Debate week revealed a key difference between Democrats and Republicans

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “If the reports are true and the president didn’t know who he was, whoever allowed them in the room should have been fired.” Tillis, who has always had a tenuous relationship with Trump, deployed the same strategy after far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer appeared in the Republican nominee’s entourage this week. Enough.” Tillis’s words come after Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump critic-turned-surrogate, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish people running space lasers, both criticized Loomer for her “racist” remarks about Vice President Kamala Harris. open image in gallery People watch the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Vice president Kamala Harris All three Republicans couched their criticism of Loomer in terms of wanting to help Trump and were quick to say she was doing a disservice to him. Her defense of fracking made sense once Joe Manchin, the Democratic-turned-Independent senator from West Virginia, told The Independent he was “tickled to death” that Harris talked about “a policy that’s producing energy that we need and investing in energy we want.” By contrast, Republicans in districts that voted for Joe Biden, like Representatives Anthony D’Esposito of New York or Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, rarely create much of a contrast between themselves and Trump, even if it costs them their races.