Tonight’s Debate

ROBERT REICH 

Friends,

To say that Kamala Harris nailed it tonight is an understatement. She knocked it out of the park. She combined civility with firmness. She made Trump look and sound like the blubbering idiot he is.

Tonight’s was Harris’s first presidential debate. It was Trump’s eighth — including his debates with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. But Trump was worse than he has ever been. All he did was attack. His only weapon was fear. His only means was lies.

Trump claimed that the American economy under him was better than the economy under Biden and Harris, and that under Harris the economy would be ruined. In fact, under Trump, America lost almost 3 million jobs. And Trump’s unforgivable failure to contain COVID as well as other advanced countries did required massive government expenditures that fueled inflation.

Biden and Harris, by contrast, have presided over an explosion of job growth while inflation has been tamed.

On the issue of abortion, Trump claimed Democrats want to kill babies after they are born. When questioned about January 6, he charged that Biden and Harris were responsible for the investigations and indictments that targeted him.

Harris, by contrast, answered the questions asked of her — clearly, cogently, powerfully. And she drew sharp contrasts with Trump.

But it wasn’t so much Trump’s shambolic responses that gave Harris the big win tonight. It was her manner, in sharp contrast to his.

She set the tone by walking over to Trump at the start of the debate to shake his hand and introduce herself. He seemed flummoxed.

Throughout the next ninety minutes, she stayed in control. She was the adult in the room. She smiled at his brazen lies, and then scolded him about them. She was in command of her facts and arguments, and refused to stoop to Trump’s belligerence of become rattled by it.

Trump interrupted, even though his mic was supposed to be muted — which is how he managed to get nine more minutes of talk than Harris. Regardless of how much time he had, he filled it with shouts, harangues, and repeatedly bogus claims.

Harris’s most important challenge tonight was to introduce herself to the American public as tough and competent. She did that superbly.

She also understood that the only way to deal with Trump’s attacks was to hit him back harder. In doing so, she showed a combination of ferocity and discipline.

Despite a month of favorable coverage, 28 percent of voters in the recent New York Times/Siena College poll said they still needed to learn more about Harris, compared with only 9 percent who said they needed to know more about Trump.

Tonight they saw a leader.

Her second challenge was to separate herself from Biden while also taking appropriate credit for the Biden-Harris administration’s achievements. An overwhelming majority of voters say they want the next president to bring “major change.”

Harris did that. She showed herself as the agent of change. She spoke of her plans for helping small business and families. She talked about how she would stand up for a woman’s reproductive freedom. She was tough on foreign policy and explained the importance of NATO. She was clear and forceful about strengthening American democracy and the rule of law.

Harris spoke of a“new beginning” for America. What does this new beginning consist of? She didn’t have to talk about her youth, gender, or ethnicity, because these attributes were obvious. It was her positive energy — in contrast to Trump’s overwhelming negativism — that drove home the point.

The “new beginning” is a new generation of leadership.

Trump tried to paint Harris as the candidate of the status quo. He didn’t come close, not just because he’s an aging cantankerous white man, now the oldest person ever to seek the presidency. He failed because he came off as a mess of a human being.

When she said Americans are ready to turn the page on the politics of the past and strive together for a better future, she didn’t need to do more than make the slightest gesture toward the aging, raging font of grievance standing on the other side of the stage.

Her third challenge was to goad Trump into exposing his out-of-control self. In this she also succeeded.

She rattled Trump to the point where he couldn’t contain his nastiness. He called her a “Marxist,” and accused her father of being one, too. “She’s been so bad,” he sneered. He claimed Joe Biden “hates her.” He charged that Harris “hates Israel,” and she also “hates the Arab population.” He called her “the worst vice president in the history of the country.”

On and on Trump went, into the dark depths of his personal malignancy — accusing her and Biden of everything Trump himself has done (such as take money from foreign governments) and everything he aims to do (such as bring down American democracy).

