There’s almost no way to “win” a debate against a serially unserious liar like Trump, but if Harris can knock him off his vibe, she might stand a chance.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris, speaks during a debate on October 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, and Republican presidential candidate former president Donald Trump speaks during a debate on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)
Just between those of us on the pro-democracy side of the political ledger, I am terrified of the upcoming debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and felonious circus clown Donald Trump. That’s not just because I have PTSD from President Joe Biden’s literally career-ending debate performance this summer, and it’s not because I’m worried that Harris can’t out-argue an old, rambling man who gets lost on his way to a period.
My concern is that there is no way for Harris to win. Trump will meet expectations if he simply avoids committing violent crimes onstage; the only way for Harris to meet expectations is to demolish this fool, and make it look effortless while doing it.
The thing is: Demolishing Trump is actually very hard to do. I know it looks easy, because Trump is a liar, a criminal, and an idiot man-child who has become increasingly incoherent in his dotage. He is, as Harris has said, deeply unserious. But trust me: I have debated lying, unserious Republicans live on both stage and television, and defeating them is much more difficult than it seems like it should be.
The central problem is this: You—the expert who possesses real knowledge of the topics that are up for debate—are bound by a world that has rules. Your opponent, the lying propagandist and fabulist, is not. You can’t or won’t say things you know to be untrue; they can and will. You want the debate to be about policies (because you know that your policies are actually popular); they want the debate to be about personalities. Your mind is racing to convey as much information as possible in a 90-second response; their mouth is running to insult you or the people you care about as much as possible in 90 seconds. You are having a discussion based in reality; they are having a discussion meant for a reality-TV show. It’s an asymmetric war that you can’t really win.
Think about it this way: How should Harris handle one of the most obvious and consistent lies Trump is certain to tell during the debate? “Illegal immigrants are ruining the country because Harris supports open borders, which lets rapists and murderers into the country.” Trump will say that, or something to that effect, in response to any question about the “crisis” at the border. The (absolutely useless) moderators who ask the immigration question that Trump won’t answer will let this lie lie, as they always do, and it will fall to Harris to deal with the (completely false) “charge” that the border is a mess because she and Biden have embraced immigration policies that are too liberal.
Most likely, Harris will reiterate that she’s not for open borders, pivot to the conservative-friendly immigration deal that Trump scuttled, and maybe quote some stats about “illegal” crossings or deportations or something to show that the Biden-Harris administration has been “tough” on undocumented immigration and more effective than the Trump administration. That’s what the bog-standard political consultant book would tell her to do. That’s the safest way to answer that question.
It’s also an answer that doesn’t really get her anywhere. It accepts the racist and xenophobic premise of the question—that undocumented immigrants are “bad”—and reduces the debate to a question of who has the best plan to stop the bad guys. On that question, Harris can never win, because Trump’s vile and evil plan to deport people his government is unable to shoot or drown is more satisfying to the terrible humans who accept the premise of the question in the first place. The fact that Harris’s method of curtailing undocumented immigration is more effective than Trump’s (though not really more humane) will be completely lost on those who just want immigrants to face consequences for daring to make the country more brown.
I would answer the question differently, and not just because I believe in more liberal immigration policies than Harris’s. If I were the one debating Trump, I would say, “Immigrants are ruining the country? Donald, that’s a horrible thing to say about your wife, Melania, who I think is lovely.”
You see what I did there? First, I’ve pushed back on the core xenophobic underpinning of the Republican position (that immigrants are “bad”), but I’ve done it through a personal attack on Trump, one that also calls out the obvious hypocrisy of his stance on immigration. Except you can’t say that I “attacked” him because I literally called his mail-order wife “lovely.” More importantly, I’ve purposefully misconstrued Trump’s attacks on so-called “illegal” immigrants and re-characterized them as attacks on immigrants generally.
This answer also does something else: It dangles two kinds of “bait” in front of Trump—one based on policy, the other based on personality—and I’d be ready to pounce should he go for either. If Trump took the policy bait, he’d end up having to explain the differences between his stance on undocumented immigrants and those who arrive by other means… and I will bet all the money in my pocket that he is not intellectually capable of doing that in a coherent way.
If, instead, he took the personal bait and engaged in a discussion about his wife, I’ve essentially invited the public to remember his sordid marital history. If he overcompensated and defended his wife from the attack I didn’t really launch, then I swear the very next words out of my mouth would be “Stormy Daniels.” Either way, I win: Either Trump takes the policy bait and we’re now discussing the intricacies of immigration policy (like I want to), or he takes the personal bait and we’re talking about his felony conviction for paying hush money to a porn star (which, full disclosure, I also want to do).
