When Donald Trump started ranting about migrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio you knew he had lost Tuesday night’s presidential debate. It did not get any better for him when he tried to convince us (again) that he won the election four years ago.
I can guarantee you those two points were not in his debate prep book. I could almost see his team squirming backstage as Trump strayed further off message, taking the bait Kamala Harris laid for him time and again in Philadelphia.
Going into the debate, political insiders said Harris needed a strong performance to win over persuadable voters in a divided country where she is competing in a very tight contest with little room for error. Those insiders said Trump needed to sound presidential, avoid personal attacks, focus on the issues, and link Harris to Biden.
So, what happened?
He had a good first 15 minutes and she started off sounding nervous, but after that she controlled the 90-minute debate. Her responses were thin and clichéd at times, but she played offense all night. She laughed at him. She raised her hand to her chin (a meme generator?) to show she was the adult in the room. She looked at him in a way she wants all of us to see him: manic, mean, unpresidential.
“Talk about extreme,” Harris said with a laugh after Trump’s dog and cat rant, which debate moderator David Muir fact-checked and debunked in real time.
Team Trump had hoped to define Harris as extreme, someone who failed to lead on two major issues — the economy and immigration.
Harris and her team wanted Americans to get to know her and her positions, to show she is ready to lead and that she is a very different candidate than her opponent. Harris also wanted to rattle Trump, to get under his skin, to bring out “Angry Trump.”
Harris succeeded. Republicans seem to have conceded. Some are seething.
“For Lindsey Graham, there was only one word for Donald Trump’s Tuesday night debate performance against Kamala Harris: ‘Disaster.’ Trump was unprepared, and his debate team should be fired, Graham told Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast,” the Daily Beast reported.
Harris took control from the outset with her handshake just before the debate started. Her move to his corner to shake his hand appeared to throw him off. She smiled as she walked away because she knew she rattled him, which is what she would do to him all night. She also wanted to set the tone, to show she was in charge and not intimidated by him. Other than her opening jitters, she was comfortable and confident on the debate stage, which could be the only time the two clash ahead of the November election.
Immediately following the debate, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris. In her endorsement, Swift mentioned abortion and reproductive rights. She praised Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” said Swift, who closed by throwing shade at Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. She signed off as Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady. It’s a funny yet strong rebuke of Vance’s comments about Harris not having biological children. Swift posted her endorsement with a photo of herself and a cat. She is arguably the most popular pop star on the planet, and she just dunked on the former GOP president.
Harris dunked on Trump all night. In many of her responses, Harris skillfully slipped in a line that she hoped Trump would pounce on, and he did. Every. Single. Time.
“What you also will notice is people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” Harris said while answering a question about immigration, clearly trolling Trump. He started twitching and then he defended his rallies instead of zeroing in on the Biden-Harris immigration record. He then launched into his cat and dog rant.
Harris went back to her winning formula when answering a question about flipping positions on fracking and other issues. “The values I bring to the importance of homeownership knowing not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times,” Harris said referring to Trump’s father’s wealth, the passing down of that wealth, and Trump’s financial failures. Trump, of course, did not zero in on the positions Harris has flipped on. He instead dove right into defending himself and his father.
On the economy, Harris said she was like all of us and would represent us. She said Trump is only concerned about himself and his wealthy pals. On immigration, as she has done before, she pointed out she supported a sweeping immigration bill when Trump was President that would have helped secure our borders with 1,500 new border patrol agents. But, she said, Trump killed the bill because “he’d prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
“She is Biden!” Trump said in this closing remarks, remembering he was supposed to link her to the President. By then, the damage was done. The debate was over.
Tony Manolatos is public affairs PR specialist who also co-hosts a podcast, Dear San Diego, sponsored by Times of San Diego. You can email him at tony@manolatospa.com.
