Donald Trump got to Kamala Harris’ core problem in his debate close, waving off all her promises about what she’d do in office: “Why hasn’t she done it already?”
Hard to think of a better riposte to her “We won’t go back” slogan — which aims to appeal to Americans’ desperate desire for change from the Biden policies she shares.
Harris had a pretty smooth night: She did her homework for once, including prepping lines guaranteed to get under Trump’s skin — some of which plainly did put him off-balance.
And of course she had backup from the moderators, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis — who targeted far more tough questions at Trump than at Harris, and all of their “fact-checking.”
Worse: Whenever she started to babble in trying to defend her own record, they rescued her by changing the subject.
And by changing it again whenever Trump was truly on a roll.
Still: Whenever she talked about having “a plan,” it was more of what she and Joe Biden have pushed these last four years — even when it came to the border.
Offered multiple chances to say what she’d do differently than Joe, she dodged every time.
She even fell back on the same seeming strong support for Israel to defeat Hamas, with the same caveats that “how it does so matters” — a passive-aggression ratification of Hamas propaganda smearing the IDF’s incredible restraint, sacrificing hundreds of Israeli lives to minimize civilian casualties.
Answering a question about how she’d get a ceasefire, she went on a meandering review of the war before saying it had to end with a ceasefire that releases the hostages — without a hint of how to get one.
And of course she followed by demanding the same old “two-state solution” that Hamas and its allies don’t want, and is a clear impossibility for the foreseeable future.
Crucially, she also wouldn’t call for Ukraine’s victory in its defense against Vladimir Putin’s invasion, but only brag about how she’d met with Volodomyr Zelensky right before the war began, and isn’t it a wonderful alliance we have helping him now.
Trump at least was honest: He wants the war ended ASAP.
But he also made a powerful point that Putin didn’t do any invading on his watch, and later connected the dots — quite correctly — from the feckless Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the weakness it signaled, to Russia’s invasion.
Harris actually praised Biden’s Afghan bugout, then talked up the importance of “stability,” when Europe and the Middle East are aflame in this administration.
Trump was erratic — notably taking her bait when she claimed people walked out of his rallies and when she fictionalized his remarkable business success.
Yet he could also be fast on his feet, as when he countered her brag that 200 Republicans have endorsed her by noting that was mostly people he’d fired — and that Biden-Harris have fired no one, not even for the Afghan debacle nor the disastrous inflation.
He scored again on inflation when she insisted his tariffs would raise prices, by noting his presidency was inflation-free — and that Harris-Biden “never took the tariffs off.”
On the economy, the No. 1 issue for voters, all she really had to offer was her empty “Opportunity Economy” label; he pointed to his record of achievement.
With a huge assistance from the moderators, Harris got through the debate without repeating Biden’s June disaster.
We’re glad to see she’s now asked for another debate, and hope that encourages her to also finally do press conferences and long interviews.
Trump’s been edging up in the polls as voters say they don’t know enough about Harris: She needs to take more risks, and on less-friendly ground, or she’s still headed for defeat.