Harris put Trump on defensive, and kept him there

Vice President Kamala Harris took the debate stage Tuesday night, shook the hand of former President Donald Trump and then spent the next 90 minutes making every effort to burrow under his skin, hammering him over his criminal convictions, his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the size of his rally crowds and the foreign and military leaders who she said have called him a “disgrace.”

“It’s time to turn the page,” Harris declared in an aggressive performance that seemed to draw on her career as a courtroom prosecutor.

A glowering Trump often took the bait, responding to Harris’ critiques with a hail of misinformation and personal attacks during the debate broadcast from Philadelphia by ABC News.

The first-ever face-to-face meeting between Harris and Trump underscored just how much the race for the White House has changed since President Joe Biden dropped out after his miserable debate performance in June left Democrats in despair. Harris was for the most part able to deliver a crisp and clear message. Trump seemed angry and defensive.

Only infrequently was he able to tie her to the unpopular Biden, which his advisers had signaled was one of his primary goals, especially during the closely watched first hour of the debate.

“She’s a Marxist — everybody knows she’s a Marxist,” Trump said in a typical attack. “Her father’s a Marxist professor in economics, and he taught her well.”

At points, Harris put her hand under her chin as she watched Trump’s answers with skeptical amazement, laughing out loud when he repeated false and outlandish claims that immigrants were stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets in an Ohio town.

But while there were plenty of flash points, there did not seem to be a knockout blow that could fundamentally alter the dynamics of what by all measures will be an exceedingly close election in November. Harris attempted to portray Trump as a friend to billionaires and big corporations who would soak the middle class. Trump characterized Harris as a policy lightweight who was far too liberal to lead the nation.

One of the evening’s most contentious moments revolved around abortion, where voters have expressed more trust in Harris’ leadership than Trump’s. The vice president tried to frame the issue as one of personal freedom and liberty.

“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government — and Donald Trump, certainly — should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said.

For Harris, Tuesday’s debate was a chance to further define herself in voters’ eyes, with many saying they want to know more about her policy goals. For Trump, the evening offered an opportunity to show discipline in attacking the vice president without resorting to the sexist and racist jabs that he has favored on the campaign trail. He largely managed to avoid repeating those insults, even when the moderators asked him about comments he had made questioning Harris’ racial identity.

Some Democrats had set an exceedingly low bar for Harris’ performance at what could be the only debate between her and Trump.

“She’s got to show the American people tonight that she’s not Joe Biden,” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a surrogate for the Harris campaign, said before the debate.

Here’s what else to know:

— Trump presses for advantage on immigration: Again and again, no matter the question, Trump tried to bring the debate back to immigration, a weakness for Harris, according to the polls. He put the border crisis firmly at her doorstep. Harris countered by noting that Republicans in Congress had killed a bipartisan border bill at his urging. And early in the evening, she predicted: “He’s going to talk about immigration a lot tonight, even when it’s not the subject that is being raised.”

— Swift endorses Harris: Shortly after the debate ended, pop star Taylor Swift endorsed Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, in an Instagram post to her 283 million followers. Swift signed her post “childless cat lady,” a reference to comments made by Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, about women without children.

— Real-time fact-checking. ABC’s moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, provided limited fact-checking, but when they did jump in, their rebukes were sharp. “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” Davis told Trump after he falsely claimed that some babies were being subjected to “executions” after birth.

— Light on new policy specifics: A New York Times/Siena College poll this weekend found that 28% of likely voters felt they needed to know more about Harris. Nearly half of those specified that they wanted to know more about her policy proposals. But Harris gave few details to the national television audience, preferring to make a broader case that she represented the future of American politics. Trump also avoided being pinned down, refusing to answer whether he would sign a national abortion ban and, after being pressed on whether he would replace the Affordable Care Act, saying: “I have concepts of a plan. I’m not president right now.”

— Location, location, location: The electoral-vote-rich presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the debate took place, is critical for both campaigns in the final sprint. Polls show a tight race. Harris even appealed to the state’s Polish Americans, suggesting that Trump would allow President Vladimir Putin of Russia to invade Poland.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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