'Chaotic, belligerent, vague': Conservative doesn't hold back in Trump debate appraisal

Former President Donald Trump's debating prowess was lambasted by an influential conservative columnist just hours before a historic contest against Vice President Kamala Harris is slated to begin.

National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke warned Republicans Tuesday morning to expect a "bad" performance from their presidential nominee and unofficially stripped Trump of a debate win against President Joe Biden in late June.

"Many of Trump’s fans have concluded that Trump 'won' — or, even, that he delivered an impressive performance," Cooke wrote. "He did not. Biden lost, and Trump was mostly incidental to that defeat."

The ABC News debate in Philadelphia, slated to begin at 9 p.m. ET, will present Trump his first opportunity to return to the debate stage since that June 27 showdown with Biden.

It's also the first time he'll debate Harris face-to-face.

Biden dropped out of the race in July after facing mounting calls to do so after his poor debate performance raised concerns among Democrats that he would prove unable to defeat Trump in November.

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Harris' ascent turned the tables on Trump, whose attack lines against Biden included the claim that his age rendered him unfit to serve.

Now, Trump, 78, will face an opponent nearly two decades his junior with experience presenting arguments as a prosecutor in courts of law.

Cooke on Monday professed himself unimpressed with Harris' public speaking skills, which he described as "an unalloyed disaster."

"She has no useful thoughts in her head, and, in consequence, she has no useful words in her mouth," Cooke wrote. "She’s a rambler, a meanderer, a peregrinator extraordinaire."

This is the context of Tuesday's column in which Cooke argues, despite Harris' "embarrassing inability to speak in public," Trump could easily lose the debate.

"This does not imply, however, that, when debating Donald Trump in a formalized setting, she will come off worse," wrote Cooke.

"He’s chaotic, belligerent, vague, ill-disciplined, and obsessed with esoteric things that voters don’t care about."