Previously Published in The Messenger
The headline pretty much sums up the debate held on Tuesday night between former President Donald Trump (R-FL) and Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA). So, if the headline confirms your expectations, but if you missed out on your local viewing party, you didn’t miss much.
Firstly, we express much dismay over the fact that was the only slated debate, at least as of press time. Harris has implied that she would agree to another debate on the condition that Trump show up at Tuesday’s battle of wits.
Trump held up his end of the bargain, although we hardly think he was enticed by Harris’ ultimatum, but now it’s time for her to fulfill the deal she made.
The RNC’s decision to end their affiliation with the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) could be understood from the perspective of obviously-biased moderators and irrelevant questions meant to intentionally stir dissension among voters. However, it led to a complete collapse of tradition and standard that leaves us with the possibility of just one debate for this campaign. (This doesn’t count the June debate Trump had with Biden, and we editorialized the matter by saying that if Biden’s candidacy didn’t count in the eyes of the Democratic Party, then neither did the first debate).
If you’re Harris, you’re not going to want to have another debate.
Allow us to make ourselves perfectly clear: we don’t think Harris won the debate, nor do we think she gave a stellar performance. However, Trump failed multiple times to capitalize on solid talking points that would have been incredibly difficult for Harris to evade.
We’ll start with Harris, whose de facto opening statement – there were no formal openers – was essentially witness-leading. She addressed the nation and told them flat-out that Trump was going to be lying and reading from the same “tired playbook” from which he has been campaigning for years. To open a debate in that manner is crude, immature, and clearly displays a lack of confidence she had in herself that evening.
Harris also told so many flat-out lies about her flip-flopping on top issues, it was laughable. Clearly capitalizing on the short-term memory of the news cycle and the general public, Harris claimed that she is a supporter of fracking and that she does not intend to take anyone’s guns, countering Trump’s claims.
During her 2020 run, Harris was on record multiple times stating her interest in banning fracking for oil and natural gas, but stated in her recent CNN interview, with moral support from Governor Walz, that she believes there are avenues to develop green energy solutions without banning the practice.
She also reiterated this during the debate, adding that although her stances on some policies have changed, her “values” haven’t.
Fracking is perhaps the top issue on which Democrats flip-flop. Biden, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), and Harris are just three top names that come to mind in recent light. After taking hard positions on the practice to court the progressive left, they later realize that doing so is political suicide in must-win parts of the country.
We’re not inclined to believe Harris’ stance on fracking, especially since she echoed a very Trump-esque campaign platform: American energy independence.
On live television, Harris was observed taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, stating that negating American dependence on foreign oil as a priority.
It’s almost as if she and Biden were literally handed a country that was energy-independent for the first time in seventy-five years. And it’s almost as if Biden and company have had three-and-a-half years to keep the policies in place, or at least restore them to their former glory.
That’s a massive strike in our book.
Harris was also disingenuous about her supervisor’s stances on Russia and Ukraine, stating if Trump were to win, Putin would be “in Kiev with his eyes on Europe.”
Again, Democrats are campaigning as if Trump wasn’t president for four years. He didn’t start World War III, he didn’t take anyone’s rights away, and no Democrats moved to Canada as they had so publicly threatened. Furthermore, Putin made no advances into Europe on Trump’s watch, despite his invasion of Georgia under Bush (R-TX) and his capture of Crimea under Obama (D-IL).
There’s not much stock in her answers, but what was more shocking is that she admitted to meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy about meeting with him and other NATO leaders, advising them on American foreign policy to help them protect themselves from a Russian invasion.
Just days after the meetings, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Harris also asserted herself and her running mate as gun owners in an attempt to defuse Trump’s claim that she would confiscate firearms.
On the 2020 campaign trail, Harris said she thought that confiscation of commonly-owned semi-automatic weapons was a “good idea,” even adding that “details would have to be worked out” on a compulsory buyback program.
On abortion, a political noose for the GOP, Harris used multiple statistical rarities to excuse the practice carte blanche. We won’t enter the ring on this highly hot-button issue, but we will point out that there’s more credence to Trump’s argument of late-term abortions than there is of Harris’ claims of thirteen-year-old girls who are impregnated as a result of incest.
Moderator Linsey Davis even inserted herself into the foray to correct Trump that not one state has laws allowing late-term abortions, those in the seventh, eighth, and ninth months of pregnancy.
However, Trump had a point: a bill in Albany was set to codify provisions for such procedures, but it was removed from the language. Furthermore, current law in New York, as it is in other states, might not technically define late-term abortions as legal, but because of the divide between healthcare and government, oversight is not usually available on a case-by-case basis, essentially giving tacit approval to the practice.
