Wednesday’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was a train wreck for him, far worse than anything Team Trump could have imagined.
Ms Harris was often on offence, leaving Mr Trump visibly rattled as she launched rocket after rocket at him. A New York Times analysis found she spent 46 per cent of her time on the attack while Mr Trump devoted 29 per cent of his time to going after her. Debates aren’t won on defence.
Ms Harris pressed Mr Trump on the economy, the Ukraine war, foreign policy, healthcare, the Jan. 6 attack and especially abortion, leaving him flustered and often incoherent. In return, he criticised her on border security, climate change and the Israel-Hamas war.
Mr Trump had to know the vice president would try to get him to lose his cool. She did. She went after him on his multiple indictments. She called him “weak” and belittled him as a six-time bankrupt, spoiled inheritor of wealth. She said his former national security adviser thought him, in her words, “dangerous and unfit” for the Oval Office.
As is frequently the case with Mr Trump, he let his emotions get the better of him. He took the bait almost every time she put it on the hook, offering a pained smile as she did. Rather than dismissing her attacks and launching his strongest counterarguments against her, Mr Trump got furious. As her attacks continued, his voice rose. He gripped the podium more often and more firmly. He grimaced and shook his head, at times responding with wild and fanciful rhetoric. Short, deft replies and counterpunches would have been effective. He didn’t deliver them.
Mr Trump did a terrible job at his most important task — tying her to President Biden’s failed policies. He did an even worse job prosecuting the argument that she’s a far-left politician out of sync with America’s values. The Trump campaign’s mid-debate fact-check bulletins that flooded email inboxes were far more substantive and effective than his responses at the podium.
Mr Trump’s failure wasn’t for a lack of material. He had plenty in the Biden-Harris administration’s record to work with, especially on inflation and the crisis at the border. In one of his strongest moments, he hit hard on the botched Afghan withdrawal. Even then, he got sucked into an argument about his administration’s negotiations with the Taliban.
There was no sustained, specific indictment of her record on almost any issue. Mr Trump offered angry responses, pursed lips and eyes darting mostly down, seldom looking at her. And what was it with his makeup that left white circles around his eyes? This was his most important opportunity to make an impression of strength and relative stability.
Both candidates made significant misstatements. Ms Harris said her opponent “left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression” and Mr Trump declared inflation under Biden-Harris “probably the worst in our nation’s history.” But his false statements far outnumbered hers by my count.
Mr Trump had a great comeback to Ms Harris’s agenda for change. She’s had 3½ years as vice president, he said, so “why hasn’t she done it?” But that was in his closing statement. It should have been the attack he started with, continually repeated, and closed with, undercutting every new policy proposal she offered.
It matters how debating candidates carry themselves. There, it was no contest. Ms Harris came across as calm, confident, strong and focused on the future. Mr Trump came across as hot, angry and fixated on the past, especially his own. She mastered the split screen, projecting confidence and wordlessly undercutting him by smiling while shaking her head as he spoke.
Many undecided and swing voters will make up their minds less on any single issue than on their visceral reactions to the candidates. Ms Harris did herself much good with that crowd Tuesday. Mr Trump didn’t.
Even more voters wanted to learn something new and reassuring about the candidates in the debate. She provided them plenty, while he didn’t.
Trump enthusiasts will be upset that the ABC interviewers fact-checked the former president far more than they did Ms Harris. Then again, he gave them plenty of material to work with — such as repeating the bizarre claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating the pets of local residents. That was probably Team Trump’s lowest moment.
Will this debate have an effect? Yes, though perhaps not as much as Team Harris hopes or as much as Team Trump might fear. But there’s no putting lipstick on this pig. Mr Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as “dumb as a rock.” Which raises the question: What does that make him?
Karl Rove helped organise the political-action committee American Crossroads and is author of The Triumph of William McKinley (Simon & Schuster, 2015).
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