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That’s just one example, but that’s what I’m thinking about when I am preparing to debate a bad-faith Republican opponent. How can I prod them in a way that either makes them revert back to policy (where I will destroy them) or opens them up to further additional attacks on their character? I basically want to make going toe-to-toe with me so unpleasant for them that they try instead to defend their policies. Because if I can get Republicans to talk about the horrible, ungenerous, unpopular policies they actually support, I usually win.
Still, there’s no pretending that Trump and Republicans like him are not difficult to debate, because even when you bait them into a policy discussion, they’re unfettered from the truth or reality. Trump doesn’t care about whether he’s getting his facts right. He doesn’t pause to consider the moderator’s question and respond appropriately. He’s not even bound by his own previous positions. He will just say whatever feels good in the moment, even if it has no relation to his actual agenda. Watch, at the debate he will try to claim that he is a moderate on abortion, even though his singular governmental achievement was laying the groundwork to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The one thing Trump is instinctively good at is knowing what plays well on television. It’s not that you can’t fact-check him; it’s that the fact-check doesn’t matter. He, and his supporters, literally do not care if he’s wrong, or lying, and the so-called “undecided” voters he’s speaking to stubbornly refuse to let information and knowledge cloud their seat-of-their-pants judgments. You can’t make better points than Trump, because Trump is not trying to make points; he’s trying to make a vibe.
What I try to do is knock people like this off their vibe. Most of them are bullies by training, so when you verbally punch them in the mouth, they become confused.
The best hope for Harris in this upcoming contest is to offer a better show. She has a better vibe. Trump is essentially in reruns, stringing together what few phrases he’s memorized like an aging pop star replaying their greatest hits. Harris is the new, exciting character on the scene, and if she attacks Trump like a soap-opera prosecutor—one who has mastered the dramatic pause, quick-fire cross-examination, and evidence bomb drop—she could make for very compelling TV.
Unfortunately, the media has already decided it wants a Trump reboot. Trump can do everything short of calling Harris the n-word, and commentators will say that he was being “authentic” (they’ll probably say that even if Trump does drop a racial slur at the debate). Should Harris try similar tricks, they’ll call her, of all people, the one who lacks substance.
Also, Harris happens to be a woman, and this misogynist country allows men to get away with being entertaining, petty, or insulting while it excoriates women who do the same. If Biden had made a Melania joke, people would have guffawed. If Harris makes one, it’ll be a four-day news cycle capped off by Megyn Kelly parodying Harris while wearing blackface. There is almost no way women are allowed to just “be” in public, but being more entertaining and charismatic than the white man is straight-up not allowed when you are a woman seeking real power.
So I have concerns ahead of this first (and hopefully only) debate between Harris and Trump. Trump is going to spend all of his time insulting Harris (there is zero chance he pronounces her name correctly), insulting brown people, insulting women, insulting grammar, and insulting the collective intelligence of the entire nation. Harris could match him, insult-for-insult, but if she does she’ll be criticized and he won’t. If she fact-checks his lies (since the moderators won’t), she’ll waste her time, but if she doesn’t, she’ll let him get away with them. If she gives nuanced answers, she’ll be called too wonky, but if she gives broad impressionistic answers, the media will say “both candidates told untruths” the morning after.
And the only people watching will either have made up their minds already or be low-information voters who will become fixated on some inconsequential thing that nobody could have predicted in advance. Heaven forfend if this woman laughs or doesn’t laugh or smiles or doesn’t or sounds stern or makes a weird face when Trump moves to physically intimidate her on stage. I can hear pollster Frank Luntz after the debate: “My focus group of 18 undecided voters who all voted for Trump at some time in the past and four Black Republicans says they really didn’t like the way Harris tossed her hair while explaining her racial identity to the strong white man.”
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I would like to encourage everybody to consume post-debate spin responsibly. We know the media is going to hold Harris to a different standard than Trump, and we can be almost sure that those same people will somehow find Harris lacking while Trump gets a free ride for his torrent of incoherent misinformation. We know that Harris could “win” the debate but lose the “show.” We know that Harris could win the debate and the show but still have to suffer old white men with television contracts taking potshots at her. The media is already sick of all the positive energy surrounding the Harris campaign; I expect they’ll use the debate to take as much steam out of her as possible.
Still, it surely can’t go any worse than the last one. My hope for the coming debate is that the Democrats come out of it with the same presidential candidate as they went into it with. If the debate does no harm, I’ll call that a win.
Elie MystalTwitterElie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent and the host of its legal podcast, Contempt of Court. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. His first book is the New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, published by The New Press. Elie can be followed @ElieNYC.