Trump on the defensive, Harris on the offensive: Analysis and fact-checking of the debate battle of the year

Meta Description: Learn how Kamala Harris knocked Donald Trump off balance during the debate, using irony, wit, and precise arguments that boosted her ratings. Read the analysis of the key points and the reactions of experts.

In a discussion, the one who keeps a cool head usually wins, but makes the opponent hot, lose balance and make excuses. Even from everyday experience it is known that the best defense is an attack. In other words, a verbal attack on the enemy, which can be used to the maximum if you know his vulnerabilities. Kamala Harris has apparently been through boot camp ahead of the debate. She was not mistaken about Trump’s weak points, made him nervous and lose the main line of his speech.

As a result, Harris’ rating jumped up, and Trump’s position crawled down.

The debate caused a powerful resonance. The leading media wrote about them, opinion leaders responded on social networks. The conclusion, which can be summed up after a short monitoring of the evaluations and impressions of those who spoke about the duel of presidential candidates – Harris won. She was stronger in her position, clear in her wording, tough in her arguments. An ironic smile and wit often became her polemical weapons. Trump, on the other hand, looked a bit confused, spoke too emotionally and produced an extraordinary amount of lies, which fact-checkers have already pointed out to him.

Has Trump caught fire again?

Journalists immediately reacted to Trump’s lies CNN, pointing out that the former president lied when he said Vice President Kamala Harris wanted to end private health insurance and replace it with public health insurance.

The facts say otherwise: Trump’s statement is outdated. In 2019, during her first presidential campaign, Harris did support the idea of ​​eliminating private insurance as part of the Medicare for All program she co-authored with Senator Bernie Sanders. However, she later changed her position. In July 2019, Harris unveiled a plan to allow private insurers to offer Medicare plans that meet its cost-benefit requirements. As vice president, Harris supported strengthening the Affordable Care Act.

Trump also lied about “all NATO funds” provided by the USA – a country that, according to the former president, “is chosen by Europeans.” Official NATO figures show that in 2016, before Trump took office, US defense spending accounted for about 71% of NATO members’ total defense spending – the vast majority, but not “almost all”. And Trump’s statement is even more inaccurate if he was talking about direct contributions to NATO, which cover NATO’s organizational costs and are set based on the national income of each country. The US was responsible for about 22% of these contributions in 2016. The US share of total NATO military spending has fallen to around 65% in 2023. The US is now responsible for about 16% of direct contributions to NATO, as is Germany.

Trump “burned out” both in the statement that he “completed” the Nord Stream gas pipeline, and in his accusation of infanticide in individual states, and in the statement that under Biden, “crime in the country is skyrocketing.” Trump’s claims about rising crime are false. And while it’s true that the latest FBI data didn’t include some major cities, the crime count still shows a downward trend, with both violent and property crimes dropping significantly in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. Professional specialists were outraged by misleading statements about his role in strengthening the American armed forces. Trump’s claim that he has “rebuilt” the entire military is false. “This statement is not even close to the truth. The military has tens of thousands of pieces of equipment, and the vast majority of it was created before the Trump administration,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Trump also lied when he distanced himself from the January 6 storming of the Capitol, blaming then-House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi for not beefing up security.

In our opinion, it is important that, unlike the June debate between President Joe Biden and Trump, where the lies were not responded to in any way, this time the ABC News moderators spoke out against the former president’s misleading claims, in particular against his baseless remarks that Democrats support abortions after the birth of a child, or stories about Haitian immigrants eating pets in an Ohio city.

Prosecutorial methods of Harris

Agency Reuters spoke enthusiastically about the communication strategy of Harris, which forced the opponent to make excuses and lose the initiative in the discussion: “former prosecutor Harris repeatedly annoyed former President Trump. He looked angry and answered with a series of untruthful lines.”

Harris raised questions about Trump’s rallies, accusing him of saying that people often leave there “due to fatigue and boredom.” Trump, who was touched, said: “At my rallies, we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”

Then, apparently remembering that he was going to talk about migration, he moved on to the unsubstantiated claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the pets” of local residents.

“Talk about extremes,” Harris replied, laughing.

Edition “The Washington Post” also noted the effective communication tactics of Harris, which “prompted the former president to a lively response to the criminal charges brought against him” ()

Transition to personalities

The candidates debated issues such as immigration, foreign policy and health care, but the debate did not focus on the specifics of policy decisions, but rather demonstrated the tactics of switching to personality.

Harris’ tough approach has managed to draw attention to Trump himself, to the delight of allies and concern among some Republicans, who have admitted that their candidate is “struggling”.

“Trump missed an opportunity to focus on going after Biden and Harris on the economy and the border, and instead took her bait and went down rabbit holes of election denial and pet-eating immigrants.” – said Mark Short, who worked as the chief of staff of former Trump Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump, in turn, used the debate to attack Harris as a “Marxist” masquerading as a moderate politician and repeatedly addressed the issue of the US southern border, a topic on which voters trust him more than Harris.

According to the estimate “The Washington Post”, both sides approached their first debate eager for conflict after weeks of back-to-back attacks during the election campaign. They quickly switched to hard attacks. Harris’s attacks have been spot-on, while Trump has often deviated from the main message in response to her attempts to provoke him on sensitive topics such as rally attendance, losing the 2020 election and the fascination with authoritarian leaders.

As the publication notes The Guardian, “besides the differences in political positions, the candidates also demonstrated a different vision of the country. Trump promised the electorate to restore what he considers the glory of the past, and Harris announced hope for a bright future.”

According to the publication “The New York Times”, Kamala Harris dominated the first debate with Donald Trump, showing off her prosecutorial skills and taking every opportunity to rile up the former president in a 90-minute clash of visions and styles. Over the course of the evening, Trump found himself on the defensive, reviewing his job as president instead of criticizing Harris.

“The contrast was obvious even without a sound: she was smiling, he was looking maliciously. He spoke more, but she set the tone for the evening.” – writes the publication.

In other words, Harris set traps, and Trump jumped into them.

The international edition follows a similar assessment “Financial Times”: “Trump, the former Republican president, has been on the defensive for much of the live televised debate amid constant attacks from Harris, the Democratic vice president.”

Trump did not directly answer questions about Ukraine during the debate

When the moderator asked former President Donald Trump if he wanted Ukraine to win the war, Trump did not give a direct answer. Instead he said: “I want the war to end. I want to save the lives that are needlessly lost – people die by the millions”

“I want to end the war,” Trump added. “I know Zelensky and Putin well. I have a good relationship. And they respect your president. They respect me. They don’t respect Biden. How can you respect him?”

Kamala Harris responded by stating: “It’s important to remind the former president that you’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me.”