Kamala Harris baited Donald Trump and attacked the most precious thing in the world to him: his rallies.
“He talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He talks about how windmills cause cancer. You’ll also notice that people are starting to leave his rallies early because of fatigue and boredom. The only thing you’ll hear him not talking about is you,” he said, in a moment that had probably been rehearsed for days.
Trump’s eyes widened and his face fell. He could no longer hear the moderators above the ringing in his ears.
“Let me just answer the rallies,” he said, ignoring a question about the border. “People are not leaving my rallies. We are having the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” he continued.
The man who spent every argument of his life getting under the skin of his opponents eventually suffered for it.
From that moment on, his voice rarely dropped below a shout. His sentences were disjointed. His syntax was garbled. His face was flushed. His eyebrows were knitted. He leaned into the space in front of him.
The worst was yet to come.
In perhaps the strangest moment of the debate, or any presidential debate in US history, Trump went from defending his rallies to sharing a conspiracy theory online that Haitian immigrants were eating cats in Springfield, Ohio.
“They eat dogs in Springfield — they eat people who come in — they eat cats. They eat … they eat the pets of the people who live there,” he said.
When moderator ABC’s David Muir said there were no credible reports of pets being harmed, the former president responded with a response that might have prompted a welfare check if it had been said anywhere other than on the debate stage: “People on TV are saying my dog was taken and used as food.”
Split screen didn’t sit well with Trump. As he summoned images of dead cats from his imagination, Harris’ facial expressions told a story of their own. She laughed and winced during her answers.
This was not the imposing Trump who had troubled Hillary Clinton in 2016. Or the measured Trump who spoke quietly when Joe Biden stumbled just two and a half months ago.
Trump’s debate style was once In comparison “a faulty appliance.” On stage tonight, he looked like a pressure kettle rattling on a stove. He never quite got his balance right.
Harris repeatedly provoked him, attacking his temperament, calling him weak and “disgraceful,” glaring at Trump while saying world leaders were “laughing at Donald Trump” and calling him “confused about the facts.”
Trump stared straight ahead. His anger at an invisible sign in front of his podium only grew.
“Let me tell you about world leaders. They call Viktor Orban, one of the most respected men, a strongman. A tough man. Intelligent. Prime Minister of Hungary. They said why is the whole world exploding? It wasn’t like that three years ago. Why is it exploding? He said because you need Trump to come back as president,” he said, and then he listed other dictators who think he’s a good man.
Harris dealt Trump his biggest blows on abortion and race.
Arguably his most viral moment was his strong opposition to Trump’s repeal of Roe v Wade.
“Trump’s abortion bans don’t even make exceptions for rape and incest. Understand what that means. A person who survives a crime, a violation of their body, does not have the right to decide what happens to their body afterward. That’s immoral,” she said.
“And one does not have to abandon one’s faith or deeply held beliefs to engage with the government, and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” she added.
Trump, meanwhile, wavered in his position on a national abortion ban, making the absurd claim that Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, supports “postnatal execution.”
This prompted dour moderator Linsey Davis to remind the former president: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it is born.”
Trump hoped to use the debate to pin Harris on all of Biden’s failings. Ultimately, Harris had more success making the case against Trump.
In her closing remarks, Harris said the candidates have “two very different visions for our country.”
“One is focused on the future, the other is focused on the past. And it’s an attempt to take us back. But we’re not going back. And I believe the American people know that we all have much more in common than what divides us, and we can chart a new path forward,” he said.
Trump concluded his speech with a question directed to Harris.
“So, he just started off saying he was going to do this, he was going to do that, he was going to do all these wonderful things. Why didn’t he do it?” she asked.
“We are a failed nation. We are a nation in serious decline. We are laughed at all over the world. They are laughed at all over the world, I know the leaders very well. They come to see me. They call me. They are laughed at all over the world. They don’t understand what has happened to us as a nation. We are not a leader. We have no idea what is going on,” he added.
As Donald Trump left the stage, he must have wished he had been softer on Joe Biden.
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