Key Takeaways From A Debate That Featured Tense Clashes And Closed With A Taylor Swift Endorsement

Donald Trump was supposed to be making a pitch to Jewish voters Thursday. But he just couldn’t help but let his innate antisemitism slip through. From ABC News: During his speech at an antisemitism event in Washington, D. C., on Thursday, former President Donald Trump pledged to be the "defender" of Jewish Americans if he wins but also seemed to suggest that if he loses the election, it will be their fault. "My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House," Trump said. But instead of saying something like, “That’s why you should all vote for me,” Trump said, as per ABC News, "I'm at 40%; that means you got 60% voting for somebody that hates Israel," Trump said.

Trump moaned to Fox News host Greg Gutfeld Wednesday evening, that the ABC moderators were unfairly fact-checking him and even the studio audience went crazy about it. Hint: There was no studio audience at the Harris-Trump debate. TRUMP: They even said (yeah), but all of them, and they didn't correct her once and they corrected me everything I said practically -- I think nine times or 11 times, and the audience was absolutely - they went crazy and and the real -- I thought it was -- I walked off I said, that was a great debate.

Ahead of CNN's jaw-dropping story on Trump-endorsed N. C. gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, he firmly denied the allegations, saying, "You know my character." Yes, Mark, we do. We know all about Robinson, who thinks the LGBTQ community is "filth," and yet it's been revealed that he watched trans porn. Robinson is on film at a church saying, "Some people need killing." We know that he wanted no exemptions for abortion, even though he later revealed that he and his wife, who ripped off the Girl Scouts (!!), had an abortion procedure.

How long before Trump's sycophants on Fox are trying to pretend he's never heard of Robinson either? Watters interviewed Robinson earlier this year, so good luck with that lie, pal. After reports broke that Christian nationalist extremist Mark Robinson, who's running for North Carolina governor, made a series of inflammatory comments on a porn site, Fox has been loath to discuss the story and only ran a few short segments on it all day. During one of them on this Thursday's The Five, Jesse Watters made some snide remark about not knowing who Robinson was (whether he was being serious or not, who knows) and his fellow panel member Greg Gutfeld did his best to excuse Trump's support of Robinson, as though there weren't already hundreds of reasons for any sane person to distance themselves from Robinson already, but it's Trump we're talking about, so birds of a feather. TARLOV: And what's a really interesting state in there is North Carolina, which is a big target for the Democrats.

Trump's former MAGA economic advisor Larry Kudlow could barely contain his fury after the stock market hit record highs Thursday in response to the Fed cutting rates on Wednesday. Kudlow, like most Wall Street folks, have been demanding rate cuts for some time from the Federal Reserve and the Street knew it was coming Wednesday, but when Powell finally did it, Kudlow whined and tried to create a conspiracy theory that it was strategically done to benefit Kamala Harris. What a putz.

Representative Glenn Grothman (R-All you can eat buffet) went on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and made the wild claim that, because of the Democrats, immigrants were coming into the country and immediately voting. His proof? Just a hunch: GROTHMAN: Why did all but three Democrats vote against a provision yesterday that you have to prove that you're a citizen before you vote?