On Saturday, a senior Trump adviser told POLITICO that the COVID-19 pandemic was probably not the deciding factor that cost the president the election.
Rather, according to this adviser, it was his catastrophic performance in the first debate.
"Neither summer convention gave Trump or Biden a bump in the polls. So the next critical opportunity to shake up the race was the first debate on Sept. 29," said the report. "The pressure was on Biden, who had uneven debate performances during the primary. He went off the campaign trail to prepare. Trump made a bizarre claim ahead of time that if Biden ended up doing well, it would be because his campaign injected him with drugs. It was Trump who delivered a debate performance unlike anything Americans had seen. Aggressive and volatile, he repeatedly interrupted Biden and talked over moderator Chris Wallace."
“The most f*cked moment of the last 30 days was how everyone felt during the first debate. Why did Trump yell at Joe Biden for 90 minutes straight? No one knows. That was one of the worst debate performances you could have in a general election,” said the adviser. “Let’s say Trump loses and you want me to say what was the biggest factor in the past two months — I would say it was the first debate over him getting coronavirus times 1000.”
You can read more here.