Harris did better than Trump. The commentators are all saying so, and it is true. She “won.” I am more interested in what each of them said — and, even more, in what they did not say. Both of them dodged crucial questions by changing the subject. Both made gross exaggerations. Both made unfounded predictions of what would happen if the other won.
And yes, Trump did more of this than Harris — a lot more. But she did it, too. Both of them are politicians running for office, and both of them behave like it.
Regarding the economy, Harris said early in the debate, “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.” The surge in unemployment in 2020 was because of Covid. In no way was the Covid shutdown comparable to the Great Depression.
Trump turned quickly to red-baiting. “She’s a Marxist,” he said. Maybe that plays in West Virginia, but Seattle people should know what a Marxist is; we had one on our city council. Harris is a progressive who’s moving toward the moderate center-left. You can criticize her for that, but she’s not a Bolshevik.
Regarding abortion, Harris declared, “The government and Donald Trump should not be telling women what to do with their bodies.” It’s one issue in which a Democrat can be a libertarian. To his credit, the moderator asked Harris a follow-up question: “Will you support any restrictions on abortion?”
Her careful answer: “I absolutely would support Roe v. Wade.” Was Harris dodging the question? Sort of. But Roe allowed restrictions on late-term abortions. One example is our law in Washington, which restricts abortions after fetal viability, which is at about the 24th week. By not answering the question, Harris gave herself an opening to, at least some of the time, accept the government telling women what to do with their bodies.
Harris also stated that if Trump were elected, “he’ll sign a national abortion ban.” This is a standard Democratic line this year and Trump was not buying it. “It’s a lie,” he said. “I’m not signing a ban.”
(What kind of a ban? Is restricting after the 24th week a “ban”? The 20th week? The 15th week? These politicians rarely say.)
The moderator pressed on, asking Trump, “Would you veto a national abortion ban?” (A really good question, though again, what does “ban” mean?)
“I won’t have to,” Trump said. Trump argued that a nationwide ban would never reach the Oval Office. He was dodging the question; he clearly didn’t want to talk about abortion at all. Again, it’s political: He has moved away from a hard anti-abortion position but still needs anti-abortion votes. The debate moderator, to his credit, asked the question again — and Trump dodged it again, changing the subject to student loans.
The moderators asked a number of tough questions, and it would have been enlightening to hear actual answers. No such luck. For example, Harris was asked why she has changed so many of her policy positions since 2020 — on banning fracking, on abolishing private health insurance, and so on. The obvious answer is that she’s running for president, and she needs the support of moderates. It’s what politicians do; it’s what Trump is doing with the abortion issue. But they can’t say that, because it implies a flexibility of belief that looks bad. Instead, Harris declared, “I will not ban fracking,” which sounded definitive, but left the initial question unanswered.
In a similar vein, Trump was asked whether he regrets any action he took during the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. Instead of answering the question, he blamed the government’s response that day on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Then he changed the subject, recalling that in 2020 protesters “took over a big percentage of Seattle.” (It was six blocks.)
Regarding Israel, Harris said that the Jewish homeland needs to defend itself, and was right to react to Hamas’s attack, which killed 1,200 of its people — but after killing some 40,000 Gazans, Israel has to stop. Harris endorsed the two-state solution, so that the Palestinians could have a state of their own — a solution not favored by the Netanyahu government. This is one of her clearest answers. Trump responded lamely by saying, “She hates Israel,” adding that if Harris is elected, Israel won’t exist two years from now.
Regarding Ukraine, Trump was asked twice whether he wanted Ukraine to win. He replied, “I want to end the war.” This was his way of saying no, he wanted Ukraine to give up trying to win and allow its sponsors to cut a deal. Regarding Afghanistan, Harris was asked whether she bore any responsibility for the embarrassing pullout of U.S. soldiers. Instead of answering the question, she slammed Trump for bypassing the Afghan government and talking directly with the Taliban.
He talked to them, he said, because they were the enemy. “She’s a horrible negotiator,” he said.
On and on it went. Whenever Trump was faced with a question he didn’t want to answer, his most common move was to talk about the border. He did it with economics. He did it with January 6. He did it with the 2020 election. He did it with immigration itself. Instead of talking about a reasonable immigration bill, he brought up Venezuela. “Crime is way down there because they sent their criminals here,” he said. “All over the world, crime is down except here.”
The moderator corrected him, saying that according to FBI statistics, crime in America has gone down. Trump called the FBI report “a fraud.” By my count, Trump started an argument with the moderator three times — once on FBI crime statistics, once on whether the fairness of the election of 2020, and once about immigrants in Ohio catching and eating cats. When the moderator said the local officials denied the cat-eating story, Trump responded that he’d seen it on television.
