Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) speaks with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a presidential debate.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Hide caption
Show/hide label
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) speaks with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a presidential debate.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Before Tuesday night’s debate, much of the focus was on Harris. It was her first general election presidential debate, with an opponent who had been on the stage many times before. Questions revolved around whether she would be able to fend off attacks from Trump, respond to criticism that she is too absent on policy issues and, perhaps most importantly, whether she could seem “presidential.”
According to NPR senior political editor Domenico Montanaro, the answer to all of those questions was yes. Despite a nervous start, he writes, “Harris was calm, composed and forward-looking, setting her apart from both Biden and Trump. Some notable points about her performance:
- Harris was far more dominant than Trump during the debate, calling him “weak and wrong.” Harris responded to debate questions, then changed the subject and provoked Trump on a series of questions.
- She got under her opponent’s skin, saying that people at his rallies left early “out of exhaustion and boredom.” She also portrayed him as a bad businessman because he inherited $400 million “on a silver platter and then filed for bankruptcy six times.”
- Harris spoke about policy issues, including tax breaks for parents and small businesses and a tax credit for first-time home buyers for down payments. She also discussed her change of position on fracking.
You are reading the Consider This newsletter, which covers an important piece of news every day. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox and hear more from the Check out this podcast.
Meanwhile, Trump appeared incoherent and lacked any serious political understanding.
Montanaro notes, “If Trump had been a boxer, he would have been cut and bleeding in the middle of the fight and ended up being beaten by technical knockout.”
During the debate, Trump talked about conspiracy theories about the election, about who is currently president (spoiler: Joe Biden), about how he believes immigrants come from “mental institutions and insane asylums,” and about the debunked claim that immigrants eat pets.
In addition, Harris had put the former president on the defensive regarding his handling of the economy in terms of tax cuts and tariffs, his jobs record, his administration’s response to the pandemic and January 6.
On the repeal of roea ruling that Americans still largely reject, Trump said: “I did a great service by doing it. It took courage to do it. And the Supreme Court had great courage to do it. And I give those six justices tremendous credit.”
After the debate, Trump went to the spin room to talk to reporters – something Montanaro said you don’t do when someone has had a good debate – and there he complained that the debate was “very unfair,” calling it “three against one.”
Harris did everything right – and could still lose.
Although Harris has arguably handled Trump better than anyone else in a debate, the political reality is that she could still lose. She has raised more than half a billion dollars, hired staff and opened field offices in swing states, and fired up the Democratic base.
Still, Trump has a strong and loyal base, and the seven swing states at stake – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada – are more conservative than the rest of the country.
Polls – including the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released yesterday – have shown that voters trust Trump more than Harris to tackle economic, immigration and Middle East problems.
This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam. It was edited by Dana Farrington, Emily Kopp, and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
