‘Is It Still In His Brain?’ CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Asks Maggie Haberman If Trump Still Stung By Debate Disaster

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins asked New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman if ex-President Donald Trump is still haunted by his performance at a 2020 debate against President Joe Biden.

Biden and Trump are set to debate on June 27 in the earliest general election presidential matchup ever. During Trump’s losing 2020 campaign, he debated Biden twice and got trounced in post-debate polls while creating memorable moments like an exchange that ended with Biden exclaiming, “Will you shut up, man?”

Trump refused to participate in the third debate, claiming he did not want to appear virtually.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins played that exchange and asked if the aftermath of that debacle is “still in his brain”:

HABERMAN: Trump did not help himself, in 2020, when he was constantly interrupting Biden. He knows that. He has said that to people. Trump is — Trump and his folks are aware that they set the expectations too low for Biden. And Biden beat them. They’re trying to avoid doing that now.

COLLINS: Can we just take a reminder of what that moment was like —

HABERMAN: Sure.

COLLINS: — when he was constantly interrupting him?

This is the first debate from 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Vote now.

TRUMP: Are you going to pack the court?

BIDEN: Make sure you, in fact, let people know, your Senators —

TRUMP: He doesn’t want to answer the question.

BIDEN: I’m not going to answer the question, because —

TRUMP: Why wouldn’t you answer that question?

BIDEN: Because the question is —

TRUMP: You want to put a lot of —

BIDEN: The question is —

TRUMP: — new Supreme Court Justices.

BIDEN: The question —

TRUMP: Radical left. Who is on —

BIDEN: Will you shut up, man?

TRUMP: Listen, who is —

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Do you think — that’s a great point — because is it still in his brain? Because after that, he felt like he didn’t do a great job at the first debate. They thought he did great at the second one.

HABERMAN: Yes, they —

COLLINS: But not the first one.

HABERMAN: Yes, well, so to be clear, also, and you know this. He walked offstage, and he thought he did fantastic. And it was only when he saw the coverage, and a lot of people were saying to him, that was not great that then he changed. He has since acknowledged that that was not a great debate.

You’re right that both he and they think that he did better in the second debate.

One thing that was striking too, about that debate that you just played, part of why that moment popped, the way it did, was that Biden had been smiling, in response to Trump’s interruptions, throughout the entire night, until he finally just seemed exasperated.

I don’t know how much either one of these guys is going to be smiling at the other. I mean, the antipathy that they have for one another is deep.

COLLINS: Or any of us are going to be smiling. I mean, what did you make of — so, Biden got to pick whether he wanted to pick his podium, or pick who went last. He picked where — which lectern he’ll be standing out, same side as always, which is his preferred side.

What do you make of Trump having the last word, though?

HABERMAN: I think that it’s not — A, it’s not surprising. I think Trump likes having the last word, in all situations, number one.

But number two, I think that the Biden team likely sees that as a positive for them, because they think more of Donald Trump as a good thing. And so, if the last thing that viewers see is Donald Trump, I think, their expectation is that’s more likely than not better for them. I don’t know that that will be the case. But I imagine that’s their thinking.

COLLINS: We’ll see how it goes.

HABERMAN: We will.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

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