One common takeaway from Tuesday night's presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump: Harris seemed to be able to get under Trump's skin, "rattling" him and putting him on the defensive. More:
- Harris taunted Trump "over and over" on topics he's particularly sensitive about, including the size of his rally crowds and how he's viewed by world leaders, write Adam Cancryn and Myah Ward at Politico. "The result left Trump ... struggling to land hits," they write, recounting how he went from "measured and collected" to "increasingly frustrated as Harris needled him." At one point, as he was goaded into bragging about the size of his rallies, Harris simply "looked on, smirking and shaking her head."
- Harris spent the entire debate "making every effort to burrow under his skin, hammering him over his criminal convictions, his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the size of his rally crowds and the foreign and military leaders who she said have called him a 'disgrace,'" writes Nicholas Nehamas at the New York Times. And Trump often couldn't help himself and "took the bait, responding to Ms. Harris's critiques with a hail of false claims, misinformation and personal attacks."
- The VP had clearly "prepared extensively for their debate, and peppered nearly every answer with a comment designed to enrage the former president," writes the team at CNN. The result, they say, was a Trump who was "often out of control." Harris' goal appeared to be to "throw Trump off his game," and, they write, it was "a dramatic success."
- The former president "was on the defensive over his legal problems, election denialism, opposition from former allies and incitement of an attack on the US Capitol," writes Zac Anderson at USA Today. He floundered as he struggled to hit back, and "often leaned on familiar and false claims that drew corrections from the moderators." The result was that Harris had the "upper hand" much of the time, he writes.
- Even at Fox News, Doug Schoen concedes Harris was the "clear winner," but says Trump's supporters are well aware of "how much bias ABC News introduced into the process" with the moderators' seeming "need to fact-check virtually everything the former president said." Schoen says despite Harris' debate performance, "Voters remain angry about the direction the country is headed in, about the performance of both President Biden and Vice President Harris, as well as which candidate they trust more on the top two or three issues facing the country: the economy, immigration and law and order."
- The swing-state voters polled by the Washington Post also agreed Harris won, even if they personally plan to vote for Trump.
As for whether the two will debate again before November, that remains unclear. Per
USA Today, Harris' campaign said after the debate that it wants to "do it again," and Trump has previously said he'd be willing to debate the VP multiple times. But no firm plans have yet been made. (Harris
got a big endorsement immediately after the debate.)
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