TOI World Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Sep 11, 2024
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's debate captured the attention of Chinese social media users, generating over 25 million views on Weibo. Trump's assertion that Harris is a 'Marxist' drew notable reactions. Despite no state television coverage, users shared clips and lauded Harris' performance, with some expressing hope for a female US president.Read More
As the debate continues to trend on social media, the lack of state television coverage highlights the limited scope of official commentary on this contentious political clash.
As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump squared off in tonight’s highly anticipated debate, Chinese social media users were abuzz with commentary on the X-like platform Weibo, with related discussions racking up over 25 million views.
The debate's heated exchanges captured significant attention in China, especially after Trump’s unfounded claim that Harris is a “Marxist.” One user provocatively questioned, “Is this a competition of who’s more loyal to the (Communist) Party?” Reflecting the charged atmosphere, another post described the debate as a “match full of gunpowder.”
While state television did not broadcast the debate, Weibo users were quick to share clips and express their views.
Poll
Will Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris boost her chances in the US presidential election?
NoYesSome praised Harris' performance, with one user declaring, “She’s invincible in debating,” and another expressing hope for a female US president: “Now I’ve started expecting the first female president of the US.”
Discussion about the candidates’ differing views on China trade policy was notably sparse. Trump highlighted his decision to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, while Harris criticized him for allegedly harming US interests and assisting China’s military modernization by selling American chips. The Trump administration had previously restricted exports to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s leading chipmaker, and imposed broad tariffs on Chinese products. The Biden administration has largely retained these tariffs and focused on restricting China's access to critical technology.
As the debate continues to trend on social media, the lack of state television coverage highlights the limited scope of official commentary on this contentious political clash.
INDIA
Opinion: The big US presidential debate - Lotus squelches former Potus
Republicans are morose, while Democrats are optimistic – in fact, so optimistic that they have offered a second debate. The biggest revelation of Tuesday night: Harris is a gun owner, something that was written about in 2019 but was not widely known.
Kamala Harris managed to bait, trigger and annoy Donald Trump during the highly anticipated presidential debate, putting the former president on the defensive and unable to exploit her vulnerabilities on the economy and illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, Harris was able to paint a somewhat coherent picture of what her presidency might look like, with a sunny-side-up view of an “opportunity economy”, a strong military, affordable healthcare, and women controlling their own bodies. Trump tried to turn every question into one about immigration – even bringing up outlandish claims that Haitian immigrants were stealing pets in a town in Ohio to eat them.
Not only did Harris win the debate by most accounts, she also won an endorsement from Taylor Swift, the megastar whose one post on Instagram can potentially move thousands of young voters to follow her example. Trump, on the other hand, was forced to go to the ‘Spin Room’, where surrogates and journalists wait for interviews, apparently to try to spin his own debate performance. It was not a good sign.
Republicans are morose, while Democrats are optimistic – in fact, so optimistic that they have offered a second debate. The biggest revelation of Tuesday night: Harris is a gun owner, something that was written about in 2019 but was not widely known.
From the moment Harris walked on to the debate stage and determinedly shook Trump’s hand to introduce herself, she established her “I-am-taking-charge” credentials. It was a smart and tone-setting move. Since the two had never met before, her decision to shake his hand made her seem mature. It is unlikely Trump would have done the same.
Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian and author of nine books, declared that Harris had “delivered what is easily one of the most successful debate performances in all of American history”.
Harris on offence, Trump on defence
Although Harris seemed nervous at the beginning – the very first question was on the economy – she soon settled in and used every opportunity to paint Trump as billionaire-friendly and grievance-filled. She performed as an adept politician, deflecting, parrying and changing the subject without actually answering the question. In the end, it seemed like Trump was defending his record and Harris didn’t have to even though she is the incumbent in a manner of speaking.
Harris reminded voters about the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters and the three conservative Supreme Court justices he appointed who scripted the end of abortion rights. She talked about how world leaders were laughing at him. When Trump raised the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan which happened under Joe Biden, Harris managed to turn even that into an indictment of Trump, recalling how he had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David and defiled the historic retreat.
