Around the 24th minute of Donald Trump’s seventh general election presidential debate, he fell directly into a trap Kamala Harris had laid out for him.
The vice president was answering a question on immigration, a subject that has been central to Trump’s political rise and his remaking of the Republican Party, when she noted that he was the one who had pressured his political allies in Congress into killing a bipartisan border security bill. She could have left it there. Instead, Harris did something curious. She invited voters to attend one of his signature political rallies, calling them “a really interesting thing to watch” because many of Trump’s supporters now leave them early “out of exhaustion and boredom.”
It was a calculated line, clearly meant to trigger the notoriously thin-skinned ex-president. And it was one that her campaign had telegraphed earlier in the day by airing a television advertisement that featured Barack Obama needling Trump about his “obsession with crowd sizes”.
Yet it was also a line Trump’s campaign should have prepared him to face. He had one goal that evening: to maintain his cool. With one throwaway comment, Harris got him to fail at that task in the most spectacular manner possible.
As soon as it was his turn to speak once more, Trump took the bait. First, he began claiming — falsely — that supporters “don’t leave” his rallies. He called the campaign gatherings “the most incredible rallies in the history of politics” because his supporters “want to take their country back” and are angry at “what’s happening to the towns all over the United States.”
It got worse for him from there.
The ex-president next turned to a false story his campaign has been promoting about Haitian migrants kidnapping and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” he said.
It was so bizarre that moderator David Muir had to step in and inform him that the Springfield city manager told ABC News that nothing of the sort had happened, ever.
According to a source familiar with Harris’s debate preparations, the vice president and her team had prepared multiple canned lines she could inject into the conversation with the exact aim of upending Trump’s psychological state. But what the Harris campaign did not prepare for — and could not prepare for — was the way Trump managed to bite on every single one of the lures that the vice president dropped into the water.
At another point, Muir interjected to tell Trump that the FBI has said violent crime is actually down in recent years, after the ex-president claimed it has skyrocketed under Biden. In response, Trump began attacking the FBI, giving Harris another opening to bring up Trump’s upcoming criminal sentencing.
He then launched into another rant about the various prosecutions against him and blamed Biden and Harris for them. Job done by Harris once again.
By the halfway mark in the 90-minute debate, the former president had gone off on multiple tangents, each more damaging than the last. That included one in which he praised Ashli Babbitt, the deceased Capitol rioter who was shot by a police officer while trying to enter an area from which House members were being evacuated to prevent them from being lynched by a pro-Trump mob. He also repeatedly refused to acknowledge having lost the election under questioning from Muir and co-moderator Linsey Davis.
At the same time, Harris landed her blows and even got out detailed explanations of her policy proposals, giving voters something they’ve told pollsters they want.
As Trump ranted and raved, she stayed calm. She didn’t raise her voice, but her expressions — ranging from bemusement to feigned shock and horror — made clear her feelings about her opponent. She even managed to find reason to relay comments from “military leaders” who’ve worked under Trump and who, according to her, called him “a disgrace.”
She managed to take the fight to him without fighting, to attack without appearing combative, to take offense without appearing angry. Or, as one Republican consultant who worked with Trump on his 2020 race put it in a text message as the debate wrapped: “This is Pam Grier vs. Archie Bunker.”
A moment later, the same operative weighed in again, this time in more blunt terms.
“She’s kicking his ass,” they said.