I spent an hour and a half of my life doing my duty as a pundit Tuesday night, but I can’t say I enjoyed the experience enduring that debate.

That was unpleasant.

It’s unpleasant to watch a poorly-run, poorly-executed debate, and that’s what this was. There was very little you could look at and see any real movement of the needle.

If you watched it, you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, here are some observations, all of them negative. I’d prefer to offer something better, but I didn’t see much.

Yes, Trump had a few good zingers. He always does. Yes, his closing, or at least the part of it where he asked why she hasn’t done all these things she’s promising to do after almost four years in the White House, was pretty good. But those are the kinds of things you knew were going to be there. That’s the bare minimum you’d expect him to do.

There were lots of other things that were just cringeworthy. Here were 10 of them.

1. Kamala Tells Two Obvious, Provable, Libelous Lies In A Row And ABC Wouldn’t Fact-Check Her.

As if to prove that Trump was correct when he said there’s no real difference between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, she cut loose with a reprise of the Charlottesville “very fine people” lie, and then compounded that with the “bloodbath” lie.

Both of those were ridiculously stupid things when Biden used to say them, and now Harris is saying them. That doesn’t change the fact they’re obviously not true. Even Snopes debunked the Charlottesville lie.

ABC fact-checked Trump multiple times and actually lied in the fact-checks. And yet when Harris claimed that Trump defended neo-Nazis after Charlottesville, a clear libel, they did nothing about it.

That left Trump to waste his debate time trying to explain and answer those two lies.

2. Enough With The Hyperbole, Trump. Damn!

Maybe it’s just a style thing with me, but it drives me nuts to hear all the “greatest this” and “worst that” and “nobody’s ever seen anything like it” when Trump starts talking about a given issue rather than recite a few facts that most politicians can rattle off. It grates on me and I know I’m not alone.

3. ABC Claimed There’s No State Which Allows Infanticide. That’s A Lie.

You had a presentation on abortion more than a debate, and it came off as orchestrated. Trump was clearly in a 3-on-1 fight and did a decent job of articulating his position on the issue, which is that it’s back with the states and can be decided by the voters there.

And then he noted something true, which is that in Tim Walz’ Minnesota they’re allowing infanticide. The female ABC moderator, somebody I’ve never seen before and can’t identify (and don’t care to), proceeded to fact-check Trump by saying that no state allows it.

But eight states, including Minnesota, allow partial-birth abortion, which is infanticide.

4. Missed Opportunity: “Two State Solution”

Harris vomited out a rehearsed talking point about how the war in Gaza must end in a cease-fire and there has to be a “two-state solution” with Israel and the Palestinians, and Trump’s answer was…OK, I guess. But it drives me insane to see this ball get dropped again and again, and Trump dropped it.

Just once I’d like to see him challenge the concept of a “two-state solution.” Say something like “How can we have a two-state solution when the Palestinians take the aid money they’re given and buy rockets and build terror tunnels with it? They won’t even admit Israel has a right to exist. And all that ‘from the river to the sea’ stuff? That’s a genocidal chant. There is no possible two-state solution until the Palestinians change, and that can’t happen until Hamas is gone.”

5. The Kamala’s-Race Setup

Trump was asked about his sarcastic statement that Harris was Indian before she was black, which is not a racial statement but rather an observation on her lack of sincerity. Most people get that. But the question was asked as a gotcha, and though Trump stepped out of it about as well as he could, saying that he doesn’t care what her ethnic background is, then it was thrown up for Harris to dunk on him about what a racist he is.

It wasn’t subtle. It was a completely obvious setup and the fact that she had a clearly-rehearsed, prepared attack on him.

6. Missed Opportunity: Ukraine

Trump was given an atrociously slanted question by David Muir, the beta male anchor ABC had as its lead moderator. Muir asked him if he wanted Ukraine to win. That’s a stupid question, but it would have been useful if Trump, rather than repeat his claim that he could end that war as a president-elect before he even gets inaugurated, had said something else.

His brag about how he can get a peace deal going is fine, but people have heard that and it isn’t anything new. What would have been better, and substantively it isn’t much different than what he did say, is for Trump to ask this question: what does a Ukrainian victory look like? Was Muir asking whether this war should continue until Ukraine retakes the Crimea and the Donbas? And at what cost is that victory going to be achieved?

The fact is, the Ukraine war will be settled at the peace table. There was a failed attempt at that back in 2022 and Biden sent Boris Johnson to scuttle it. Two and a half years later and all those hundreds of thousands of dead bodies later, there isn’t all that much difference in where the battle lines are.

