{"id":7460,"date":"2024-09-11T16:28:16","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T08:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=7460"},"modified":"2024-09-11T16:28:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T08:28:20","slug":"kamala-harriss-and-donald-trumps-best-and-worst-debate-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=7460","title":{"rendered":"Kamala Harris\u2019s and Donald Trump\u2019s best and worst debate moments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vice President Harris had a strong night in her big clash with former President Trump on Tuesday in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A poised and focused Harris seemed to get the better of Trump in numerous exchanges at the debate, which was hosted by ABC News. At times, she baited him into an irritated or peevish tone. Frequently, he was pushed onto the defensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABC\u2019s moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, were far more aggressive in fact-checking Trump than their counterparts, CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, had been in the now-infamous debate between Trump and President Biden in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s bad night got worse just moments after the debate ended, when music megastar Taylor Swift endorsed Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Swift wrote in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even in a debate that looked like a lop-sided victory for Harris, each candidate had their good and bad moments. Here are some of the biggest ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamala Harris\u2019s Best Moments
Reproductive rights
Abortion could be the single best political issue for Harris and her party. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the GOP has struggled on the topic as voters have recoiled from hardline bans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris pressed the point home in an extended exchange on the subject, where Trump meandered, his meaning often opaque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow in over 20 states, there are Trump abortion bans,\u201d Harris asserted, tying Trump to the kind of restrictive policies he wants to distance himself from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 6
The Capitol riot is another obvious centerpiece of Harris\u2019s election campaign. Trump was impeached, and later criminally charged, over a dark day that left more than 100 law enforcement officers injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Harris was particularly deft in speaking about those events in a way that characterized Trump as, simultaneously, authoritarian and deeply insecure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDonald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So let\u2019s be clear about that \u2014 and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that,\u201d Harris said, referring to the approximate number of votes cast for President Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phrasing, with its implication of psychological weakness, seemed calculated to get under Trump\u2019s skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris followed up by arguing that Trump\u2019s attempts to rationalize his role suggested he did not have \u201cthe temperament or the ability to not be confused about fact. That\u2019s deeply troubling and the American people deserve better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casting Trump as selfish
Harris often interwove answers on specific topics with her bigger campaign argument \u2014 namely, that Trump is just out for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on, she told the audience that Trump would take refuge in \u201cthe same, old, tired playbook \u2014 a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the economy, she said Trump \u201cis more interested in defending himself than he is in looking out for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding international affairs, she told him that other leaders can \u201cmanipulate you with flattery and favors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every such moment reinforced her central critique of the former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamala Harris\u2019s worst moments
Fracking and her changes of position
Harris has been bedeviled for years by questions over her authenticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those questions have resurfaced again now that she has abandoned her previous support for a ban on fracking, and has eased off support for Medicare for All and for decriminalizing illegal border crossings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressed by Davis on how her values could have remained unchanged while her policies had shifted, Harris did not have any particularly compelling answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she appeared evasive and eager to get off the subject \u2014 even though she must have known the question was coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaza
Harris is trying to thread a needle on Gaza \u2014 perhaps the single most divisive issue within the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The danger in that approach is that it can end up pleasing no-one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, she repeated her position that \u201cIsrael has a right to defend itself\u201d but that \u201cfar too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She did say that Palestinians should have \u201can equal measure\u201d of security as Israelis as well as \u201cself-determination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a big question-mark still hangs over the question of whether Harris would actually do anything different from Biden on policy if she is elected in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump\u2019s best moments
Inflation and the economy
The economy routinely tops voters\u2019 lists of concerns in opinion polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Biden nor Harris have fully healed the political wound they suffered when inflation peaked at its highest levels in a generation in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump exaggerated the rate of inflation, suggesting falsely that it had reached \u201c21 percent.\u201d It peaked at 9.1 percent on an annualized basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Trump did tap into popular discontent arguing the issue, contending, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a worse period of time\u201d and that people were struggling to \u201cgo out and buy cereal or bacon or eggs or anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More broadly, Trump argued that he had a strong economy as president, only to be undone by the COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 a claim that has some substance to it, despite his critics\u2019 scoffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine
One of the topics on which there is the deepest chasm between Trump and Harris \u2014 and between Trump and some Republicans \u2014 is the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But American aid to Kyiv is a divisive issue in American society at large. A Gallup poll earlier this year found 36 percent of Americans believing the U.S. was doing too much to help Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s argument that he merely wants \u201cthe war to stop\u201d could have some appeal to hard-pressed Americans who feel the money directed toward Ukraine could be better spent at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook, we\u2019re in for 250 billion [dollars] or more because they don\u2019t ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary to getting this thing done than we are,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump\u2019s worst moments
\u201cThey\u2019re eating the cats\u201d
A nation that has become accustomed to Trump making wild claims can still be startled by some of his flights of fancy \u2014 as on Tuesday when he repeated unfounded rumors about immigrants eating domestic animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Springfield they\u2019re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They\u2019re eating the cats. They\u2019re eating the pets of the people that live there,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muir noted that ABC News had reached out to the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, and \u201che told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump dug himself deeper with his riposte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen people on television,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople on television say my dog was taken and used for food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris and race
Trump has been unable to put to rest an ill-advised comment he made in late July during an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On that occasion, he suggested, falsely, that Harris had only adopted a Black identity recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked on Tuesday why he thought it was appropriate to weigh in on the topic, Trump replied, \u201cI don\u2019t. And I don\u2019t care what she is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But pressed further he added, \u201cAll I can say is I read where she was not Black \u2014 that she put out \u2014 and I\u2019ll say that. And then I read that she was Black, and that\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The controversy seems the rare one for Trump that won\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cconcept of a plan\u201d
Perhaps the most substantively damaging moment for Trump came relatively late in the debate, on the topic of healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davis challenged Trump on his failure to produce a plan that would replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, despite pledging to repeal that law for nine years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump failed to provide any specifics. But the more damaging soundbite came when Davis pressed further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan?\u201d she asked the former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have concepts of a plan,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phrase seems almost tailor-made for Democratic attack ads on a topic that is of searing personal interest to millions of Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vice President Harris had a strong night in her big clash with former President Trump on Tuesday in Philadelphia. A poised and focused Harris seemed to get the better of Trump in numerous exchanges at the debate, which was hosted by ABC News. At times, she baited him into an irritated or peevish tone. Frequently, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2377,2534,1724],"class_list":["post-7460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-debate","tag-harris","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nKamala Harris\u2019s and Donald Trump\u2019s best and worst debate moments - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=7460\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kamala Harris\u2019s and Donald Trump\u2019s best and worst debate moments - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vice President Harris had a strong night in her big clash with former President Trump on Tuesday in Philadelphia. 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