I was hoping to see a debate last night between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Instead, unfortunately for America, our prediction that ABC News’s moderators would treat Trump worse than Gitmo interrogators treat Khalid Sheik Mohammed came true. In fact, it was worse than even we could imagine.

The event was a mugging. Three against one. Harris surrogates — I mean, moderators — David Muir and Linsey Davis were throwing high heat at Trump’s head all night and underhanded lobs to Harris. Harris sprouted lie after lie after lie without challenge from the moderators, but they jumped in on Trump with “fact-checks” that had little to do with facts.  

For example, when Trump stated that “fact-checked” former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam advocated abortion after birth, Davis chimed in with the first “fact-check” of the night, saying, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.” As Just the News pointed out, this ignores the eight babies (at least) who died after botched abortions in Tim Walz’s Minnesota alone since he took office in 2019. All told, according to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, 15 states and the District of Columbia allow a baby who survives an abortion to be left to die.

And the questions? All of those were on Harris’s turf and terms. They may as well have been:

“President Trump, when did you stop beating your wife?”

“Vice President Harris, what do you think about Trump beating his wife?”

How on earth would moderators from ABC News not ask a single question predicated on the assassination attempt on Trump that took place just two months ago? Especially with the security failures of an agency under the Biden-Harris administration’s control? How on earth could they not ask how long Harris knew about Biden’s cognitive incapacity or the process that saw the wishes of 14 million primary voters flushed away to replace him with her on the presidential ticket?

Considering what Trump was up against, the fact that he managed to battle the trio to a draw — and kept his composure in the process — is quite something. Always the optimist, Trump declared afterward, “I thought this was my best debate EVER, especially since it was THREE ON ONE!”

He even hung out in the spin room to take questions from reporters afterward while Harris fled the building like Elvis after a show in Vegas. (Or more accurately, a Venezuelan gang member after an ambush.)

Meanwhile, Harris’s team now says, “Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?”

Trump told Hannity he’d think about it.

We think he should do it. Harris will never have as favorable conditions elsewhere as she had with ABC News.

Harris Did What She Had to Do

Kamala Harris did what she was coached to do: attack Trump at every turn, keep to the script, not create any of her infamous word salads, and lie out of both sides of her mouth because  the moderators wouldn’t challenge her, making Trump out to be a dangerous devil. In one 30-second span, she managed to throw in the false and long-disproven claims about Trump’s comments on Charlottesville, the “bloodbath,” and disrespecting the military. We’re surprised she didn’t blame Trump for the “attack” on her pal Jussie Smollett.

To list all the falsehoods uttered in the debate would take hours. Harris accused Trump of seeking a national abortion ban, an IVF ban, a birth-control ban, a national sales tax, and said he plans to implement Project 2025. (She then said Trump “has no plan.”) She repeatedly brought up the criminal cases against him — but rather than asking about her Department of Justice going after Trump, the moderators asked her about Trump saying he wants to prosecute those who rig elections.

Harris lied about wanting to ban fracking. She lied about not wanting to take guns away, when she supports mandated gun buybacks and just last week talked about an assault weapons ban. She lied about officers being killed on January 6. Heck, she lied about being there in the Capitol during the riot.

The moderators did not press her at all about her radical positions. They asked her more about Trump’s comments than her own.

They also did not pressure Harris when she avoided key questions. Off the bat, they asked whether Americans are better off now than four years ago. She did not answer that crucial question, instead talking about her middle-class background. (She grew up in a wealthy Canadian neighborhood, but never mind that. She may as well have echoed the old Steve Martin line. “I was born a poor black child.”)

Harris repeatedly tried to peg Trump as “extreme,” which is a lot easier when the moderators aren’t asking about your very extreme, radical statements.

And so it went all night, with Harris offering all manner of prepackaged fluff while acting as if she had no hand in the disasters of the past four years. As for her proposals, Trump asked this simple question in his closing:

“They’ve had three and a half years to fix the border, three and a half years to create jobs, and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it?”

Really? January 6 Was Worse Than 9/11?

