Image: Video screengrab, C-Span
Image: Video screengrab, C-Span
Donald Trump went toe to toe with a woman who could put him away with a smile. The looks Vice President Harris shot at Trump were pure kryptonite to his lies.
Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
Last night was a master class in the use of body language and facial expression as rebuttal in a debate. When Kamala Harris was first asked by one of the moderators if she wanted to respond to a string of lies Trump had just spewed, she answered by launching into a recitation of her plans for the future of health care and housing and lowering taxes on the middle class. It made me wonder why she wasn’t taking the opportunity to poke holes in Trump’s nonsense.
It turned out that she had learned one of the oldest debate tricks in politics—nodding in the direction of a question and then taking charge by talking about what she wanted to discuss.
The big turning point in the debate happened early on. Trump was more or less holding his own until the subject turned to abortion, and he started ranting about how Democrats were in favor of “executions” of babies that had just been born. As expected, Trump then told his lie that “everybody” wanted Roe v. Wade gone, that he and the Supreme Court had done everyone a favor.
When Harris took her turn, she ignored his bullshit and drilled down on the reality of the issue, that women in some 20 states are denied the right to abortion and how it is life-threatening for women who are unable to receive emergency care during miscarriages and other problem pregnancies. To put away Trump’s lie that “everyone, even Democrats” wanted to end Roe, Harris gave the example of a “12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. They don’t want that,” she said with finality.
You could have heard the proverbial pin hit the proverbial floor.
When the ABC moderator turned to immigration, supposedly Trump’s strongest issue, the first question went to Harris, and instead of being defensive, she attacked Trump for ordering Republicans not to pass the bi-partisan immigration deal that would have increased funding for the Border Patrol and reduced the flow of drugs across the border. Trump didn’t want to solve the problem, she said. He wanted the issue of immigration to run on.
With a wry smile on her face, she then changed the subject and cheerily invited everyone to attend one of Trump’s rallies, assuring them they will find it a “really interesting thing to watch.” She went on to mention his rants about windmills causing cancer and Hannibal Lecter as if they were coming attractions. Then she lowered the boom: in a relaxed manner, almost as an aside, she said people would see how many people leave Trump’s rallies before they end “out of exhaustion and boredom.”
Red-faced and enraged, Trump took the bait and went on the defensive, bragging that “we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.” When Trump veered off, talking about immigrants eating cats and dogs in Ohio, Kamala Harris just turned to look at him with a quizzical expression that unmistakably telegraphed, are you out of your mind?
It was over for Trump after that. Harris could trigger him by resting her chin on her hand and delivering another of her mystified smiles. She hadn’t just gotten under his skin, she had taken up residence there, and all the red-faced ranting and raging Trump did from then on couldn’t dislodge her.
Going into the debate, everyone on some level already knew that Trump is out of his mind. What Kamala Harris did was get Trump to confirm it in real time. For the rest of the debate, he couldn’t stop himself. He was already going to tell lie after lie after lie, but it was how he did it that killed him on the stage. He babbled, he sputtered, he couldn’t express a coherent thought.
Kamala Harris, already the Vice President, looked presidential standing next to a man who couldn’t help himself from bringing his rage-tweets to life with his grimacing face and nonsensical magical mystery tour through his addled brain.
At the end of the debate, Trump did what losers do after they know they lost. He went into the spin room filled with reporters and whined about how unfair the debate was, how it was “three against one.”
No, it wasn’t. Donald Trump went toe to toe with a woman who could put him away with a smile. The looks Vice President Harris shot at Trump were pure kryptonite to his lies. All over the internet this morning the pundits are asking, is this the beginning of the end for Trump?
Kamala Harris answered that question last night, and Taylor Swift drove her answer home when she signed her endorsement of Harris, “Childless cat lady.” The buffoonerization of MAGA is underway. Take heart, and then take yourself to your polling place and vote.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
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