Finally, we’ll remark on Harris’ highly distracting posturing that we believe was her attempt to appear intimidating. She was frequently seen smiling, as if to retain laughter, while Trump spoke, often placing her hand on her chin and sporting a quizzical look on her face. The pontification was unnecessary and she essentially tried to make Trump’s time hers, in some ways, by emoting so vibrantly while he was speaking.
That coupled with her circular, scripted lines of “lifting each other up” and creating a future for “all Americans” only made her persona seem more phony, with her condescending tone not doing her any favors. She would often return to the script if she was faced with a difficult question, namely her administration’s role in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, although she did say she approved of Biden’s plans in that regard, and more concrete policies when asked for them. Her closing statements appeared to be made to an audience of three-year-olds, rather than an audience who had not heard clear answers on her role in the last three-and-a-half years.
Trump, on the other hand, delivered more concrete policy points than Harris, but ultimately failed to capitalize on numerous opportunities to put Harris’ claims in check and repeatedly took obvious bait that prevented him from using his time wisely.
All Trump had to do at the end of each answer was simply tie Harris to the current administration, something she’s desperately tried to distance herself from. He made this prominent during his closing arguments, but there was no reason he couldn’t have driven this point home more throughout the night.
Additionally, Trump made no mention of former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, two highly-prominent political figures who recently endorsed his candidacy, when Harris bragged of “two hundred” Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney (R-WY), who have opted for her success in November.
The slam-dunk Trump failed to deliver was boasting his administration’s successful deliverance of energy independence, while simultaneously criticizing the current administration for draining the strategic petroleum reserves to artificially lower gas prices ahead of the midterms. He also failed to land concise attacks on Harris over immigration, only making a slight reference to her title as the “Border Czar,” and informing the public that the Harris campaign continues to tie him to Project 2025, despite the campaign’s awareness that Trump is not affiliated with the plan.
That’s another strike in our eyes.
Trump took the obvious bait in Harris’ reference to his political rallies, using the opportunity to state that “people don’t go to her rallies.” While mostly accurate, he should have just taken the high road and rebutted her claims that he “ran” from the immigration problem instead of solving it, another demonstrably false claim peddled by Harris.
Harris also baited Trump on the staffing of his administration, which he answered by saying that inefficient members were fired, and that the current administration hasn’t fired anyone. It’s not a bad jab, given the disastrous consequences of the border, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and now Israel, just to name a few, but he took the liberty of addressing the more personal aspects of the attack, rather than the administrative aspects.
Overall, Trump did not perform as well as he did against Biden in June, where he took a mild-mannered approach to the debate, only raised his voice occasionally, and ultimately took the high road on many subjects. In this debate, his words came across as more disjointed and he frequently packed many attacks and policy plans into just a single one-minute response, rather than distributing them across the night as would have been fit.
We would describe the moderation of the debate as less than satisfactory. Trump was undoubtedly in a three-on-one scenario at certain points, but both candidates had their mics muted several times during the ninety-minute onslaught. However, we’ll note that Davis’ on-air fact-check of Trump’s abortion claims left more questions than answers and we believe that that action should have been left for post-debate analysis.
Muir pressed Trump on “regrets,” if any, of his role on January 6. Trump held the line on his lack of involvement in the organization of the rally, as well as his ultimately-denied request by Capitol Hill Democrats for National Guard presence that day. Muir continued to press Trump for a “yes” or “no” answer to what was ultimately a “heads I win, tails you lose” type of question.
The moderators also asked the candidates of Trump’s comments concerning Harris’ race, which he says has shifted over the years to pander to voters of minority groups when most profitable. Harris laughed off the attacks, but the fact that the moderators brought up a question on mudslinging seemed irrelevant in the midst of so many other questions on policy that were left virtually unanswered.
To Trump’s point, Harris has exhibited behavior of speaking in different regional accents based on the state in which she is campaigning, and has certainly donned a more stereotypical “black” voice when speaking to predominately-black audiences.
It’s an intelligence-insulting form of pandering that is worth criticizing, but if the media wanted to pose that question during the debate, they should have framed it in context, rather than leading the question as if it were a baseless, insensitive attack.
Overall, Trump missed multiple opportunities to land critical attacks and was difficult to understand at times from his cluttered speaking portions. It’s what he gets for winging the preparation, but a chance for redemption through another debate might be more likely from a genie’s lamp than from the Harris campaign.
Harris did not deliver any substantive plans and instead put her flip-flopping on key issues on full display for all to see. She said the quiet part out loud multiple times: she is a part of the Biden Administration and there does not seem to be any change imminent should she be victorious in November. Furthermore, the condescending attitude and visual posturing was unnecessary and we think she stood more to gain by simply playing the straight man.
The media did an okay job with the tools they were given, but we think CNN’s moderation of the June debate was much better.
We don’t think either candidate swayed voters of either party, and we find it hard to believe that the middle was significantly courted by either Trump or Harris.