CNN’s Jake Tapper: ‘The President Thinks He Is Going To Lose, And He Wants To Bring Us Down With Him’

CNN’s Jake Tapper, who called the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden a “hot mess inside a dumpster fire in a train wreck,” delivered a grave summary after what nearly every anchor on broadcast and cable news called the debate the worst in American history: “the president does not think he’s going to win this election, and he wants to bring the rest of us down with him.”

Tapper, clearly disgusted by Trump’s behavior during the debate, was also critical of Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace, who struggled to regain control of the debate and to enforce the rules agreed to by both campaigns:

Tapper’s colleague Dana Bash was even more blunt, apologizing to viewers after using an expletive that she said was the only word to describe what she’d just witnessed.

“Clearly this debate was an embarrassment for the United States of America,” said CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who suggested that, despite tonight’s event being the first of the debate may be the one and only time the two presidential candidates face off before Election Day.

On MSNBC, Brian Williams opened an interview with Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, asking “what just happened?”

Sen. Harris said the debate put on clear display an “angry, defensive Donald Trump,” who Harris said refused to condemn white supremacists and had worked through the 90 minutes to “debase the office of president of the United States.”