Apparently, Trump wasn’t entirely wrong. According to Reuters, a woman in Canton, Ohio, had been arrested for killing and eating a cat — but she wasn’t an immigrant.
I’m not sure that we were watching the same debate. Trump lies whenever his lips are moving, and makes completely bogus statements and exagerations all of the time–things that defy reason to any logical thinker. Trump focused on emotion and past grievance; Harris focused mostlty on future policy. To suggest any similarity in their performances prepetuates the current media habit of picking at Biden and Harris for any little thing, but giving Trump a pass for even the most outrageous assertions and behaviors. He has successfully numbed too much of the traditional media into complacency. The ABC moderators got outflanked by him time and again.
I fully agree with all of this. And the moderators gave Trump more opportunities to speak and more minutes of speaking time.
I simply don’t understand group think that results in reports that Harris was vague, lacking in policy specifics. She provided specifics all right ….as much as she could in the short time available in a debate, where the moderators were keeping her on time, but not Trump. She said yes, she’s pro fracking, yes, she’s promoting a tax package for parents of new children, of tax breaks for small businesses start-ups, and on….but when one media outlet reports that she was vague, seemingly the pundits will all fall in line. To compare her to Trump, and suggest that both were serving up gross exaggerations is just flat wrong. She was masterful. Trump made an utter ass of himself, with his lines about immigrants devouring cats and dogs, about the largest crowds of history, of how Harris is a Marxist, and on and on.
Here’s what I heard Mr T say;
“I pity the fool that votes against me and I’ve heard that in Seattle, immigrants are eating babies, and my numbers are bigger, because child care, if we stop allowing the marxist to abort them in the 3rd grade, as you know, will be fixed by the tariffs on the border wall. In conclusion: Victor Orban, strength, horror, World War Z, MAGA!”
I did see on TV somewhere that during the debate, Trump was endorsed by Bill the Cat. Thppt!
It’s not so much whether we were watching the same debate, but Mr.Ramsey used a narrow lens. The fact that politicians have, from deftly to clumsily, developed the art of answering questions they want to answer rather than the questions moderators ask, is a fundamental rule of office holders, whether in debates or interviews and news conferences.. At a rate of 65 to 35% of those polled during and after last night’s debate viewers and listeners thought VP Harris did a better job than former President Trump. That gets lost in Mr. Ramsey’s analysis.
But the writer points to a deeper problem.
Evasion is the order of the US debate format. The format of 2 minutes answers and i minute rebuttals dictates the shallowness at the base of Mr. Ramsey’s observations.
In much of Europe and Canada, often on much maligned government broadcast channels, discussion programs are offered, even required. Hour and half hours are devoted in an open format with a candidate or multiple candidates. Give and take, back and forth. None of these formats are perfect, but go much further shedding light rather than heat on political debate.
Mr> Herford is spot on.
I have advised trained candidates to answer the question they want asked. That is the rule given the format candidates are herded into. The TV networks are offering entertainment, that is political entertainment. Until last night, Donald Trump had mastered it.
The solution is simple enough: limit these debated to two nor three issues, say 30 minutes each for a 90-minute format.
The problem with that is the audiences would be much smaller, as most viewers want quick, short answers to difficult problems. So we gat stuck in the mud of “In 2021 in said. . . . .” There is back and forth, then on to the next topic.
So saying, last night was revealing is several important ways. Most importantly, Trump again displayed who he is. In Harris, we witnessed a younger, energetic, work-horse who has values and aspirations most of us can admire.
Perhaps they should use the structure of high-school and collegiate debate competitions for these presidential debates.
Declare a statement such as “The United States should increase tax rates on corporations” or “The United States should increase its military presence in overseas conflict zones”. Then apply formal “Lincoln-Douglas” process: each candidates’ position, cross-examinations, rebuttals, closing statements.
That would get a clear picture of each candidate’s policy stances and how well they defend them from criticism. And it would sure as heck provide much more disciplined performances from them beyond easy sound bites.
You’re proposing a Lincoln-Douglas Debate, which would be fantastic, but no one would watch it. They didn’t live in the age of television and short attention spans. All you can do now is to read the originals and long for a bygone, more civil age.
The Trump-Harris handshake at the beginning was surprising, in light of not ever seeing Trump shake a hand at the beginning of a debate that I can remember.
And he didn’t try to grope her? They must have coached him.
