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Who came out on top, when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump shared the stage for 90 minutes in Philadelphia? Members of the Journal’s editorial board react on the issues, the candidates’ presentations, standout moments and more.
Viewers hoping this debate would be the moment Kamala Harris finally had to answer for a dismal Biden-Harris record were sorely disappointed. Ms. Harris deftly changed the subject on nearly every direct question she was asked, and neither the moderators nor Donald Trump pressed her on the omissions.
The first question of the night was on the top issue of the economy, and the central problem of President Biden’s inflation. Ms. Harris skated away from it to wax on about her “opportunity economy.” Asked to explain why the administration maintained Donald Trump’s tariffs on China (given her criticism of tariffs now), she pivoted to semiconductor manufacturing. Asked if she supported any restrictions on abortion, even in later pregnancy, she said only that she supports Roe v. Wade. Asked about Mr. Biden’s border chaos, she pretended the first three years of it never happened to meditate on a bill that failed to pass this year.
Queried about recent policy reversals, she promised to address several, then tackled only one by dodging her 2019 support for a fracking ban and pivoting to a story about her upbringing and her support for Social Security. Did she bear any responsibility for the horrific Afghanistan withdrawal? Ms. Harris ignored the question and said she agreed with Mr. Biden’s decision to get out.
Mr. Trump did a poor job of calling her out on these pivots and omissions, which would have been as easy as challenging her to answer the original question asked. But the result remains that many Americans remain in the dark as to Ms. Harris’s policies, past and future.
—Ms. Strassel is a member of the Journal’s editorial board. She writes the weekly “Potomac Watch” column.
The Fight in Philly was like the Thrilla in Manila, the third and final heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, which ended in victory for Ali. The hype beforehand was on the same scale as for this presidential debate. Though Donald Trump threw some good punches, Philadelphia was an upset victory for Kamala Harris.
Mr. Trump’s fans will complain about media bias, particularly in how the moderators felt free to “fact check” the former president’s claims while letting Ms. Harris off scot-free. And they would be right. The most egregious was probably when Ms. Harris resurrected the false claim that Mr. Trump called the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville “very fine people.”
Why wouldn’t she? Even though fact-checkers, including at the website Snopes, debunked the story, Joe Biden brought it up in his own career-ending debate with Mr. Trump and was not corrected by the moderator. Mr. Biden then brought it up again in his followup interview with Lester Holt—again without being corrected.
But as unfair as it may have been, it doesn’t change the fact that Tuesday night Kamala Harris baited Donald Trump. The result was that he appeared angry and defensive most of the night, while she remained calm and cool and smiling. It worked. Decision for the vice president.
—Mr. McGurn is a member of the Journal’s editorial board. He writes the weekly “Main Street” column.
If Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, which he might, we can count it as one more reminder that abysmal debate performances have often been overcome. Joe Biden’s implosion earlier this summer is almost certainly a historical anomaly, the consequence of a sitting president’s senility.
As for Mr. Trump’s presentation Tuesday night, it was terrible. He let Kamala Harris provoke him to anger, ranted about the 2020 election, constantly interrupted his own assertions, and failed to capitalize on obvious vulnerabilities. Mr. Trump was handed an opportunity to call attention to Ms. Harris’s many and dramatic policy reversals, but he spoke in circumlocutionary fragments. When Ms. Harris brought up Charlottesville and Mr. Trump’s supposed inability to condemn white supremacists there, he might easily have brought up her—and Mr. Biden’s—failure to condemn the infinitely more widespread phenomenon of campus antisemitism. He only rambled.
Ms. Harris offered a defense of her policy U-turns and came up with a characteristic word salad. But she mostly remained polished, while saying very little. Mr. Trump’s closing statement—pointing out that Ms. Harris speaks airily about the things she intends to do, as if she’s not already vice president—was excellent. But by that point the debate was over.
The good news for Mr. Trump is that most ordinary voters either didn’t watch or, if they did, won’t remember what they saw a week from now.
—Mr. Swaim is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
Kamala Harris spent the debate bobbing and weaving, while Donald Trump mostly shadow-boxed. Are Americans better off than they were four years ago? Ms. Harris side-stepped the question, blaming Mr. Trump for the Covid pandemic and its consequent economic damage. Why hasn’t the Biden administration removed Mr. Trump’s tariffs? She answered by accusing him of increasing the trade deficit with China.
Why did she reverse her 2019 support for a fracking ban? She didn’t explain. Instead, she boasted about providing the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which she said increased leases for fracking. That’s false, but Mr. Trump didn’t nail her on it. He let too many of her whoppers go unrebutted, as he ran off on tangents and relitigated the 2020 election.
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Mr. Trump landed some powerful punches, such as noting how the Biden administration’s relaxation of oil sanctions against Iran enabled the mullahs to arm Hamas. He also highlighted the contradiction between the administration’s cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline and its waiving of sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The former would have boosted U.S. and Canadian energy while the latter sought to make Europe more dependent on Russian gas.
All that said, it looks like Mr. Trump threw away his chance to deliver some knock-out blows, and he may not get another.
—Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board. She writes the weekly “Life Science” column.
Not even the mute button could save him this time. Twenty-five minutes into Tuesday night’s debate, Kamala Harris invited viewers “to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies,” where they’d see him talk “about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter,” and they’d notice “that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.” It was an obvious taunt. As Mr. Trump’s retort began to veer off course, Ms. Harris looked almost giddy.
“We have the biggest rallies,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s because people want to take their country back.” The U.S., he continued, is a failing nation. “You’re going to end up in World War III, just to go into another subject.” In Ohio, immigrants are eating people’s dogs and cats, “they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” (Moderator: “The Springfield city manager says there’s no evidence of that.”)
Mr. Trump went on to say that the FBI’s crime statistics are “a fraud,” and the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs numbers are “a fraud,” and the 2020 election was, yes, still a fraud, and “they should have sent it back to the legislatures.” About the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, he regrets nothing. Then World War III again. What of this is supposed to reassure suburbanites who worry that Mr. Trump is too erratic to put back in the Oval Office?
Ms. Harris, in contrast, sounded practiced in addressing her big vulnerability, which is that her record is seriously to the left of the median voter. Didn’t she want to ban fracking as recently as five years ago? Well, yes. “I will not ban fracking,” she said Tuesday night. Didn’t she call in 2019 for “a mandatory gun buyback program”? Again, yes. She addressed that with two declarative sentences: “Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.” What about Medicare for All? “Well, first of all, I absolutely support, and over the last four years as vice president, private healthcare options.”
This isn’t convincing as a change of heart. But it also isn’t the debate moment that’s likely to stick.
—Mr. Peterson is a member of the Journal’s Editorial Board.
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