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From Kamala Harris‘ move over to Donald Trump‘s side of Presidential debate stage tonight to introduce herself and offer a handshake right at the top, the Vice President proved to be a very different sort of Democrat than her opponent has ever faced before.
“It is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy,” the Vice President exclaimed in what may be a pivotal exchange in a face-off that saw the former President unable to side step his own worst tendencies over and over. Coming into tonight’s ABC News hosted event in Philadelphia as the underdog, Harris again and again used the word “weak” to describe the mainly scowling Trump, leaving with a grimace on his face and non-sequiturs coming out of his mouth.
Unlike Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, the loaded for bear Vice President knew exactly where to aim and what the reaction would be. By the end of the 90-minute debate and it’s closing statements, Trump looked haunted and, frankly, old.
Unlike the 81-year old Biden, the Vice President in primetime hit back at the 78-year old Trump over and over as he tried to bluster, BS, and bully his way through the audience free debate.
“You’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me,” Harris stated, blunting Trump’s attack lines with his own language and barely containing her contempt. Democrats must be ecstatic with their candidate exceeding all expectations as Trump almost encouraged the Veep to do.
The most remarkable part of it in an election that has been nothing but unpredictable and remarkable is that Trump should have seen Harris’ tactics coming from a mile away. The VP has literally been saying the same stuff ever since she took over as the Democrats’ standard bearer back in late July. Yet, in what has been a distinctly unpredictable White House race, Donald Trump’s predictability to still lose his sh*t is something you can count on like pyrotechnics at a Kiss concert.
Never taking her eye off the former President on the split screen, pronouncing early on that Trump will spew “lies,” and giving little quarter on matters large and small that her GOP rival brought up in a string of attack lines, the 59-year old former prosecutor was a study in offense instead of the typical defense of her party.
Caught in ideological leg hold traps on Project 2025, his pandemic mismanagement, the 2020 election, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and abortion bans, Trump clearly got rattled in the first 15-minutes and was never able to shake it over the whole debate. All of which made it easier for the TV ready VP to flip the script on the insult spouting Trump. Going for the soft underbelly, Harris mocked Trump for “bored” attendees at his rallies and his references to “fictional characters like Hannibal Lector” and how “windmills cause cancer.”
As predictable as the Sun rising in the East and certainly to the head banging frustration of his advisors, the former Celebrity Apprentice host took that bait and others over and over. Rambling, visibly irritated with the occasional fact-checking from moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir and bellowing over everyone on and off the mics, the Trump of the second POTUS debate of 2024 was a clone of the off the leash Donald Trump of the first POTUS debate of 2020.
Seemingly coming to life for the first time in the started rambling about the numbers at his rallies in what was a defining point in the debate. “People don’t leave my rallies,” Trump insisted as Harris looked on smiling at him for the cameras. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” Trump went on to say, neglecting to mention the crowds JFK, Barack Obama and Harris herself recently have attracted.
While the Veep didn’t hit Trump below the belt like Barack Obama did at last month’s DNC, her barbs about world leaders “laughing” at the 45th POTUS (which was a spin on his own words that a sweating Trump tried to resurrect at the end), military leaders considering him a “disgrace” and his intelligence saw her opponent blowing his own script with raw rage. The candidate was so off his game that he fumbled a clearly practiced retort of “wait a minute, I’m talking now …that sound familiar?” that was intended to turn Harris’ own words against her.
All of which is to say, it was a very different debate than the Biden crash and burn of June 27 when the incumbent seemed incoherent and slacked faced throughout his match-up with a far more vigorous Trump. The disaster of Joe Biden’s performance in that CNN hosted debate saw calls online and elsewhere for POTUS to step aside before he even stepped off the stage. Less than a month later, after DC-held NATO Summit was concluded, the President took to social media to say he was dropping out. Minutes after that bombshell, Biden publicly put his name and weight behind the Vice President.
It looked like Biden made a good bet with Harris’ repeated bait and slap.
The Vice President even played the muted microphone rule to her advantage, mouthing “Not true. Not true,” when Trump went after the Biden administration over America’s relationship chips with China and computer chips. Later, Harris pulled the same move quietly saying “Not true” as Trump declared that America had lost a swath of manufacturing jobs under the Biden/Harris administration.
“Let’s turn the page,” Harris said of Trump and his near decade dominance of American politics. In a microcosm, tonight’s debate, which may be the only time the candidates meet up before Election Day, was all about turning the page to make this Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Now, on topics like the incompetence and tragedy of America’s retreat from Afghanistan, Harris was clearly vulnerable. Citing the 13 American troops killed along with 170 Afghans at Kabul Airport in August 2021, Trump fumbled his own sword. For the most part avoiding the subject of economy, where her poll numbers are unsteady, Harris pounced on her winning issue of abortion rights. With practiced soundbites, the VP went straight for the undecided voters of suburban women as Trump seemed to go out of his way to mangle the matter and alienate his own base and others in the process.
Tonight’s ABC News hosted debate couldn’t be watched on ABC by DirecTV subscribers because of Disney and the cable satellite company’s on-going carriage debate, the match-up was simulcast almost everywhere else. CNN, MSNC, NBC, Fox, Fox News, C-Span, the BBC, Univision, Newsnation and others. To compensate for the DirecTV blackout of Disney channels, the media giant’s streamers of Hulu and Disney+ showed the debate live, as is ABCNews.com.
Earlier in the day, various Trump surrogates fanned out to slam the VP as avoiding hard questions and the media since she became the Democrats’ candidate. On CNN, Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) used Trump attack lines that Harris will be adrift without notes or a teleprompter.
Tonight was just one debate, and there are 55 days until the election and a lot can happen in that time, but it sure looked like Donald Trump just gave up on Tuesday.
