last night – a teleprompter.

Right out of the gate, Trump told a huge whopper – surprise, surprise – about how people reacted to his god-awful performance on Monday.

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“Last night was very exciting,” the Republican nominee said to open his rally in the Sunshine State. “Almost every single poll had us winning the debate against crooked Hillary Clinton.”

Trump, as factually challenged as ever, likely didn’t see the scientific polling that was released shortly after the debate, which showed that voters across the board – in most cases, by double digits – thought Clinton soared in the what was likely the biggest moment of the entire campaign.

Even in Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s focus group, Clinton was widely seen as the victor by 16 out of 21 undecided voters in attendance.

At his Florida rally, the former ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ host also proved that he can only smack talk the Democratic nominee when he’s not in the room with her.

“She couldn’t even pass her bar exam,” Trump said of Clinton to a crowd of supporters, while comfortably behind his Trump-Pence podium. He also repeatedly referred to her as “crooked,” something he didn’t have the guts to do while Clinton was standing just feet away from him.

Instead of owning up to his huge flop, Trump decided to point fingers at one of his favorite punching bags – the media.

“The single weapon that she’s got is the media,” he said of Clinton. “Without the mainstream media, she wouldn’t even be here, folks, that I can tell you. She wouldn’t even have a chance.”

While his supporters have spent the post-debate hours pointing fingers at everybody other than their candidate, Trump’s poor performance has everything to do with who the man is.

It’s nobody’s fault but Trump’s that he doesn’t care to learn anything about policy that would equip him to keep up with Hillary Clinton, who clearly understands the issues. It’s nobody’s fault but his that he grew increasingly tired and incoherent as the debate wore on. It’s nobody’s fault but his that he cannot help but respond childishly to every little criticism.

Trump may have quickly hit the campaign trail with his teleprompter to stop the bleeding from last night’s debate, but perhaps it would likely be a better use of his time to spend the next 11 days preparing for the second presidential debate on Oct. 9.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.