I also wanted Trump to articulate the corruption behind keeping this war going as a money laundry for our depraved elite.

7. Missed Opportunity: January 6

Of course this was something ABC had to waste time on, and of course Muir had to nag Trump about old statements he’s made about who won the 2020 election. Almost nobody in America gives a damn about this subject anymore.

But Trump needs some new material, because they’re going to continue harassing him on this and he has to treat it like an opportunity.

Just once I’d love to hear him say, “Look, you know my position on what happened in 2020, and on what happened on January 6. But let me give it to you this way: maybe you’re not sold on the contention that they stole the election, but you have to at least concede that with the ballot harvesting and the media manipulation and censorship and the pretty significant irregularities around the vote count in all those states, that had to be the most poorly-executed election in modern history. So it’s pretty natural there would be a public outcry about it, and that giant protest on January 6 was just that.

“Contrary to what these people have been telling you, the vast majority of the January 6 protesters were peaceful people who exercised their First Amendment rights. There were without question people in that crowd who were there to cause trouble, and what’s not fully understood is how many of those were connected with the federal government, and that colors this thing in ways which are troubling. Finally, you’re apparently not allowed to know that I kept offering to bring in more people for security. Even Nancy Pelosi admitted that it was her fault not to have adequate security.”

8. He Took The Bait

There are too many examples of this to mention, but Harris had a bunch of rehearsed insults which were aimed at getting under Trump’s skin. The point was to make him look like an ogre when he roared back.

Everybody knew this was coming. Team Trump knew it.

And yet he let himself get angry anyway, when what he should have been doing was laughing in her face.

The thing is that Trump doesn’t laugh. It’s the biggest problem he has among the people who don’t like him. He’s funny and engaging, but he’s more deadpan than jovial. But that doesn’t really work in this setting.

So a few mocking faces here and there, an “Oh my God” at a particularly egregious lie somewhere, and a “Do you believe she just said that to me?” at the audience at least once were what we needed and we didn’t get it.

All the pro-Kamala people claiming victory are making those claims because of this. It’s illegitimate as hell and it shows you how much contempt they have for the American people, but that’s what we’ve got and it didn’t have to be this way.

9. Missed Opportunity: IVF And Abortion

Harris lied not only about the claim that Trump will sign an abortion ban, she lied about a supposed in vitro fertilization ban that Trump will sign. It was cheap and juvenile.

Trump denied those things. But he had a knockout punch he didn’t use, which was to point out that Harris’ handpicked VP candidate Tim Walz openly lied when he claimed he and his wife used IVF to get pregnant – they used a different procedure.

And it would have been a really good idea if he’d gone big on the issue – noting that our birthrate is down to 1.6 babies per adult female when we need it to be 2.1 for replacement, so anybody who wants to fix that would absolutely be for IVF. And then he could say that part of what’s driving the GOP’s positions on these issues is that we’ve got to find a way to get our population back to a sustainable situation – something Harris and the Democrats don’t care about because they’re happy bringing in unassimilated migrants to replace the kids we’re not having.

10. Missed Opportunity: Where’s Your Epiphany, Kamala?

When the questioning finally got around to the multiple flip-flops Harris has made on issue after issue, the moderators asked her the question in the softest possible way.

Which is a journalistic atrocity.

But that just meant it was important for Trump to do their job for them, and while his quip about sending her a MAGA hat given all of his policies she’s endorsed was a good one, I wanted something like this:

“All these things she’s saying now – the reversal on fracking, the no tax on tips about-face, the border wall – what you ought to be asking her and it’s too damn bad these two moderators didn’t ask, is what was her moment of epiphany? When did she realize she was wrong about fracking or taxing tips or the border wall? Because if she can’t give you a specific, believable answer on those things it means something very simple.

“She’s lying. She actually lies about absolutely everything. She’s told so many lies during this debate that she even makes Joe Biden come off as truthful. When I change my mind on something I can tell you why. But she can’t on these things because she hasn’t actually changed her mind. She thinks you’re stupid and she thinks you’ll just believe her. But it’s up to you whether you let her play you this way.”

There were lots of other things. It drives me insane that Trump got RFK Junior and Tulsi Gabbard on board and yet he’s not out there hammering away at the ruling elite who have foisted Kamala on the public as a coup candidate and turning this into a competition between the ruling class and the country class. That is clearly the theme of this election and it isn’t being articulated. It wasn’t tonight and I’m furious about that.

But even with that meat left on the table there were so many other unsatisfying moments. Trump was mediocre, Harris is abominable and ABC News should never, ever have a chance to moderate a presidential debate again.