The great debate: Harris soars; Trump crash-lands

by Ted Landau

We here at IEB are in the trenches…doing the grassroots work of phone-banking, canvassing and more. Our job is to do whatever we can to make sure the candidates we support win in November. Last night, our work just got a lot easier — thanks to the candidate at the very top of the ticket.

Of course, I’m talking about Kamala Harris and her masterful debate performance.

To put it bluntly, Harris cleaned Trump’s clock. She was a world-class fisherman — who knew just how to lay out the bait so that the fish would take it. And the Trump-fish obliged by taking the bait — every time. Debate watchers got to see Trump melt down in real time — as his answers devolved into a mixture of outrageous lies, gratuitous insults and weak defenses — self-destructively burrowing down rabbit holes that only confirmed how unfit he is to be within the same zip-code as the White House.

As for Harris, she had two main goals: (1) Get her positive message across — especially for the benefit of those “low-information” undecided voters who may not have heard her speak much before; (2) Goad Trump into angrily and defensively responding to her attacks — rather than allowing him to stay on message.

She accomplished both goals. Especially the latter.

As soon as Trump offered his deranged claim that immigrants were eating dogs and cats, it was clear that the “game” was effectively over. Not only was this completely false but it was a racist slur — and was extended into implying that virtually every immigrant, from whatever country, represented a threat to our safety. This was an unforced error of an epic magnitude — prompted by Harris’s arrows aimed directly at Trump’s ego.

It didn’t stop there. From citing Viktor Orban as the one example of a foreign leader who has praised Trump, to his false claim that Democrats support executing babies at birth, to his rant about rally crowd sizes — Trump was never able to effectively assert his own positions or attack hers. Instead, while Harris stressed optimism about the future, Trump repeatedly descended into absurd and dark hyperbole about how a Democrat victory would mean World War III and the ruination of this country.

Even without Kamala’s prodding, Trump found ways to go off the rails. He refused to say whether he would veto a national abortion ban, he refused to say whether he hoped Ukraine would win the war, he conceded that he had only the “concepts of a plan” to replace Obamacare (despite having 9 years to figure it out) — and he reasserted his “big lie” that he won the 2020 election, claiming his recent statements of concession (“we lost by a whisker”) were sarcasm. The creators of political ads for Harris will have a field day here.

Oh, and by the way, a CNN fact check confirmed what we all witnessed: Trump was “staggeringly dishonest” in the debate — “just lie after lie” — while Harris was the opposite.

Harris’s performance was strong and decisive — especially when on the solid ground of topics such as reproductive freedom and January 6 — where her attacks left Trump scrambling for even a minimally coherent response.

Yes, there were a few occasions where Harris side-stepped answering a question — including the very first one: “Are Americans better off now than they were 4 years ago?” There were positive ways she could have directly replied to that; I wish she had. And there were a few occasions where I felt she had an easy come-back to a Trump lie-filled rant — but chose to leave it hanging (although some have argued that her facial expressions were rebuttal enough). Beyond that, it was all “advantage Harris.”

As to the moderators, despite the predictable grumbling from Trump and his sycophants, I believe they were excellent. They asked probing questions of both candidates, including follow-ups that would have otherwise let the candidate off the hook. If they fact-checked Trump more often, that wasn’t bias — it reflected that Trump had so many more facts that were wrong. My one complaint is that the moderators allowed Trump rebuttal times that went beyond the rules — while not affording Harris the same opportunity. But even this generally worked out to Harris’s advantage; Trump’s “extra” rebuttals only managed to get him into a deeper hole.

Bottom line: Harris had a great night. Trump had a disastrous one. It’s not just my opinion. This was the consensus in snap polls and in virtually all media, even among Republicans. Here are three examples (I could have easily provided several dozen more):

Robert Reich: “To say that Kamala Harris nailed it tonight is an understatement. She knocked it out of the park. She combined civility with firmness. She made Trump look and sound like the blubbering idiot he is.”

Politco: “Harris won — and it wasn’t close. She showed up as her prosecutorial self, effectively putting Trump in the witness stand throughout much of the debate. Democrats have to be downright giddy, particularly over her extended remarks on abortion — an issue she’s been talking about around the country since the fall of Roe. And it showed tonight.”

The Atlantic: “I’ve been watching presidential debates since 1976, and I’ve even been peripherally involved in a few. And I’ve never seen a candidate execute a debate strategy as well as Harris did.”

Of course, as the Harris campaign has already pointed out: “Debates don’t win elections.” In this uber-divided country, it’s still not clear how much this debate, despite Harris’s undisputed and lop-sided victory, will translate into votes. In other words, we here in the trenches still have work to do. And the time to start is…NOW!