The same happened in The West Wing, S7 E7, Live Debate Episode. Jimmy Smits walked right over and shook Alan Alda’s hand. It looks just like what we have now, 20 years later, with the same issues, but is much better. Fiction surpasses reality.
She changed her positions? That’s a kind of simple minded way of looking at it.
When I looked the fracking thing up, what I saw was “I won’t ban fracking.” I don’t know how much she knows about fracking, but let’s say she knows enough to know that it’s a climate problem, and she personally opposes it as much as she ever has. But as President, won’t impose a ban her constituency doesn’t support. Which is her position?
Let’s say she actually understands that there are practically no real world cases of late term abortion that come up without sufficient reason for it to make sense to leave this to the medical profession, so there really isn’t any sense in abortion bans of any kind – but she knows the country isn’t ready for their President to go there. What is her position?
Etc. You’re disappointed you can’t blast her for being an ideologue, so you blast her for not being an ideologue.
The “let’s be fair and impartial” mentality underlies and distorts election coverage on CNN and the NY Times. It’s unbelievable that experienced journalists find ways to sanitize Trump’s endless stream of lies, distortions, nonsensical rambling, exaggerations, insults and fantasies while expecting Harris to adhere to some impossibly idealistic and impractical version of the ideal candidate with brilliant solutions to every problem and crisis in the world. And make no mistake we are in crisis here. What is the point of criticizing Harris for not giving out specific instructions to get everyone on a lifeboat while acknowledging Trump for rearranging the deck chairs? We have two months to get people who are in a trance to pay attention and listen to real facts. Stop being “fair” to the point of being irrelevant. Be honest, for sure, but for God’s sake have a purpose and a position beyond always finding a way to say something nice about Trump and critical of Harris.
The only news organization I can think of it that touted it’s “fairn and balanced” work was Fox cable news. Roger Ailes invited that phrase. Journalists at thre NYTimes and elsewhere often defend their work as “fair” and that is indeed a standard. Being “impartial” is a challenge evety journalist faces and we spent most of the time losing that battle.
I understand your frustration as one who considers Donald Trump anathema when anything mitigates a totally negative view of the man and his administrations. The fact remains, as flawed as he may have been and is, his administration did have a few plusses. Pre Covid the US unemployment rate hit 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years. Stock markets hit new highs if you consider that a plus. The First Step Act of 2018 took steps to reduce recidivism in penal systems. He did have a few people in what he came to call the Deep State who did good work despite the boss.
No, I disagree profoundly with this: “The fact remains, as flawed as he may have been and is, his administration did have a few plusses.”
I guess it depends on your viewpoint, but even a cursory check online of his record show a pretty abysmal record.
According to Fact Check.Org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, Trump’s time in office didn’t produce rosy financial results. And there were some pretty dire results.
While the stock market did rise to new highs, and weekly earnings were up, unemployment went very high. Yes, a lot of it occurred as a result of Covid, but Trump’s pathetic ‘leadership’ during Covid HAS to be factored in.
Moreover, during his four years, acc. to the Annenberg project:
* The economy lost 2.7 million jobs.
* The unemployment rate increased by 1.7 percentage points to 6.4%.
* Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 8.4% after inflation. That’s certainly good. And so were corporate tax profits. But:
* The international trade deficit Trump promised to reduce WENT UP. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 36.3% from 2016.
* The number of people who went without health insurance rose by 3 million.
* The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.
* Illegal immigration increased. Apprehensions at the southwestern border rose 14.7% in 2020, compared with 2016.
* Coal production declined 26.5%, and coal-mining jobs dropped by 25%.
Trump promised to bring steel manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. That was a primary component of his electioneering promise. At that, he failed miserably. According to Reuters, the higher steel prices that resulted from Trump’s tariffs resulted in many states shedding steel manufacturing jobs.
According to a Reuters story of October 9, 2020, headlined, “Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan” :
“…Four years later, Great Lakes Works – once among the state’s largest steel plants – has shut down steelmaking operations and put 1,250 workers out of a job.
That looks like an abysmal record to me.
In one sense you make my point. There were a few plusses out of the Trump years according to your recitation of the Annenberg project. My point remains that there is no virtue trying to declare a black picture of someone you don’t agree with. If a politician’s policies produce overall negative results their administration is likely to lose. Trump lost. Why is it necessary to say all bad? Does that mean a favored candidate has to be all good? Those requirements have created the current bifurcated world. Real life is nuanced and complex. Navigating those complexes and nuances is what citizenship needs to be about.