Republicans complained that ABC News moderators were biased because they fact-checked Trump several times but didn’t call Harris out even once or pin her down. While that’s largely true, the moderators did give equally tough questions to both candidates. If Harris was asked why her position on fracking changed, Trump was quizzed about his obsession with people’s racial identity.
Glowering and almost never looking directly at Harris during the debate, Trump was thrown off balance on the race question and tried to change the subject to inflation. When asked about the 2020 election, he insisted there was fraud, giving Harris a punchline: “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So, let’s be clear about that. Clearly, he has had a very difficult time processing that.”
On the foreign policy front, Trump refused to answer a “yes” or “no” question on whether he wanted Ukraine to win. Even Republican commentators on Fox News conceded that Trump had lost overall, missing many chances to weigh her down during the 90-minute encounter. Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian-American supporter of Trump and a former presidential candidate, gave Harris a back-handed compliment: “I think Kamala Harris exceeded the very low expectations that were purposed set for her.”
Harris did well, but it’s far from clear whether she has swung the pendulum decisively in her favour. The race remains close and on a razor’s edge. However, she did manage to talk directly to voters who are still undecided and show herself as a confident, composed, and calm leader. Whether she convinced enough of them will be the big question over the next weeks.
(Seema Sirohi is a senior journalist based out of Washington DC. She writes on foreign policy and has covered India-US relations for nearly three decades)
By Prashant Jha
Sep 11, 2024
It isn’t clear if the presidential debate will end up persuading swing voters in swing counties of seven swing states — on whom the future of the world order and future of America depends
Kamala Harris walked up to Donald Trump, extended a hand, introduced herself, pronouncing her name, a name he deliberately mispronounces, and said, “Have a good debate.” And in that moment, she wrested the initiative from a man who has thrived on dominating the stage and whose political success has been driven by knowing how to appeal to television audiences.
It isn’t clear if the presidential debate will end up persuading swing voters in swing counties of seven swing states — on whom the future of the world order and future of America depends — in either direction. But there is widespread perception, even among Trump supporters, backed by instant media polls, that Harris carried the evening.
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And that itself would help her with voters who weren’t quite sure if she could hold her own, think on her feet, and had the ability to take on the former president. This perception was compounded by Harris’s reluctance to do media interviews and the relative absence of unscripted performances. Just showing herself to be smart and competent and in command of her facts and arguments may well have been her big achievement of the big night.
And the reason Harris was able to score on Tuesday lies in perhaps what a fervent Harris supporter and close associate had told HT at the Democratic convention in Chicago in August. “We have seen Trump since 2016, we have studied him, we have watched his videos, we know his tricks, and we know how to play his game and beat him at it.”
Here are five elements of Harris’ approach on Tuesday that suggest that her team’s preparation and careful study of Trump worked.
One, she baited him by playing on his obsessions.
Trump likes patting himself on the back for the size of the crowds at his rallies; Harris mocked him for speaking of fictional characters and suggested that people left his rallies early due to boredom and exhaustion. Trump likes projecting himself as an incredibly strong national security leader; Harris instead called him weak, among the worst possible adjectives in Trump’s dictionary, and claimed that military leaders who had worked with Trump had told her he was a “disgrace”. Trump takes great pride in his relationships with leaders of Russia, China and North Korea; Harris told Trump autocrats liked him because they could manipulate him with flattery and favours. All of these may sound like regular debating points but it appeared to throw Trump off his game as he went on to even longer meandering answers than usual to defend himself, and digressed from the issues at hand.
Two, she didn’t walk into the traps he laid.
From the very beginning, the former president sought to get Harris to talk about issues that may give him the opening to distract her from her core message. Trump called her a Marxist and said her father was a Marxist who taught her well; Harris gave a disdainful look and ignored it totally. He repeatedly insulted Joe Biden perhaps in an attempt to draw her into defending him and turning the debate into one about his record; she ignored it and only said, at one point, he was contesting against her and not Biden. He called her the worst vice president in history; she let it pass, ensuring that it didn’t become a debate about her record in the current administration and instead the focus remained on her future plans.
