When Kamala Harris arrived at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia for her presidential debate with Donald Trump, she made an unexpected opening gambit. Having never met Trump in the past, she walked up to him, introduced herself and shook his hand, a move no one expected, considering her obvious height disadvantage. Next to Trump’s 6ft 3in frame, she indeed looked small. But it was Trump who appeared rattled by his rival's confident manoeuvre. It set the tone for the rest of the evening as Harris took charge and clinically dismantled the former president.
Harris started nervously, as she has not always been the best speaking without a teleprompter. But about 15 minutes into the debate, she found her rhythm and then proceeded to take Trump down. She achieved this largely by employing four tactics: baiting Trump to veer off the topic and rant about himself, make him look inadequate by humiliating him repeatedly, dodging specifics about her own track record (also Biden’s) and playing offence on her core strength—the abortion issue.
The best example of the baiting tactic came during the discussion on illegal immigration, one of the biggest concerns for Harris, as a clear majority of voters trust Trump on the issue. After blaming Trump for scuttling a bipartisan border deal, she quipped about Trump’s campaign rallies, calling them boring and taunted that people leave them early as they feel bored and exhausted. For added measure, she also slipped in a line or two about Trump’s obsession with the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter and on his absurd views like windmills causing cancer. She could hardly hide her glee as Trump took the bait, explaining how great his rallies were. ‘People don’t leave my rallies,” he said. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
Even when the moderators tried to drive him back to point, Trump could not resist the temptation and insisted that he wanted to speak more about his rallies and himself. And then he turned into internet-meme conspiracies around Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, abducting and eating dogs and cats owned by Americans. Harris gave a bemused half smile, then looked exasperated, and finally gave the look of a concerned niece feeling sad about a senile uncle. “Talk about the extreme,” she said, but obviously feeling mission accomplished.
The belittling session came next. Harris said many people who were once part of Trump’s core team now despised him: his former chief of staff said he had contempt for the constitution, his former national security adviser thought he was dangerous and unfit and his former defence secretary believed that the US would not survive another Trump term. “I have talked with military leaders, some of whom were with you, and they say you are a disgrace,” said Harris.
On foreign policy, she said world leaders were laughing at Trump. She said if he were president now, Vladimir Putin would now be sitting in Kyiv, and would be eyeing Poland next. She also made a swing state play by referring to the eight lakh Polish Americans in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state. “Why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly would you give up for the sake of what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator,” said Harris. If Trump became president again, Harris said Putin would eat him for lunch.
Trump tried to respond by saying that world leaders respected him. But the character witness he chose was certainly not the right one. Trump said Hungarian President Viktor Orban, one of the most dictatorial leaders in Europe, was his fan. No wonder, she used that opening to further taunt him for his friendship with autocrats like Putin and North Korean President Kim Jong-un.
Harris also made fun of his business acumen by reminding him that despite getting a $400 million inheritance from his father, he was forced to file for bankruptcy six times. And she even used the catchword from his reality show, Apprentice, against him, “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people.”
Of course, her best lines came when she was debating abortion. Trump was all over the place as he struggled to give a coherent answer. He made outlandish claims about Democrats allowing abortion in the ninth month or even after birth. He also took credit for the overturning of Roe v Wade and argued that “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, every liberal and every conservative” wanted the issue to be sent back to the states. Harris spoke passionately on the topic, and it established her firmly as the debate winner. She appeared clearly outraged speaking about Jaci Statton, a woman from Oklahoma who was told by the hospital staff that they would not be able to terminate her non-viable pregnancy and she would have to wait in the parking lot till she was crashing because the doctors were worried about the new anti-abortion laws. Trump, on the other hand, was unable or unwilling to answer questions about vetoing a national abortion ban. When the moderators pointed out that his running mate, J.D. Vance, said that Trump would veto such a ban, he said he had not discussed the issue with Vance.
Finally, Harris was careful not to dwell too deeply on policy. She danced around her record and pivoted repeatedly back to Trump most of the time, smartly making the debate a referendum on the former president. On most issues, she eschewed her left-liberal views and moved to the centre, clearly with an eye on the swing state voters. Despite being the incumbent vice president, she presented herself as the change candidate, painting Trump as a relic of the past and asked America to move on. “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden,” she said. “And I am certainly not Donald Trump. What I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.”
In a flash poll conducted by YouGov soon after the debate, 43 per cent of respondents said Harris won it, compared with 28 per cent for Trump. “She was exquisitely well prepared, she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole instead of talking about the things that he should have been talking about. This is the difference between someone who is well prepared and someone who is unprepared,” said former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a Republican who led Trump’s 2016 transition team.
However, while it is clear that Harris won the debate, it does not mean that the November election is already decided. As Hillary Clinton and Al Gore would remind you, debate victories do not always result in election wins. Harris, for instance, clearly didn’t elaborate on her governing agenda, especially on economy and immigration, and Trump still enjoys a healthy lead over her in these two issues, which clearly dominate the election, along with abortion. She also failed to answer the question whether Americans were better off now than they were four years ago.
Yet, there was only one winner on the debate night and that was clearly Harris. As she landed punch after punch, Trump appeared older than his 78 years. He looked lost and ran out of words and insults. And two days after his disastrous performance, he announced that he would not participate in another debate. Harris and her team hope that her debate win would have convinced enough swing state voters to switch her support for her and carry her across the finishing line on November 5.