Being handed the gift of the “moderators” bringing up January 6, Harris said, “Donald Trump left us with the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War.” That leaves out the Japanese attacking America at Pearl Harbor and the Islamists attacking America exactly 23 years ago today — an especially egregious statement.

For that matter, hearing about attacks on democracy from a woman who wants to jail her opponent and willingly took the place of the duly nominated presidential candidate who was shoved aside because it was determined he could not win the race is hysterical.

Kudos to Trump for pointing out how Nancy Pelosi was caught on film confessing that she bore responsibility for failing to protect the Capitol after rejecting Trump’s offer of National Guard troops.

The Likeability and Leadership Question

How did Harris do in two areas where she is lacking? Likability and Leadership. You can’t declare yourself a leader if you need to have the debate moderators coddling you and beating up your opponent. (Sorry. That’s just the way it is.) Muir and Davis aren’t going to be there to help when she’s at summits with Xi and Putin.

Will people respond positively to Harris’s unrelenting attacks on Trump? Her facial expressions? Her vagueness? Even the hand on the chin gesture. Did she connect with real people and not just media pundits with all that? Did she come across as real? Someone you’d want to listen to for four years?

We’ll have to see.

Trump Missed Opportunities, Fell Into a Couple of Traps, But Did Score

Had it been a one-on-one battle, Trump could have ended Kamala Harris’s campaign last night. Even with the three-on-one battle, he had opportunities to nail Harris that he didn’t take. While he did try to turn questions and rebuttals to his advantage, too often he got suckered into talking about subjects having no bearing on lives today.  For example, he was goaded into defending his rallies, rather than simply saying, “Why are we talking about rallies? Nobody goes to yours who isn’t bussed in,” and moving on. Or even tougher, “Don’t you dare talk about my rallies. A good man was just murdered at my rally because of your rhetoric and incompetence!”

He also took the bait when asked about 2020. All he needed to say was, “Does anyone really believe JOE BIDEN got 81 million legitimate votes?” and move on to what Biden-Harris did when they got into office.

However, Trump did repeatedly turn his focus to the deadly flood of illegal immigration and how it’s destroying towns across America. He brought up the situation in Springfield, Ohio, where Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets. Rather than force Harris to respond to that and the migrant crime wave around the country, Muir quickly interjected that the Springfield city manager denied this is happening — even though earlier in the evening The Federalist released audio of a citizen calling 911 to report four Haitians making off with four geese from a local park. Then there’s the word of the citizens themselves.

NEW—Our @FrontlinesTPUSA team visited Springfield, OH today. EVERYONE they spoke to has heard stories of people's pets being eaten as well as ducks and geese disappearing.

Residents describe it as a "tinderbox" and a "time bomb" ready to go off.

Watch. pic.twitter.com/dWc73CeINw

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 10, 2024

Again, Muir did Harris’s job for her. Is he also going to be there when the phone rings at 3 a.m.? 

Trump pointed out that she and Biden could close the border immediately. He suggested that Harris leave the debate immediately to go back to D.C. and get Biden “out of bed” to sign an executive order. “I’ll leave with you,” he said.

Trump tried to get Harris to explain whether she supports abortion in the seventh and eighth trimesters. Of course, she wouldn’t answer, and her BFFs at the moderator table weren’t going to ask.

The former president did get to flip one of Harris’s favorite lines on her, at one point saying, “I’m talking now, please. Does that sound familiar?”

Who Ultimately Won the Debate? 

We knew that short of wetting herself on live TV, Harris was going to be declared the winner by the media. However, the media’s ability to spin these days is somewhat mitigated by social media. Which clips make the noise? Which soundbites and memes make the rounds? What becomes the dominant public takeaway? What perception is left? How much will the clear unfairness of the debate affect voters? How much will Harris exceeding expectations factor in, or will her aggressive manner be a turn-off? 

Or maybe the debate has no impact, and voters go back to basics: “My life and finances were better under Trump, worse under Biden and Harris, and Harris didn’t explain why she can now fix the problems that she helped create.”

In other words, for all of the case against Trump being prosecuted by Harris and her friends and partners at ABC News, it all comes back to the first question of the night — the one Harris refused to answer: “Are Americans better off than they were four years ago?”

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.