In their first face-to-face meeting, the Democratic nominee humiliated the former president.
Last night in Philadelphia, Kamala Harris did to Donald Trump what Donald Trump had done to Joe Biden: She broke her opponent on a debate stage.
I’ve been watching presidential debates since 1976, and I’ve even been peripherally involved in a few. And I’ve never seen a candidate execute a debate strategy as well as Harris did.
The night, for Harris supporters, went better than even the most optimistic among them could have hoped. For Trump supporters, it was not just a defeat but a public humiliation, the crushing comeuppance they probably secretly feared might one day arrive but, until now, never quite had.
Even so devoted a bootlicker as Senator Lindsey Graham declared the debate a “disaster” for the ex-president.
Trump needed to paint himself as the agent of change, to fuse Harris to Biden, and to make the vice president defend her most extreme past statements. Instead, Harris forced Trump to go on the defensive, wandering onto the worst possible terrain for him.
Over the course of debate, Trump defended the violent mob that had attacked the Capitol. He insisted the 2020 election was stolen from him.
