Republicans were in full celebratory mode following Thursday’s debate between former President Trump and President Biden.

Multiple elected officials took to social media following the debate to celebrate what they described as a “resounding victory” for Trump, and a “disastrous” performance by Biden.

“Three things are clear: America was and is better under a Trump Administration, Biden is unfit to be in office and the people in his orbit should be ashamed of propping him up, Trump dominated. There can’t possibly be a second debate,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who is widely believed to be a frontrunner on Trump’s VP shortlist, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. 

BIDEN RIPPED FOR ‘OLD’ APPEARANCE, ‘WEAK’ VOICE DURING FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: ‘DEEPLY ALARMING’

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt wrote, “Congratulations to President Trump on his resounding victory in tonight’s Presidential Debate. The Biden-Harris experiment has failed. It’s time to return strength to the White House,” while North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, another possible VP pick, wrote Biden “offered no answers” on the major problems facing Americans.

“President Trump was clear, and he’s got the record to back it up! This debate was a knockout for Donald Trump,” he added.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley called Trump’s debate performance “dominant,” and said Biden “couldn’t even understand the questions.”

TRUMP VOWS HE ‘WILL NOT BLOCK’ ABORTION PILLS OR MEDICATION IF ELECTED, SAYS HE BELIEVES IN ‘EXCEPTIONS’

Another account linked to the RNC poked fun at Biden’s closing statement, writing, “Biden ends his disastrous and humiliating debate performance just as he began — rambling incoherently. He’s not only not playing with a full deck — he can’t even find the deck. SAD!” 

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., claimed Trump “proved” he is the only candidate who can save the U.S., while Republican conservative firebrand and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake said “[Biden] is clearly unfit for this job. I think it’s time we bring back the President that coined the phrase, YOU’RE FIRED!”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

In the presidential debate former President Trump insisted repeatedly that if he had still been in the White House, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine and Hamas would not have invaded Israel.

Both claims are unprovable. But Trump repeated the assertion again and again in his debate Thursday night with President Biden.

It is true, foreign policy analysts have said, that Trump might have been able to discourage Putin from invading Ukraine — but, they’ve asked, at what cost?

Trump, a vocal admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, might have made concessions to Moscow — such as sacrificing Ukrainian territory — that many in the West would find unpalatable.

After the Russian invasion in 2022, Biden was able to rally and fortify NATO in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine. It seems unlikely Trump would have had that influence, given that the largest of NATO countries were generally contemptuous of Trump during his administration.

Trump’s claim that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both militant groups backed by Iran, became emboldened because Biden’s policies built up Iran are also not completely true. The Obama administration did unfreeze some Iranian assets in foreign banks as part of the landmark Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which curbed Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

It was Trump’s decision in 2018, however, to abandon the nuclear deal — he said it didn’t go far enough — that sent Iran on a major quest to enrich uranium, which has now brought the Islamic Republic closer than ever to being able to produce a nuclear bomb.

Trump, whose support for Israel essentially eliminated Palestinian statehood aspirations from the picture, took a swipe at Biden in the debate for what he described as failing to supply Israel with the weapons it needs to fight Hamas. Biden said that is not true. The Biden administration held up a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to prevent them from being used in the overly crowded Gazan city of Rafah during an offensive earlier this month.

Robust weapons shipments have continued, the Pentagon says. Trump attacked Biden for his bungled handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. To be sure, it was a chaotic disaster that killed 13 American service members and dozens of Afghans.

It was one of the darkest stains on Biden’s foreign policy record. However, he was fulfilling the agreement that Trump executed — in rare negotiations with the Taliban — before leaving office.

Trump also revived a lie he told in the months leading up to his first impeachment over attempts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on the Biden family. He said Biden, as vice president, had sought to get fired a Ukrainian attorney general who was targeting his son Hunter Biden.

In fact, the prosecutor was blacklisted by the European Union, the U.S. and other groups because of his refusal to tackle corruption, which international entities had established as a task for Kyiv before it could be considered for EU membership and other benefits.

On the Ukraine war, Trump said he would be able to “get it settled fast” before he even took office on Jan. 21. In other venues, he has also said he could get Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich freed from Russian authorities who arrested him on what the U.S. says are trumped-up espionage charges. In both cases, Trump is making claims impossible to test.

Case 9:23-cr-80101-AMC Document 655 Entered on FLSD Docket 06/27/2024 Page 2 of 11
CASE NO. 23-80101-CR-CANNON
showing” that the affidavit in support of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant contains any material false
statements or omissions. The balance of the Motion cannot be resolved on the current record,
however, because of pertinent factual disputes, and thus the Court RESERVES RULING on those
issues as stated below, pending an evidentiary suppression hearing to be scheduled by separate
order.
DISCUSSION
A. LEGAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING A FRANKS HEARING
The Supreme Court has expressed “a strong preference” for searches conducted pursuant
to a warrant and has directed courts to accord “great deference” to a magistrate’s determination of
probable cause. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 914 (1984) (internal quotation marks
omitted); id. at 922 (“[A] warrant issued by a magistrate normally suffices to establish that a law
enforcement officer has acted in good faith in conducting the search.”) (internal quotation marks
omitted). To this end, affidavits supporting warrants are presumptively valid, Franks v. Delaware,
438 U.S. 154, 171 (1978), and courts should not invalidate warrants by interpreting affidavits in a
“hypertechnical, rather than . . . commonsense, manner,” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236,
(1983) (internal quotation marks omitted).
As enunciated in Franks, however, deference to a magistrate’s determination of probable
cause “does not preclude inquiry into the knowing or reckless falsity of the affidavit on which that
determination was based.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 914. This derives from the root assumption that,
when the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for the issuance of a warrant, the showing
of probable cause will be “truthful.” Franks, 438 U.S. at 164–65. “Truthful” in this context does
not mean, however, “that every fact recited in the warrant affidavit is necessarily correct, for
probable cause may be founded upon hearsay and upon information received from informants, as
well as upon information within the affiant’s own knowledge that sometimes must be garnered
2