It’s not the way I’m framing Trump’s time in office that makes him seem bad. It WAS bad. A very few pluses, which he can’t take credit for, don’t begin to make up for the decline Americans experienced during his four years. I didn’t begin to list all of the things in the Annenberg report. Why not just say, ” it was a terrible time in America. “To bend over backwards to try to make him seem less than awful doesn’t serve any purpose that I can see.
Vintage Trump last night. Bombast, lies, unhinged rants, racism, cruelty, bitterness, threats, anger, whining, demented spewing, hatred of the rule of law and democracy, and always shirking responsibility for his actions. To find him trustworthy at any level is baffling. He worked, as usual, from the Roy Cohn play book. Never apologize. Never admit responsibility. Blame someone else. Always. Trump certainly proved vividly that he is unfit for any public office, let alone the presidency. In contrast, Vice President Harris deftly demonstrated that she is uniquely qualified to lead America forward as our next president.
The breathtaking cruelty of his taunts about Haitian immigrants in Ohio stealing and eating neighborhood cats and dogs has not only been repeated by Trump and Vance, they now seem to include geese in the list of imaginary victims. I’m sure hamsters and pet snakes will be included in the carnage toll. And…irony of ironies! he heard this all on TV, says the man who decries “fake media”. It would all be hilarious, if it weren’t for credible reports of threats against Haitians in that small town. And the certainty that those taunts must be hurtful for those Haitians. I know I would rather live and work among them than beside the criminal Donald Trump. No contest.
It’s hard to believe that there was a time that Mr. Ramsey was taken seriously as a journalist in this town. But now that he’s letting his freak flag fly, here we are.
Presidential elections are not won on precise portfolios of policy proposals. Look at what they did for Hillary Clinton. It just gave the commentariat, who already had a fraught relationship with Clinton, fuel for more criticism in order to feed their 6-hour news cycle.
Instead presidential elections are won general vibes. Trump wins with people who want to take a sledge hammer to the elites and liberals, and Harris is trying to attract folks who want a normal rational country.
Granted reporters who are on Harris’s plane are lamenting the fact they have to set through the same stump speech over and over, and are intensely jealous of their colleagues who are on the Trump bus, as Trump makes news ever six hours, just by saying crazy. Are reporters driven by telling the truth or just trying to get on the front page?
Not quite fair about reporters. I have been a reporter/producer on Presidential and campaigns for Governor. In fact it s an advantage knowing stump speeches buy heart. That was permits enterprise reporting because in factevery venue is different, except where Trump’s MAGA audiences tend to be a bit cookie cutter. But even there, ask the right questions and you can get interesting insights into ther public as well as how the campaign may be going.
The media sure didn’t give Joe Biden a pass. How come they’re still not calling out Donald Trump’s age and cognitive decline?
I’m with Trish all the way. As far as which network invented the phrase “fair and impartial” – who cares? That was not my point. I’m afraid Mr. Herford, to quote Mick Jagger, is “practicing the art of deception”. Or at the very least misconstruing my comment and Ms. Saunders. In fact doing exactly what I was pointing out, which is finding some tiny particle of value in the Trump years in order to off-set all the rest. Back to the actual main point – the so-called liberal media gets a big ‘F’ on their coverage. Had I the time I would point to more specifics. But with 50 years as a journalist behind me (not just wine writing) I know a skunk when I smell one.
I stand by the principle that suggests you are right to defend your position of the total evil of Donald Trump. By the same token I continue to suggest that demonizing those we don’t like, disagree with, consider a danger to society and democracy is not productive as it hardens the shrinking but still significant people who try to understand the enemy without writing them off as pure and evil demons. I did not suggest that seeing something other than all negatives in Trump offsets anything. The “liberal” in the what is left of the best of institutional media knows that the facile approach of writing off a Trump will not advance the dialogue and information I suggest. I enjoy your writing on wines and have learned a lot from them. Fortunately while tastes vary widely wine does not lend itself to the absolutes you suggest in your view of the demon Trump.
Demonizing a candidate and apocalyptic predictions lead to attempts on the candidate’s life. This is extraordinary. The rhetoric should be denounced as the root cause, in addition to violence and the gun culture.
We are not the Weimar Republic.
Says who? It’s looking very 1933 around here to me. When you have an authoritarian actually using phrases like “poisoning the blood of our nation” and 40% of the population eating it up it’s really actually Nazi time now, dude.
Own it, Mein Herr.
Ah, the old “both candidates are similar” bullshit. Unsubscribe.
I would like to “de-bait the debate”. On October 1 there will be a Vice Presidential Debate, hosted by CBS news. Might be interesting, just to see Walz. This column has the longest list of comments I’ve ever seen in Post Alley. You struck a nerve.