“Trump had a bad night. He took the bait again and again and repeated all those old complaints that are damaging to him politically. My feeling is that she did the right thing. For tonight, at least, it’s your night. When you see this funeral on the ultra-conservative FOX News channel in the minutes following a presidential debate, you already have a pretty good idea of how Donald Trump’s first meeting with Kamala Harris went.
The discipline lasted a half-hour for the former president. At the time, it seemed like he had a plan: talk about immigration and crime, no matter what was asked of him. He brought up Harris’ father’s Marxist past, but overall the exchange of blows went more or less as planned. Perhaps it was a sharp comment from the vice president about the size (of her rallies) that sent him over to the paranormal and say that illegal immigrants were stealing dogs in Ohio and eating them. From there, it all got worse.
Trump is happily jumping over puddles, lie after lie: he had nothing to do with the assault on the Capitol on January 6, Democrats asked him to end abortion rights, Kamala wasn’t black before… expected, in Indeed, because the former president is too old to change the style that brought him to the top and because, let’s not kid ourselves, everyone already knows him. Those who love him, love him. Those who hate him, hate him. The one who was really taking the risk tonight was his rival.
Kamala Harris took over as the leader of her party’s ticket by accident, and millions of voters only heard her speak tonight. It was an advantage because an unknown always has room to grow, but also a challenge because she is the one who has to prove herself. Harris came in with no experience in a debate like this, unlike Trump, who was facing his sixth face-to-face summit meeting. And yet she came out alive and then some.
Trump fell into the trap
Kamala Harris’ message was consistent: This man is an extremist, aren’t we tired of so much drama, so much insult? That’s the argument that made Biden president, but delivered by a woman 30 years his junior. It started out nervous, a little hesitant, but it grew as Trump got caught up in everything he threw at her: that foreign leaders were laughing at him, that the military high command was embarrassed, that 81 million Americans were embarrassed. That was four years ago…
Trump, nervous, failed to take advantage of the issues that suited him (immigration, rising prices) and delved deeper into those that suited him less. On abortion, he spoke about the decision that ends legal abortion nationwide, but said he does not support a national ban and at the same time did not commit to vetoing it if it passes. This contortion could not compete with Harris’ emotional (and real) message about doctors being sentenced to prison and pregnant women bleeding to death in red-state parking lots.
The usual exaggerations (“Kamala and Biden must hate the country,” “Israel won’t exist in two years if she’s president”) will surely delight dedicated Trump supporters, but they’re unlikely to convince the independent voters who will decide this election. As will the inevitable conspiracy theories, such as the one accusing the FBI of misrepresenting crime figures, which have taken the time to further emphasize Harris’s shifting views on health care, energy and other major issues.
Trump was clearly more comfortable facing Biden and mentioned him a dozen times, but he lacked any pressure against Harris in particular. Only at the end did he point out, almost in passing, that the vice president had had more than three years in the White House to implement all the grand plans she presented during the campaign. If there is another debate, Kamala Harris will need a slightly better answer than the “I’m not Joe Biden” she repeated repeatedly today, just as Trump must be prepared to be reminded of his legal troubles.
Future and past
Ultimately, the Democratic nominee’s promise is one: to turn the page and not turn back the clock. “I have a plan,” he has said repeatedly, emphasizing the idea that Trump is erratic and, as he himself confirmed when asked about his health care plan: “I have ideas for a plan.” Harris has been particularly insistent on the foreign policy debate, citing advisers and senior military officers who have left the White House as saying that Trump is untrustworthy and easily manipulated by flattery and his “love of dictators.” To his promise that she would end the war in Ukraine “before I even take office,” she responds: because you would let Putin win.
In short, a bitter debate from which Kamala Harris emerges favored and Trump somewhat bruised. The format of the debate, without an audience and with very restrictive rules, could be reviewed if we take advantage of another opportunity to see them debate. If this is any indicator, a few minutes after the end of tonight’s debate, the Democratic campaign was already calling for a new face-to-face meeting. We’ll see what Trump says.
