Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. president Donald Trump speaks as Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris listens as they attend a presidential debate hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, on Sept. 10.Brian Snyder/Reuters
Debra Thompson is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Liar, liar – the presidential debate on Tuesday night was fire.
Held just 55 days before voting day in the U.S. election, it was the first showdown between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump has, of course, participated in six previous presidential debates, which explains why lucky number seven featured some of the best moderation that we’ve seen in several election cycles. ABC News anchors Linsey Davis and David Muir fact-checked and challenged candidate statements live on air, almost as if they expected there might be a need to rebuff outlandish claims with a modicum of truth.
The moderators did not prepare in vain. As Ms. Harris predicted at the outset of the debate, a lot of lies were flippantly tossed across the stage of Philadelphia’s National Constitutional Center during the two-hour event.
On his best days, Mr. Trump has little more than a nodding acquaintance with the truth. During the debate, it was hard to keep track of all the misleading statements, exaggerations, and outright lies, which were often bookended by the Republican candidate’s erratic and self-aggrandizing answers. He “had nothing to do” with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (a select House committee found otherwise, and recommended criminal charges); he called Ms. Harris a Marxist (not even close) who “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison” (in 2019, she said she wanted to allow gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners, context that was lost amid all the Republican trigger words); he claimed Democrats want to enable the execution of babies as part of the fight for women’s reproductive rights and allow “illegal aliens” to vote, that crime is “up and through the roof,” and that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating pets. Even writing those words down felt ludicrous.
He claimed afterward that this was his “best debate ever.” Honestly, it’s hard to tell. But apparently, he has “concepts of a plan” on health insurance. So at least there’s that.
On the other side of the debate stage, Ms. Harris began the event by deliberately introducing herself to Donald Trump, and then to the country. There were, of course, misleading statements and exaggerations from her, as well. She also sidestepped big questions about the economy and immigration, and didn’t do much to explain exactly how a two-state solution would come about to end the crisis in Israel/Palestine.
Mr. Trump’s closing remarks were, for once, on point. He argued that Ms. Harris lacks a plan, and more damningly (but somewhat contradictorily), asked why she has not already accomplished her plans in the past three and a half years that Democrats have controlled the White House.
This argument should have been the centrepiece of Mr. Trump’s messaging during the debate. But it wasn’t, because he was too distracted by Ms. Harris’s perfectly delivered, splinter-like taunts, effectively and successfully designed to nettle Mr. Trump’s ego and get under his skin. They worked like a charm.
Ms. Harris had a few other brilliant tactics, as well. She countered Mr. Trump’s persona as a strongman by pointing out that he is easily manipulated by “favours and flattery,” and that makes him a weak leader on the international stage. She also responded to Trump’s comments on her racial identity by emphasizing that Mr. Trump’s unnecessary fixation on race is divisive, an impressive jiu-jitsu move turning the focus back onto Republicans’ dog-whistle politics and racially coded appeals. Her pivot from Mr. Trump’s false claims that “crime … is through the roof” to remind viewers that Mr. Trump is now a convicted felon – that was genius.
Ms. Harris’s central message of incredulity (and not anger – always tricky territory for Black women to navigate) was clear in her body language: Can you believe this guy?
Of course, the most important question from the debate remains: Were these respective performances enough to move the needle in this neck-and-neck race?
It’s hard to say. Both candidates probably convinced those who didn’t need convincing. This November’s election will be won or lost by swing states, independents, and voter turnout. It will also be difficult to isolate the influence of these performances from Taylor Swift’s postdebate endorsement of Ms. Harris to her 283-million followers on Instagram, because Swifties are … a lot.
The dust has yet to settle. We still don’t even know whether there will be a second debate between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris later this month. But if this first one is an indicator of how these last months of the presidential campaign will play out, Ms. Harris and Democrats are firing on all cylinders.