Harris’s closing statement didn’t even mention Trump. She didn’t have to. By then the choice was clear — either Trump’s bottomless negativism, pessimism, lies and anger, or Harris’s affirmative view of America and its endless possibilities.

Trump’s closing statement (he won the coin toss to close last) was even darker. We would become a failed nation if she were elected president, he predicted. We already are on the way to becoming one, he said.

Harris won hands down, but what matters most is whether the few voters who before tonight were uncertain about how to vote now decide to support Harris over Trump. Most pundits thought Hillary Clinton had won her three debates with Trump.

With Election Day is just eight weeks away and early voting beginning within days, what Americans tell one another about tonight’s debate will be determinative.

At least one voter named Taylor Swift decided on the basis of tonight’s debate to go with Harris. In an Instagram post to her more than 283 million followers, Swift said “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

Swift signed her post “Childless Cat Lady” and included a photo of herself holding her cat, Benjamin Button, who has appeared on the cover of Time magazine with her.

Another good sign, friends.

And good night to you.

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Trump is best known for his unpredictability.

— Trump’s personal attacks on Harris rather than the policies of the Biden-Harris administration.

Trump acted as if he was backed into a corner as if was three on one, lashing out because he felt ganged-up on by Harris and the debate’s moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC. Trump already sought to cast doubt on ABC’s impartiality, calling the network “dishonest” and the “worst network in terms of fairness.”

He didn’t share some of his allies’ concerns about refraining from personal insults. When Trump recently was urged by podcaster Lex Fridman to talk about “a positive vision of the future versus criticizing the other side,” the former president seemed to disagree.

“Yeah, I think you have to criticize though,” Trump has said. “I think they’re nasty.” Trump has said he is “entitled to personal attacks” on Harris, after he was widely criticized for questioning her racial identity.

It’s a strategy Republicans have been warning Trump against. Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “Every day that the candidates trade insults is a good day for [Harris] because it’s one less day that she has to defend the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.”

During the 2020 primary debates, Harris became notably rattled after being attacked by Tulsi Gabbard, who was then a congresswoman and trailing in the polls, over her record as a prosecutor — a line of questioning she had prepared for.

— Some of Harris’s aides had worried that the agreement between both sides to mute the microphones when a candidate is not speaking would hamper her ability to land an effective punch.

But she wasn’t shaken by the format or any wild accusations from Trump. Debating is one of her biggest strengths, a skill that has fueled her political ascent even amid notable public stumbles in interviews and shifting policy positions.

— Trump was in the unfamiliar territory of not being the main draw for viewers tuning in for Tuesday’s debate.

Trump is used to being the star. Now for the first time, he has to share the stage with another politician generating huge crowds. He wasn’t comfortable with that. He wanted to reclaim the spotlight and regain momentum.

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Her lines of attack tonight: Harris, age 59, casts herself as representing the future of American government and Trump, 78, as a relic of the past.

She will press her advantage on favorable issues, most obviously abortion, while seeking to counter Mr. Trump’s attacks on topics where she is weaker, like the economy and immigration.

She has also sought to use ridicule to her advantage, calling Trump “an unserious man” and suggesting he and his allies are “out of their minds.” That is a contrast from the approach taken by Biden, who made more solemn and lofty arguments about how Trump posed a threat to American democracy.

Saying her rival wants ‘a national sales tax’

Poll after poll has shown that the economy remains the top issue for voters. That’s a problem for Harris as Americans express more trust in Trump to handle the economy.

In a line of attack she may repeat at the debate, Harris has accused Trump of wanting to lower taxes on billionaires and big corporations while raising them on the middle class. She has especially focused on his proposal to impose tariffs on all imported goods, which she has described as a “national sales tax” increase for workers.

“Now he also wants to impose what, in effect, is a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities, which will skyrocket the cost for families and small businesses,” she said. She also said that the tariffs would cost families nearly $4,000 a year, a figure in line with some economic estimates of their potential impact.

