Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spar in Philadelphia debate: She landed punches, and he took the bait

PHILADELPHIA — Harris went on the offensive from the beginning of the night, casting the former president as the extreme candidate and baiting him by talking about issues known to irk him.

The most highly anticipated 90 minutes of the presidential campaign are over and the mics are off — for good.

Here’s what stood out from the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Harris landed several punches, and Trump took the bait

Harris went on the offensive from the beginning of the night, casting the former president as the extreme candidate and baiting him by talking about issues known to irk him, like supporters leaving his rallies early, world leaders calling him a “disgrace,” and noting the numerous criminal cases against him.

On several occasions, Trump took the bait and lashed out, even with his mic muted (though the moderators turned his mic on nearly every time he interjected).

For example, after Harris mentioned how “people start leaving his rallies early,” moderators asked Trump about immigration.

But rather than talk about what is one of his strongest issues, Trump went on a tangent about his campaign events, calling them the “most incredible rallies in the history of politics.” He falsely said Harris’ rally attendees were bussed in and paid to attend, and claimed President Joe Biden “hates her, he can’t stand her.”

Trump has tried to frame Harris as a weak candidate. But for 90 minutes, Harris had Trump on the ropes. She cast him as a self-absorbed leader who “adore[s] strong men instead of caring about democracy.” She said Russian President Vladimir Putin would “eat” Trump “for lunch.”

For Trump, one of the biggest questions going into the debate was whether he could stay disciplined and stick to the issues. There were many moments when provoked by Harris he showed the pugnacious side that has alienated some voters.

Harris pivots from Trump’s outrageous claims by trying to appeal to the center

Trump spent much of the debate casting Harris as too liberal, at one point calling her a “Marxist,” but the vice president was clearly making a play for the center. She said she and her running mate are both gun owners, touted endorsements from Republicans, and referred to the “late, great John McCain,” the 2008 GOP presidential nominee.

Perhaps most notably, Trump amplified a story from this week about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, which has been thoroughly debunked. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump falsely claimed.

Harris pivoted to touting her Republican support, rattling off the former Republican White House staffers who have endorsed her, including former Vice President Dick Cheney.

When Trump refused to say he would have done anything differently to prevent the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Harris suggested that Republicans turned off by Trump’s election lies could vote against him.

“Let’s not go back. We’re not going back. It’s time to turn the page,” she said. “And if that was a bridge too far for you, there is a place in our campaign for you.”

And when Trump was asked about his past statements suggesting Harris — who is Black and South Asian — recently “became a Black person” for political gain, the former president seemed to double down, saying “whatever she wants to be is OK with me.”

Harris tried to use it as a unifying moment. While she took on the issue head-on by ticking through Trump’s history, she also said most Americans “want better.”

“We don’t want this kind of approach that is just constantly trying to divide us,” she said, “and especially by race.”

Both addressed their vulnerable issues — with varying success

Asked at the very top of the debate if Americans are better off economically than they were four years ago, Harris sidestepped the question and instead stressed she had the better economic plan for the future.

Polls show voters trust Trump more on the economy by about 10 percentage points and Trump pounded the topic on Tuesday, accusing Harris via the Biden administration of causing inflation, which has slowed since its peak but prices remain high.

“People can’t go out and buy cereal or bacon or eggs,” Trump said. “The people of our country are absolutely dying with what they’ve done.”

While the economy shows low unemployment and job gains across industries, Americans remain frustrated with the inflated cost of everyday items. And in Pennsylvania, job gains have been slower than in other states.

Harris tried to counter that by casting Trump’s economic plan as fundamentally for the rich. She said he plans to cut taxes for billionaires and corporations, and referred to his plan to levy an across-the-board tariff on all imports as a “Trump sales tax.”

If the economy was Harris’ toughest issue to tackle, abortion rights was Trump’s. Harris has been the White House’s most prominent advocate for abortion access and it showed on the debate stage.

In polling, the issue remains a weak point for Trump with most voters. Trump said by appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade he gave people “what they wanted,” by returning decisions regarding reproductive rights to the states. But Harris seized on that turn of phrase.

“A pregnant woman who wanted to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because their healthcare providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in a parking lot,” Harris said. “She didn’t want that.”

Trump struggled to respond, saying” “It’s a lie. I’m not signing a ban, and there’s no reason to sign the ban because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted.”

Asked whether he would veto a federal abortion ban, Trump wouldn’t say except to say he had not discussed it with his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who suggested Trump would veto a federal ban.

Trump spent much of his time trying to tie Harris to Biden

Trump spent much of the night attacking Biden, repeatedly deriding him as an absent president, saying “he spends all his time on the beach” and “we don’t even know if he’s the president.”

And Trump attempted to tie Harris to the president, saying: “She’s worse than Biden. I think he’s the worst president in the history of our country. She goes down as the worst vice president in the history of our country.”

He also blamed Biden for the crisis at the border and described immigrants in derisive terms.

“These are the people that she and Biden let into our country, and they’re destroying our country,” he said. “They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality, and we have to get them out.”

Separating herself from Biden is a key challenge for Harris. He’s considered to be widely unpopular, but as vice president, she can’t credibly criticize his administration. She has largely remained in step with Biden from a policy perspective, but did cast herself as the candidate of the future.

“It’s important to remark that you’re not running against Joe Biden. You’re running against me,” Harris said during an answer to a question about the war in Ukraine.

She added later: “Clearly I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. What I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.”