Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) speaks during the debate with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) speaks during the debate with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Heading into Tuesday night’s debate, much of the attention was on Harris. This will be her first presidential debate, against an opponent who has been on stage multiple times. Questions will surround whether she can fend off attacks from Trump, respond to criticism that she lacks policy and, perhaps most importantly, whether she can appear “presidential.”
According to NPR senior political editor Domenico Montanaro, the answer to all of those questions is yes. Despite her nervous start, he writes, “Harris remained calm, commanding and in control, and forward-looking, distinguishing herself from both Biden and Trump. A few highlights from her performance:
- Harris appeared to dominate Trump throughout the debate, calling him “weak and wrong.” Harris answered debate questions, then redirected and challenged Trump on a number of issues.
- She angered opponents by saying that people attending his rallies often “leave early exhausted and bored.” She also described him as a bad businessman who inherited $400 million “on a silver platter and then filed for bankruptcy six times.”
- Harris touched on policies including tax breaks for parents and small businesses, as well as a credit for first-time homebuyers to help with down payments. She also mentioned her changing stance on fracking.
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Trump, meanwhile, is incoherent and lacking in serious policy understanding.
Montanaro noted, “If he were a boxer, Trump would have been injured and bleeding mid-fight, and by the end of the fight, would have been TKOed.”
During the debate, Trump touched on conspiracy theories about the election, who the current president is (spoiler: Joe Biden), immigrants he says come from “mental institutions and insane asylums” and the disproven claims that immigrants are eating livestock.
Harris also put the former president on the defensive over his handling of the economy, including tax cuts and tariffs, his jobs record, his administration’s response to the pandemic and Jan. 6.
On the overthrow Caviara ruling that Americans still widely oppose, Trump said, “I did a very big thing in doing that. It took a lot of courage to do that. And the Supreme Court had a lot of courage in doing that. And I’m very grateful to those six justices.”
After the debate, Trump went into the studio to talk to reporters, which Montanaro noted was not the way to do when someone had a good debate. There, he complained that the debate was “very unfair” and called it “three against one.”
Harris did everything right – but could still lose.
While Harris arguably handled Trump better than anyone in a debate, the political reality is that she could still lose. She has raised more than half a billion dollars, hired staff, opened field offices across swing states, and stirred up the Democratic base.
Still, Trump has a strong and loyal base of supporters, and the seven swing states in question — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — tend to be more conservative than the country as a whole.
Polls — including an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released yesterday — have shown that voters trust Trump more to handle the economy, immigration and the war in the Middle East than they trust Harris.
This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam. Edited by Dana Farrington, Emily Kopp, and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
