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Two Opinion writers break down the Trump-Harris debate.

By Michelle Goldberg and Patrick Healy

Produced by Vishakha Darbha

Michelle Goldberg, the Times Opinion columnist, and Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, discuss the best and worst moments of the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Will Harris’s apparent debate night victory matter to the swing state voters who can make the difference?

Below is a lightly edited transcript of the audio piece. To listen to this piece, click the play button below.

Patrick Healy: Tonight was a crucial moment in this strange, chaotic, unpredictable presidential race. All eyes had been on Kamala Harris, and given her short time as a candidate, she hasn’t had many of these spontaneous and unscripted moments to really show herself and prove herself to a lot of voters.

And Michelle, you said before the debate that beyond any specifics on policy, the only thing that really mattered is if Kamala Harris wins it. So how are you feeling about how she did tonight?

Michelle Goldberg: I mean, she won it. I don’t think there’s any question about that.

I was extremely anxious coming into this because the stakes are so incredibly high, and Kamala Harris hasn’t always been the best at speaking extemporaneously. She can sometimes lapse into word salad.

And she was, maybe, a little bit nervous, a little bit shaky at the very beginning. But then she found her footing. She baited Trump and he took the bait every single time. He ranted incoherently. She gave these crisp, concise answers.

She didn’t get hung up on explaining her past positions, but I also don’t think that she came off as evasive. I mean, maybe somebody who was less enraptured of finally seeing somebody take it to Donald Trump would have seen it differently.

One sign of how well she did is that conservatives are apoplectic about the moderators and saying how unfair this was to Trump, when I think the one place where the moderators really did do Kamala Harris a favor was in letting Trump talk so much. I believe he spoke much more than she did, and the more he spoke, the more angry and unhinged he seemed.

Healy: You’re so right about just from the moment that the debate started, she went on offense. She had that great boss moment at the beginning where she came right over to Trump and shook his hand and introduced herself. She just went on offense so quickly and over and over again, put out that bait. And it’s so strange because Trump and his advisers knew that kind of strategy was coming at them and yet he just fell for it over and over again. Did that surprise you, or is it just Donald Trump can’t help himself?

Goldberg: Can I say something about that moment? This whole debate was very cathartic, I think not just for somebody who watched in horror, the debate that ended Joe Biden’s campaign.

To me it really felt like coming full circle from that debate where Trump stalked Hillary Clinton around the stage and tried to physically intimidate her.

And what Kamala Harris did right from the get go was physically get in Donald Trump’s space. Like, physically seize the initiative. You could see on the split screen, she’s looking at him, he can’t look at her. He’s so discomfited by her.

And yes, this was no secret, her campaign was saying over and over again, they’re going to bait him, they’re going to try to get under his skin. Maybe I worried a little bit that it wouldn’t work, in part because it was so telegraphed. Could Donald Trump maintain the challenge of seeming normal for 90 minutes? He’s done it sort of at certain points in the past.

But I think that Donald Trump doesn’t change. And they made a bet, which I think is a good one, on the force of his incredible narcissism overcoming whatever preparation he managed to sit through. Time after time, he had to answer on the Central Park Five, he had to answer on the inheritance that he got from his father. Every time that they were on territory that might have been a little bit more favorable to him, or dangerous to her, she was able to completely sidetrack him by making him defend these really irrelevant points.

Healy: Did Harris take Trump down, Michelle?

Goldberg: Well, what does it mean to take Trump down? I feel like she humiliated him. I feel like there was something very cathartic in having somebody finally say to his face, that you’re a disgrace. There was one moment where she seemed to be kind of searching for........

© The New York Times