Donald Trump Looks to Regain His Footing after a Rocky Debate

 Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he visits Engine 4 Ladder 15 on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, US, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he visits Engine 4 Ladder 15 on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, US, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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Donald Trump Looks to Regain His Footing after a Rocky Debate

 Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he visits Engine 4 Ladder 15 on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, US, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he visits Engine 4 Ladder 15 on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, US, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)

Donald Trump emerged Wednesday from a rocky debate against Kamala Harris looking to regain his footing with 54 days until Election Day, the first ballots already going out in Alabama and other states on the cusp of early voting.

Not even three months ago, Trump stepped off the debate stage in Atlanta having watched President Joe Biden deliver a disjointed, whispery performance that eventually led the 81-year-old Democrat to end his reelection bid and endorse Harris, his vice president.

By the end of Tuesday night, it was the 78-year-old Trump on the defensive after the 59-year-old Harris controlled much of the debate, repeatedly baiting the Republican former president into agitated answers replete with exaggerations and mistruths.

“We’ll see what the polls say going forward, but I don’t know how anybody can spin this other than a pretty decisive defeat for Trump,” former Rep. Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican who has long been critical of Trump, said Wednesday on CNN.

Trump and Harris were together briefly Wednesday in New York, where they joined President Biden and other dignitaries to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. They shook hands for a second time the morning after Harris approached Trump on the debate stage to introduce herself, the first sign of the aggressive approach she would take during the event.

The former president, who flouted convention with a surprise appearance late Tuesday in the post-debate spin room, continued Wednesday morning to insist he had won the night, though he also blasted ABC moderators as unfair – a tacit acknowledgement that he did not accomplish what he wanted against Harris.

Trump and some of his allies in online posts speculated about punishing ABC by taking away its broadcast license — the network doesn't need a license to operate but individual stations do — or denying access to its reporters in the future.

“We had a great night. We won the debate. We had a terrible, a terrible network,” Trump said Wednesday on Fox News. “They should be embarrassed. I mean they kept correcting me and what I said was largely right or I hope it was right.”

Trump’s framing of the debate results does not square with the broad consensus of political commentators, strategists on both sides of the political aisle and some immediate assessments by voters who watched Tuesday night. But there is also evidence that the debate did not immediately yield broad shifts among people who watched.

About 6 in 10 debate-watchers said that Harris outperformed Trump, while about 4 in 10 said that Trump did a better job, according to a flash poll conducted by CNN. Before the debate, the same voters were evenly split on whether Trump or Harris would win.

The vast majority of debate-watchers — who, importantly, do not reflect the views of the full voting public — also said that the event wouldn’t affect their votes in the election. Perceptions of the two candidates remain largely unchanged.

Harris was jubilant late Tuesday, telling late-night rallygoers in Philadelphia that it was a “great night,” even as she repeated that she sees Democrats as “underdogs” against Trump. She garnered the endorsement of music and cultural icon Taylor Swift, an intensely popular figure.

Harris' campaign immediately pitched the idea of a second debate. Fox News has proposed an October matchup but with moderators that Trump has indicated he does not prefer.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire was more charitable to Trump than some, allowing that Harris won by traditional debate standards but fell short in convincing swing voters focused on their economic conditions.

“The majority of those swing voters are still results driven,” Sununu said on CNN, adding that Trump still has opportunities to sway voters on the economy, immigration and, especially, foreign policy.

Perhaps Sununu's most revealing assessment, though, came not when he talked about Trump but about another Republican the governor originally supported in the 2024 primaries: former Ambassador Nikki Haley, who was the last GOP candidate standing against Trump and continued garnering support in primaries weeks after she dropped out of the race.

"Imagine what Nikki would have done in that debate,” Sununu said. “It would have been great.”



IAEA Chief Says Time Running Out to Reach Iran Nuclear Deal

 Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attends a joint media briefing with Director General of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom following their talks in Moscow on February 7, 2025. (AFP)
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attends a joint media briefing with Director General of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom following their talks in Moscow on February 7, 2025. (AFP)
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IAEA Chief Says Time Running Out to Reach Iran Nuclear Deal

 Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attends a joint media briefing with Director General of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom following their talks in Moscow on February 7, 2025. (AFP)
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attends a joint media briefing with Director General of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom following their talks in Moscow on February 7, 2025. (AFP)

Time is running out to secure an accord to rein in Iran's nuclear program as Tehran continues to accelerate its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Friday.

Iran has stepped up nuclear work since 2019, after US President Donald Trump in his first term abandoned a 2015 agreement reached under predecessor Barack Obama.

With nuclear diplomacy stalled, the spotlight has turned on Trump and how he intends to handle the dossier.

So far there has been little clear policy on the issue, and Iran has continued to advance its nuclear program, accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons grade.

"I think we are running out of time, but it doesn't mean that we can't do it fast," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Grossi said in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

"The IAEA is there and has all the information and elements, but when it comes to the policy it's up to the countries."

Grossi said Iran was in the process of increasing around sevenfold its monthly production of uranium enriched to up to 60%.

He said Iran would likely have about 250 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% by the time of the agency's next report in the coming weeks.

That is enough in principle, if enriched further, for six nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA yardstick

"It's clearly a sign that should be taken very seriously. So this is why I believe that we shouldn't be wasting more time. I hope that we can refocus on Iran," he said.

IAEA 'EAGERLY' AWAITS ENVOY'S APPOINTMENT

Highlighting the challenges, Trump has yet to appoint a dedicated team or envoy to handle the Iran dossier, leaving allies, including Britain, France and Germany, who are part of the 2015 deal, unclear on how to proceed.

The European powers had hoped to convince Iran to begin negotiating new restrictions on its nuclear activities with a view to having a deal by the summer.

That would give enough time to implement new limits on Iran's program and lift sanctions before the 2015 accord expires in October 2025.

"We are eagerly waiting for a US envoy on Iran to be appointed so we can start exchanging views and seeing what the next steps will be," Grossi said. "We are in contact, but we haven't been able to have a political conversation with someone who is implementing the policies of the president."

At the request of the Europeans, the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution in November ordering Iran to urgently improve cooperation with the agency and requesting a "comprehensive" report by spring aimed at pressuring Iran into fresh nuclear talks.

Asked whether the report could be ready by the next board meeting in March, Grossi said there would be "very little added value" to what the agency had already reported and that it would be better once there had been some progress with Iran.

"It will come. It could be by March, but most likely a bit later," Grossi said.