Donald Trump gets low marks for debate even among Republicans, as Rudy Giuliani suggests he skips the next two

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Donald Trump woke on Tuesday to find his campaign suddenly swaying amid gales of criticism of his performance in his first debate against Hillary Clinton, including from many Republicans.

There are two more debates coming in early October that will give Mr Trump a chance to redeem himself. Yet Rudy Giuliani, one of his most important sidekicks on the campaign trail, was openly suggesting that he should consider skipping them.

Mr Trump himself appeared to be starting to understand that he had not been the big hit that he seemed to think when he first walked off the stage. His praise at the time for the debate moderator, Lester Holt, had by Tuesday morning become scathing criticism, for example.

A few Republicans attempted to come to his rescue. “The energy that Donald Trump offered tonight is why the enthusiasm is on our side,” the House speaker, Paul Ryan, who struggled over the summer to come to terms with Mr Trump as the nominee, said. “The American people are ready for solutions, and Donald Trump offers a chance to move in a new direction.”

But while the avalanche of praise for Ms Clinton from the Democratic political class was to be expected, the divided response from the Republicans was unusual and arresting.

“Hillary Clinton has had the best debate training I’ve seen in years,” commented Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster. “She knows when to attack and when to explain.” Mr Luntz had assembled his own focus group of undecided voters to watch the debate. By its end, the group had come down firmly for Ms Clinton.

“Bottom line: Trump was doing pretty well for the first 15 minutes, then Hillary went on the offensive, and Trump choked,” offered William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, who has never been a fan of the New York billionaire, unconvinced of his conservative credentials.

Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican consultant who worked in the administration of George W Bush, has also been sceptical of Mr Trump – if not outright opposed to him – and remained so on Tuesday.

“Trump didn't need to win on points; he only had to surpass expectations,” he told The Hill. “I think he probably did, although not by much. What he did well was embrace a change message, which is what the electorate wants in a change election. My sense is Trump is still in the game, but that Clinton’s solid performance will halt her negative slide in the polls.”

“He was exciting but embarrassingly undisciplined,” conservative columnist John Podhoretz wrote in the New York Post. “He began with his strongest argument – that the political class represented by [Clinton] has failed us and it’s time to look to a successful dealmaker for leadership – and kept to it pretty well for the first 20 minutes. Then due to the vanity and laziness that led him to think he could wing the most important 95 minutes of his life, he lost the thread of his argument, he lost control of his temper and he lost the perspective.”

“Why didn’t he have a better answer ready for the birther nonsense?,” asked David French of the right-leaning National Review. “Has he still not done any homework on foreign policy? I felt like I was watching the political Titanic hit the iceberg, back up, and hit it again, just for fun.”

Mr Giuliani’s intervention was meant to be a swipe at the moderator, Mr Holt, but nonetheless betrayed that he, too, knew the night had not gone well for the party’s nominee.

“If I were Donald Trump I wouldn’t participate in another debate unless I was promised that the journalist would act like a journalist and not an incorrect, ignorant fact checker,” Mr Giuliani said. “The moderator would have to promise that there would be a moderator and not a fact checker and in two particular cases an enormously ignorant, completely misinformed fact checker.”

He went on: “If you wonder why Donald Trump thinks that the press is a left-wing... oriented group, Lester Holt proved it tonight.”

Having said immediately after the debate that Mr Holt had done a “great job”, Mr Trump by Tuesday had changed his tune, suggesting he had failed to take Ms Clinton to task.

“They were leaving all of her little goodies out. They didn't ask her about, you know, much,” Mr Trump told Fox. “But I was asked about my tax returns, which I've told about 500 times. But, you know, I think I did – I think I really did well when we were asked normal questions.”

Mr Trump lamenting on Monday night that his microphone had a problem was perhaps the first sign from him that he was aware he had not quite triumphed on stage. “My mic was defective within the room,” Mr Trump told reporters.”I wonder … Was that on purpose? Was that on purpose?” There was no evidence of problems with the sound quality of his microphone.

Also noted was Mr Trump’s failure to show up, as he had promised, at a Republican watch party close to the debate venue at Hofstra University.