Trump Takes the Bait
Vice President Kamala Harris did not make a good case for herself at last night’s presidential debate. But she did get former President Donald Trump to make the case against himself and that was enough.
Throughout the 90-minute debate hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, Harris effectively baited Trump into going on blustering, bizarre riffs that mostly served to highlight his weaknesses as a candidate.
A representative snippet was when debate moderators asked Harris why the Biden administration waited so long to place more restrictions on migrants’ ability to claim asylum in the U.S. given the historic high levels of illegal border crossings.
Harris offered the briefest of defenses of her record, saying only that as a former prosecutor she’s prosecuted transnational gangs and that she supported a bill (opposed by Trump) that would have created more border guards.
Then, she quickly pivoted to a dig at Trump’s rallies, saying “You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter, he will talk about [how] windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
That’s a non sequitur and kind of cheap shot. It’s also a massive deflection from the immediate topic at hand, border enforcement, which is a weak issue for Harris (her portfolio includes reducing migration from Central America) and a strong one for Trump.
Rather than immediately bring the conversation back to the border, Trump defended the size of his crowds (“People don’t leave my rallies, we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics”), attacked Harris for allegedly paying people to attend her rallies, and then went on an extended riff about how immigrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, (a seemingly unfounded claim that’s been circulating in the less reputable corners of right-wing media).
78 seconds of pure art pic.twitter.com/xvpOgo0eCk
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) September 11, 2024
A similar back-and-forth happened time and again in the debate. Harris would offer a rudimentary defense of her record, perhaps engage in some pablum about Americans’ hopes and dreams, and then bait Trump into going on extended “too online” free association that’s hard to follow for all but the most dedicated Truth Social users.
The takeaways for libertarians and fellow-traveling liberty-likers were few indeed. No one on stage was particularly interested in putting themselves forward as the candidate for limited government voters.
The debate was a big government slugfest. And in that historic clash between “Facebook dad” and “wine mom,” wine mom had the better go of it.
Does it Matter? The immediate post-debate polls of voters
Article from Reason.com
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