Last night the voters got the debate it had been waiting for: Former President Donald Trump, a convicted felon, went face to face with Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor presiding alertly at the next mic.
Harris arrived with a positive message, lifting the middle class with her not completely fleshed-out vision, one she called her Opportunity Plan. It called for a tax cut for young families, help for first-time homeowners and subsidies for small businesses.
For his part, Trump arrived with a tired playbook that called for increased tariffs on overseas goods and replacement of Obamacare with something better, a so-called “new concept,” details yet to come.
The debate moderators, NBC World News’ David Muir and News Live’s Linsey Harris, poised a series of tough questions to Trump and Harris. The moderators admirably held the debaters’ feet to fire, insisting that they answer the questions and on several occasions — through not quite often enough — pointed out fabrications and evasions.
Harris seemed to know when she could get to Trump’s weaknesses and, time after time, was able to place him on the defensive. Most especially when it came to answering question about reproductive rights, Harris tagged Trump with his role in overturning Roe. The former president was left peddling his now oft-repeated lies about a majority of Americans wanting Roe overturned and with Democrats supporting abortion in the ninth month and executing babies. Before the topic was exhausted, Trump refused to say that he would veto a ban on abortion.
Trump repeatedly resorted to personal attacks on Harris, at one point referring to her as a Marxist, and accusing her of being Joe Biden, apparently his preferred opponent. He said that Harris has destroyed America and that, due to her “failed” immigration policies, “millions and millions” of immigrants, released from prisons, jails and mental institutions, are coming into this country. He insisted immigrants are committing crimes and taking jobs from Hispanics and Blacks. It was a theme he has repeated endlessly at his rallies.
Those rallies did provide Harris with one novel suggestion. She invited listeners to attend a Trump rally to learn more about Hannibal Lecter, windmills and sharks. Best one-liner of the night was Harris’s assessment of where Trump would stand with his much-praised dictator friends, Viktor Orban and Vladmir Putin. She said, “They would eat his lunch.”
One could get a quick sense how the evening was going, not so much from the debater’s rhetoric as by their body language. Harris spoke directly to the voters, looking not at Trump, but towards the audience, while Trump glared and looked downward in dyspeptic gloom, seldom finishing a complete thought. It would be fair to say that the encounter went pretty decisively to the vice president.
” She said, “They would eat his lunch.” ”
How it’s coming out elsewhere is “They would you for lunch.” Neither seems very appetizing – not a big fan of hamburgers.
Believe I got the exact quote slightly askew. Apparently it was “they’ll eat you for lunch.” Either way it’s not a bad prediction. Seldom is there honor among thieves.
Thanks Jean. Last night, the disgraced former president vividly proved beyond a reasonable doubt why he is unfit for any public office, let alone the presidency. The prosecutor prevailed and deftly made her case that she is prepared and uniquely qualified to move America forward as our next president.