"Raving Loon": How Trump Took the Bait and Lost the Debate
Kamala Harris crushed the former president onstage. Could this be the boost she needs?
Judging presidential debates can be difficult for journalists because we’re not the candidates’ target audience. This one was easy.
Over the most important 90-plus minutes of the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris managed to simultaneously elevate her own stature and shrink Donald Trump’s. The vice president projected Oval Office-level strength, maturity, and new-generation optimism; the former president, his insecurities triggered by her jabs, looked angry, beleaguered, and old.
In my 40 years of covering presidential debates, I've never seen such a lopsided contrast in presidential temperament as the one that flattered Harris Tuesday night. It won't prove as consequential as the faceoff three months ago that knocked the incumbent out of the race, but it made all Democrats except a few Joe Biden die-hards happy that she had replaced the current president on the debate stage.
No one knows how much routing Trump will lift Harris’ prospects in the November election. Polarization in US politics has grown so deeply entrenched that big shifts in voter preferences rarely happen.
But in a race this close, nationally and in the decisive battleground states, small shifts matter a lot. Whatever difference a nationally televised debate can still make, there’s every reason to believe Harris will reap the benefit. As many young voters waver, her post-debate endorsement from Taylor Swift provided an extra boost.
Harris in Command
Of the two candidates, Harris entered the debate with the greater opportunity to improve her position. Nine years after Trump walked onto the political stage, voters’ opinions about him have hardened. They remain soft about her.
Harris set about molding them from the moment she stepped on the stage, striding confidently to Trump’s podium to extend her hand. Her assertiveness, forcing him to react, made her the more commanding presence – an important objective for someone running to become the first woman US president.
Dodging the familiar “are you better off” question about the economy, Harris avowed her commitment to policies supporting the middle-class and small businesses. She skewered Trump’s promised import tariffs as a “national sales tax.”
“Donald Trump has no plan for you,” she told tens of millions watching on television. She placed him on the defensive by invoking the radical Project 2025 plan to enlarge his own power over the executive branch.
And Trump remained on the defensive the entire night. That harmed him in two ways.
He glowered and frowned, refusing to look at her as she talked; Harris fixed her gaze on him, smiling and sometimes chuckling at the most absurd of his answers. She profited from the split-screen visual contrast.
Substantively, her attacks triggered answers from Trump so bitterly extreme as to test the credulity of anyone outside the country’s MAGA minority.
“The country is dying,” he said at one point; at another, he shouted the racist lie disseminated on right-wing social media that immigrant invaders are killing and eating Americans’ household pets. He falsely claimed Democrats want to provide transgender surgery on “illegal aliens in prison,” and let doctors murder babies after birth.
He was by all appearances a raving loon. No wonder she wooed voters by inviting them to watch his rallies.
Harris left him reeling from their extended discussion of abortion – the strongest single issue for Democrats since a Supreme Court stacked with Trump appointees struck down the constitutional right Roe v. Wade had guaranteed for 50 years.
She invoked the plight of incest victims forced to carry their pregnancies to term, and promised to sign Congressional legislation restoring abortion rights. He sputtered about the Supreme Court’s “genius” and states rights. She warned he would sign a national abortion ban; he wouldn't pledge to veto one.
“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. Clearly, he’s having a very difficult time processing that.”
-Kamala Harris
Harris scored again on healthcare, another winning Democratic issue. Having attacked Harris for her spare policy proposals, Trump confessed he still has no plan to replace Obamacare – seven years after trying and failing to repeal it as president.
"I have concepts of a plan," he insisted.
Trump Took the Bait
Multiple times, Harris baited Trump into self-destructive outbursts by poking at his ego and vanity.