On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump will debate Vice President Kamala Harris in their first direct encounter of the 2024 presidential election. Looking back at Trump’s three debates with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, expect the press to adore Harris’s performance, while deriding Trump as someone out of a “third world” “banana republic.”
The media tone was established early, just minutes before the candidates met in their first (September 26, 2016) debate, as CNN’s Van Jones extolled Hillary’s supreme abilities. “She is the Michael Jordan of policy in multiple, multiple areas,” Jones crowed. “She’s like the valedictorian running against this crazy frat boy.”
With NBC’s Lester Holt asking the questions, Hillary escaped scrutiny on her health (just days earlier, she’d collapsed at a 9/11 ceremony),…
