Kamala Harris spent nearly the entire hour and 45 minutes of their first, and likely only, debate Tuesday night taunting Donald Trump, and the former president embraced it all.
The vice president had meticulously prepared for the debate, sprinkling nearly every answer with comments designed to infuriate the former president. Trump was often out of control. He loudly and repeatedly asserted many lies to be true. The former president repeated the lie that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election. He parroted conspiracy theories about immigrants eating pets and lied that Democrats support post-birth abortion, which is murder and illegal everywhere.
Some takeaways from the discussion include:
The turning point came when Ms. Harris criticized the size of Trump’s rallies. She came onto the stage with a clear plan: to upset Trump’s game. By any measure, it was a dramatic success. He ate when the vice president mentioned Mr. Trump’s criminal conviction and unresolved legal issues. He ate even more when Ms. Harris accused Mr. Trump of derailing a bipartisan immigration bill. And he nearly choked on the bait when Ms. Harris suggested that Mr. Trump’s rallies were boring.
Rather than addressing the issues raised by the moderator, some of which Trump considers to be some of his political strengths, the former president spoke at length about the entertainment value of his rallies, claimed the Biden administration was legally targeting him and, for an extended and bizarre period, continued to claim — contrary to all available evidence — that immigrants are eating Americans’ pets.
Trump indulges in conspiracy theories: Despite signals from his running mate, Trump did not refrain from repeating the conspiracy theories of the day during the debate. The former president brought up an unfounded conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s dogs and cats. He said at one point, “In Springfield, they’re eating dogs. They’re eating cats. They’re eating people’s pets that live there.”
When ABC host David Muir pointed out that city officials were denying evidence that immigrants in Springfield were eating pets, Trump doubled down, saying “people on TV” were saying so. When pressed, Trump simply replied, “Let’s find out.” When the discussion turned to crime, Trump claimed that crime is on the rise in the United States, contrary to the rest of the world. Again, Muir pointed out that FBI data shows that crime has been declining over the past few years.
The fierce debate over abortion, a key issue for both candidates: The vice president, who has long served as one of the administration’s strongest advocates on reproductive rights, was able to push back against the former president’s defense of abortion policy in a way that Joe Biden didn’t.
The former president, who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn federal abortion protections, has tried to soften his stance on the issue by criticizing the six-week abortion ban and reaffirming his support for exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s life, but he has also defended the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Read on for more takeaways from Harris and Trump’s first debate.
