By any reasonable measure, Vice President Kamala Harris soundly defeated former President Donald Trump in Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
She did this by demonstrating superior knowledge not only of policy but also of her opponent’s psychology. Harris knew exactly how to infuriate Trump, get him to veer off course, and keep the debate on favorable ground.
To put it more clearly: Harris manipulated Trump several times during their first (only?) debate and sent him into a downward spiral.
Let me give you an example. Early in the debate, moderators tried to get Harris to address President Joe Biden’s unpopular immigration policies, asking her if there was anything she would have done differently than her current boss – a topic that suits Trump.
Harris answered the question, but then made a seemingly unrelated jab at Trump’s rallies.
“I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because they’re really interesting to watch. You’ll see that during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He’ll talk about how windmills cause cancer. And what you’ll also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” the vice president said.
So Trump was faced with a choice: either he would impeach Harris on immigration, an issue on which she is weak, or he would launch into a tirade in defense of his much-vaunted rallies. You can guess which he chose.
“Let me get to the rallies,” Trump said. “She said people were starting to leave. People aren’t going to her rallies. There’s no reason to. And the people who do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there.”
That began a downward spiral: a series of strange digressions, including a humiliating tirade about the completely made-up issue of Haitian migrants allegedly eating dogs in Springfield, Ohio, punctuated by immense concern for the honor of Trump’s rallies. He never really got back to what he should have been doing – attacking Harris over migration across the southern border.
By provoking Trump where it hurts—at the rallies that mean so much to him—Harris threw him off balance, and frankly, he never really recovered.
Harris used this strategy again and again.
During an exchange on crime, Harris brought up Trump’s own criminal conviction – which prompted him to launch into a tirade about “political prosecutions” rather than effectively pressuring Harris to reverse her crime policy.
She mentioned leaders who called him a “disgrace” and got him to brag about his relationship with Hungarian “strongman” (in Trump’s words) Viktor Orbán – perhaps not exactly a mention that swing voters in Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania were keen to hear. She jabbed at his closeness to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, criticizing him for being “friends” with “a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”
And each time, Trump responded, lost control of his nerves and went off topic, while Harris apparently looked on with glee.
In retrospect, this strategy may seem innovative, but it reflects something about Trump’s psychology that is well known.
When covering foreign policy during the Trump years, I often heard security experts express concern that Trump was easily manipulated: His well-known vanity and narcissism made it easy for foreign powers to gain political favors through personal flattery and lavish receptions. This seems to explain, at least in part, how Trump’s attitude toward foreign leaders like Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping shifted from hostile to friendly.
But if foreign politicians can manipulate Trump’s egocentrism, so can his domestic opposition. Harris alluded to this immense pride on Tuesday evening.
While this tactic was not the only reason she won the debate (see, among other things, her clear answer on the issue of abortion), it was a crucial reason.
