By Kenneth Tiven
US Vice-President Kamala Harris used body language and subtle, but pointed questions to aggravate former president Donald Trump, who became angry within four minutes and stayed that way throughout the 90-minute debate.
The duo was most often shown in a split screen of close-ups, and her smile and quizzical expressions contrasted with his pursed lips and often weird grimaces, which indicated his unhappiness with what she was saying.
Fox News anchors and analysts were stunned by his performance, writing: “The former president was clearly frustrated and became more strident and divisive as the nearly two-hour debate continued. And the vice-president appeared to gain renewed confidence as she saw Trump faltering under relentless questioning from herself and moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.
Blaming the referees is an old sports cliche thrown into a losing political game, this doubtless delighted the folks who have raised an unprecedented amount of money, more than $500 million and climbing for campaign expenses. The moderators took a calm approach to fact-checking Trump’s careless approach to facts. Amazingly, Trump told a story about immigrants stealing dogs to eat, a story fully debunked a day earlier. News anchor David Muir explained that it was a fake story, but Trump argued that he had seen it on TV.
A Fox analyst told viewers: “Although Harris clearly won the debate in my estimation, it isn’t at all clear that this debate, just 56 days before the election, will fundamentally impact the outcome on November 5.” Post-election polling from multiple news organizations gave Harris a clear win, the consensus that she looked presidential and he looked like a 78-year-old angry person. Her debate prep and strategy was on target: dominate a bully. As they walked on stage and headed for their podiums, Harris went directly to Trump, introduced herself and reached out and shook his hand. Political analyst Davis Kurtz put it this way: “The emotional weight of her presentation was confronting him with mockery, scorn, bemusement, disdain, and condescension. Yes, it got under his skin, Yes, he was rattled, Yes, it turned him into a fulminating old man.”
Finally, the antidote to the June debate that now reframes everything, providing a reminder that Trump is beatable. But 40 percent of the voters who adore Trump don’t care what Harris represents because, to them, Trump is the man who tells the establishment to get lost in vulgarities unsuitable to repeat. Trump claimed his support of ending the national right to abortion was based on returning the issue to states. Harris made it clear her position that the government has no role whatsoever in how a person decides medical issues. Regarding healthcare insurance, Trump returned to his 2016 position that Obamacare was terrible and needed to be replaced or fixed. Asked if he had a plan for something he has claimed for eight years, he said he had “concepts”.
The Indian-American Harris has mounted a significant campaign in seven weeks since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party candidate and raised more than half a billion US dollars to win the White House. Polling suggests it is a close race, with the abortion issue having a significant effect on getting female and young voters to support Harris. The ABC Network news anchors did a solid job by keeping things on track. They controlled the event, and, in calm authoritative tones, fact-checked several assertions by Trump that were baseless and absurd. This starkly contrasted with their inability two months ago to rein in Trump when he shouted misstatements at Biden in the debate that caused the switch to Harris. She appeared in her expression to not believe a word Trump was saying. The news anchors in this case were a model for real-time fact-checking not glimpsed in previous debates.
The debate showcased Trump’s domination, style and personality because he let his anger and exaggerations about accomplishments take centre stage in contrast to her professional demeanour. When asked about Project 2025, which essentially dismantles democracy, Trump again insisted he didn’t know what it was. Several hundred people involved in writing it had worked in his administration, and his involvement has been documented.
Things went off the rails for the former president when he said all Democrats wanted Roe vs Wade overturned (They did not.). He said that it is legal to kill children in the United States. (It isn’t.) Trump was quite disparaging towards Harris, who smiled and shook her head. Trump’s approach personalized policy issues, and it didn’t play well. Remarkably, the foreign leader Trump named as one of his most incredible supporters is Viktor Orban of Hungary, an authoritarian who has suppressed free speech and all dissent and openly admired Putin’s Russia. Trump repeated his claim that if he had been president, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine because he and Putin get along so well. Trump’s answers on tariffs continued to misstate the impact of higher process on the consumer.
Minutes after the debate ended, the celebrity, Taylor Swift, endorsed Harris for president. Her Instagram post was signed “childless cat lady”. She wrote: “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.” Swift said the recent fake AI images of her endorsing Trump made her realize “that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter”.
The question now for Trump, 78, and his aides is how to move ahead with eight weeks left in the race. He went to a memorial ceremony for the September 11 terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan, shaking hands again with Harris and appearing to greet her cordially. President Biden was present as well, but it is clear that his earlier presidential battle with Biden, 81, is now a much tougher fight against a smart, combative 59-year-old woman who showed she belonged on that stage.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels