" I Have Concepts of a Plan" - Harris Destroys Trump - Debate Recap

VP Kamala Harris began the debate Tuesday night with a power move—walking right up to a befuddled Donald Trump and shaking his hand. It signaled who was the boss, and she took command of the debate from the start. For 90 minutes, Trump was forced to respond to Harris’ attacks while she ignored his. Trump never made eye contact with Harris. Meanwhile, Harris would look right at Trump when ripping him apart. That, in itself, was as much a power move as her initial handshake. 

In question after question, Harris took hard, focused, and effective swipes at an increasingly agitated Trump. Increasingly rattled, Trump’s voice sped up, louder and louder until he was yelling into his microphone, sounding hysterical, repeating lies like “after birth abortions”—provoking a rare fact-check from the moderators. In fact, more than one.

“I’m not in favor of an abortion ban,” Trump barked, which will set off the right wing after he flopped all over the place on whether he’d vote for the Florida ballot initiative legalizing abortion in the state. (Trump ultimately said he will vote against abortion rights in his state.)  He said he didn’t talk to his vice presidential nominee, and claimed he has been a “leader” on IVF, which will further enrage his evangelical foot soldiers.

Harris hit Trump for sabotaging the bipartisan immigration deal in Congress, and then mocked him for his boring rallies, inviting viewers to actually attend a Trump rally to see for themselves for his nonsense. Trump took the bait, saying crazy things like “Harris pays people for her rallies.”  Moderators couldn’t help but offer a forceful and repeated fact check when he insisted the racist lie that “Haitians are eating dogs and cats”—pushed by his own running mate—is real. Harris burst out laughing.

Trump also attacked the FBI; claimed he was shot because of Democrats, even though his assailant was a registered Republican; insisted Democrats are a threat to democracy; cried that he wasn’t given enough credit for his disastrous COVID response; sputtered Harris is “against the defund the police”; claimed solar farms are a problem because they take desert soil; demanded all sorts of people be prosecuted; claimed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was supposed to bring in the National Guard during his Jan. 6 insurrection; claimed that it was a good thing that Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban is called a “strongman”; yelled “our country has gone to hell” and that he could’ve “let [the country] rot”; and flubbed the name of the top Taliban leader.

He claimed in nearly every answer that the Biden-Harris administration was the worst in the history of the world. His sophomoric hyperbole doesn’t play in his own rallies anymore, and it certainly wasn’t playing Tuesday night. It was repetitive, rote, tedious, and boring.  And for all the media hysteria about Harris’ policy plans, when asked by moderators about Trump’s Obamacare replacement plan, it was clear he had none. Pressed for a plan, he stuttered, "I have concepts of a plan." 

Harris seemed to be having fun, getting Trump on the ropes and keeping him there.  "Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people," she quipped, sticking the shiv in. "Clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that.”

She ignored his attacks (beyond laughing or looking on bemused). And by ignoring his attacks and launching her own, Trump couldn’t help but take the bait every single time. She landed hits on his crowd obsession, his anti-choice record, and his love for dictators.  “It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on Day One,” she said. She slammed his desire to give up Ukraine to Russia.  “If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv,” she said. “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”

She was human, with personal anecdotes and heartfelt appeals to her work for the American people—a stark contrast to shouting, angry Trump.  And she landed perhaps the best blow of the night when she asked people to pay attention to Trump’s rallies, and how he never talks about what he will do for voters, focused instead on conspiracy theories and personal grievances.