Donald Trump and Kamala Harris met for the first time on the presidential debate stage in Philadelphia and in a fiery 90 minutes, Harris frequently rattled the former president with personal attacks that threw him off message and raised the temperature of this highly-anticipated contest.
Harris pointed digs at the size of his rally crowds, his conduct during the Capitol riot, and the officials who served in his administration who have since become outspoken critics of his campaign repeatedly left Trump on the back foot.
The pattern for much of this debate was Harris goading her Republican rival into making extended defenses of his past conduct and comments.
Trump gladly obliged, raising his voice at times and shaking his head.
Harris says Americans should go to a Trump rally, during an early question about immigration, because they were illuminating, people start leaving the rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.
That barb rattled the former president, as he then spent most of his answer – on a topic that should have been one of his main areas of strength – defending his rally sizes and belittling hers.
Trump went from there to an extended riff on a debunked report that Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio, were abducting and eating their neighbors’ pets.
If debates are won and lost on which candidate best takes advantage of issues where they are strong and defends or deflects on areas of weakness the debate tilted in favor of the vice-president.
Source: BBC