At her rallies, she has outlined her own plans for reducing prices on food, housing, prescription drugs, medical care and other necessities, arguing that Trump’s policies would raise them, especially if he seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class,” Ms. Harris said.

Accusing Trump of being an extremist out for himself

Ms. Harris often tells her audiences, “If you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.”

As a former prosecutor, she says, her answer is clear: She fights for the people. She characterized Trump as serving only himself.

“He tends to fight for himself, not for the American people,” she said.

She warned that the consequences of that approach could be grave if Trump and his right-wing allies regain control of the federal government. She highlighted the proposals outlined in Project 2025, a conservative governing blueprint drawn up in part by officials from the first Trump administration.

While Trump has tried to distance himself from the document, polling suggests Harris’s approach may be working. Three-quarters of likely voters said they had heard about Project 2025, and of those, 63 percent said they opposed it, according to the New York Times/Siena College poll,

One big question for Harris: How will she stand out from Biden?

Despite serving as vice president, Harris is running as an agent of change. She is aided in that argument by the fact that Trump has dominated American politics for the last eight years.

But casting herself as a fresh face requires some distancing from Biden, her boss, who is widely unpopular with voters. Many say the country needs a new direction.

So far, Harris has barely broken with Biden on policy. When she has sought some daylight, as she did with her proposal regarding the capital-gains tax, it has been widely noticed.

Tonight she showed voters how a Harris administration would look different from what they have experienced since early 2021.

Trump’s main potential lines of attack at the debate

Trump pointed to Harris’s role as vice president to directly link her to Biden policies, particularly on immigration and the economy. And he portrayed her as more liberal than her boss and too far to the left for moderate voters.

On immigration, calling Harris the ‘border czar’

Trump tried to pin the phrase “border czar” on Harris, seeking to hold her chiefly responsible for the presence in the country of millions of undocumented immigrants whom he broadly depicts as an invading force that is a drain on government resources.

Biden never gave Harris the title, although Biden asked her to address the root causes of migration from Latin America. But Mr. Trump has repeatedly used the phrase to try to

Trump argued that an increase in violent crime has been fueled by migrants, pointing anecdotally to several high-profile crimes that the authorities say were committed by immigrants in the country illegally. Broader statistics do not bear out Trump’s assertion of a “migrant crime” wave.

Trump also repeated his attack on Harris for suggesting in 2019 that people who had immigrated to the United States illegally should qualify for public health care.

Trump has argued that immigration is putting a strain on the economy. He has claimed that migrants are driving up housing costs and that they are taking jobs from Black and Hispanic Americans, groups whose support he is eager to chip away from Democrats.

Zeroing in on Harris’s liberal positions from the 2020 race

Trump pointed to a number of liberal policies Harris supported during the 2020 presidential campaign, when she tacked left during her failed primary bid in 2019. The next summer, she embraced progressive ideas on criminal justice as protests over policing spread across the nation.

Trump said Harris wants to “defund the police,” but she never called for abolishing police departments. She supported re-examining whether law enforcement budgets could be redirected to other social services that might help address the root causes of crime.

Trump also attacked Harris over her support for ending cash bail in her 2020 campaign, but she proposed replacing it with other measures. And he misleadingly suggested she sought a blanket release of all defendants.

Trump brought up Harris’s past call for a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the process of extracting gas or oil from underground shale.

Trump attacked Harris’s cosponsoring of the Green New Deal, a resolution backing expansive clean-energy programs to address climate change. He referred to the resolution as the “Green New Scam.”

And he criticized Harris for saying in her 2020 campaign that she would eliminate private health insurance in favor of a single-payer health care program.

One big question for Trump: How personal might he get?

During rallies, he has called Ms. Harris unintelligent and “lazy.” He questioned her racial identity and has mockingly invoked her past romantic relationship with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco. Online, he has reposted crass personal attacks against her.

Mr. Trump has never met Ms. Harris in person, and they have never debated before. His attitude and demeanor toward her will be closely watched, as will his discipline as he tries to resist the Trumpian urge to do what he so often does.