In a scathing critique of Tuesday’s debate, Republican strategist Karl Rove described the encounter between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as a “train wreck” for the former president. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Rove asserted that the outcome was far worse than anything Trump’s team could have anticipated.

“Mr. Trump had to know the vice president would try to get him to lose his cool. She did,” Rove wrote. Harris launched a series of pointed attacks, targeting Trump’s multiple indictments and labeling him as “weak.”

She further criticized him as a “six-time bankrupt, spoiled inheritor of wealth” and referenced a former national security adviser’s view of Trump as “dangerous and unfit” for the Oval Office.

Rove observed that Trump “took the bait almost every time she put it on the hook,” responding to Harris’s provocations with a “pained smile.”

Rather than countering with strong arguments, Trump became “furious,” Rove noted.

As the debate progressed, Trump’s demeanor shifted; his voice rose, he gripped the podium more tightly, and he grimaced while responding with what Rove termed “wild and fanciful rhetoric.” Short, effective retorts, according to Rove, remained undelivered.

In contrast, “Ms. Harris came across as calm, confident, strong, and focused on the future,” Rove wrote. While Trump appeared “hot, angry and fixated on the past,” particularly his own, Harris excelled at the split-screen dynamic, exuding confidence and subtly undermining Trump by smiling and shaking her head as he spoke.

Rove concluded by pondering the debate’s impact: “Yes, though perhaps not as much as Team Harris hopes or as much as Team Trump might fear.”

He candidly remarked, “But there’s no putting lipstick on this pig. Mr. Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock.’ Which raises the question: What does that make him?”