Three, on the issued that could have become her biggest weaknesses, she stuck to a disciplined message.
On the economy, where the cost of living crisis is hurting people, Trump seemed unable to cast her as the problem despite the fact that she was a part of the administration. Instead, in the very first answer, she laid out three policy measures she would take to help deal with the crisis — support for home ownership, an increase in child tax credit, and support for small businesses — and instead turned the discussion on Trump’s tariffs and its inflationary impact. On immigration, where his campaign has constantly cast her as the “border czar”, Harris was able to remind the audience that Trump was the one who got Senate Republicans to block a bipartisan border bill that they had agreed on and suggested he wanted to run on a problem rather than fix it. And on the American exit from Afghanistan, arguably the biggest foreign policy disaster of the Biden presidency, Harris took credit for ending the war and claimed that American troops weren’t in combat in the world for the first time this century: she also turned the discussion back to Trump’s own negotiations with Taliban and how, despite his self image as a dealmaker, he had struck a bad deal. Any of these issues could have ruined Harris’s night. Just the fact that she was able to ensure Trump didn’t score a clean victory over her was, in the zero sum game that is a debate, a win for her.
Four, she played to her strengths.
Trump has two big vulnerabilities. The first is abortion, an issue on which Harris spoke passionately by bringing alive human stories of suffering that abortion bans had introduced. She directly laid the blame for this suffering on Trump, leaving him visibly unsettled. The second is January 6, an issue on which moderators asked him if he had regrets. When Trump refused to acknowledge either the fact that he had lost the 2020 election or his role in encouraging the mob to attack the US Capitol, and instead seemed to defend the rioters, Harris found her moment to attack him on subverting the constitution and democracy. The fact that she was present in the Capitol on that day lent her voice particular authority.
Also Read: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump: Who won the debate? How US media analysed it
And finally, Harris claimed the centrist space, attacking Trump from what has broadly been the American mainstream political position.
AFGHANISTAN
Harris labels Taliban a ‘terrorist organization’ in first presidential debate
In her first appearance on the presidential debate stage, Vice President Kamala Harris referred to the Taliban as a “terrorist organization” and criticized former President Donald Trump for his administration’s negotiations with the group, which she said led to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners.
“Donald Trump, when he was president, negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine,” Harris said during the debate. “He calls himself a dealmaker, but even his own national security advisor called it a terrible deal. Trump bypassed the Afghan government and negotiated directly with the Taliban, a terrorist organization. As part of that deal, 5,000 Taliban terrorists were released.”
Harris also took aim at Trump for hosting Taliban representatives at Camp David, a venue traditionally associated with high-level diplomatic meetings involving U.S. allies.
“Get this,” Harris said. “The president at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David—a place of great significance to Americans, where we honor diplomacy and receive respected world leaders. Trump extended this invitation because he did not understand the responsibility of the President of the United States to act as Commander-in-Chief with respect. This is the same man who has consistently disparaged members of our military, including fallen soldiers, undermining the work we must do to maintain America’s strength and standing in the world.”
Harris’ remarks underscore her ongoing critique of Trump’s foreign policy, particularly his handling of Afghanistan, which she argues weakened U.S. national security.
That is why she said she backed fracking, a key industry in a swing state such as Pennsylvania where the debate was taking place, while expressing support for clean energy and recognising the climate crisis. That is why she cited Goldman Sachs and Wharton, the quintessential symbols of American corporate world, as validating her economic plans or critiquing that of Trump. That is why she reiterated her commitment to ensuring a lethal fighting force for America, respecting the military, taking on China, supporting Israel, battling the climate crisis while protecting American industries; all these are strong middle of the road positions clearly meant for voters sceptical of Harris’s past progressive credentials. But they also had a way of preempting and thus delegitimising Trump’s line of attack against her of being a radical.
But Harris’s real win on Tuesday was that for the duration of the debate, the audience may well have forgotten she was a part of the current establishment seeking a term in office again, albeit at the top of the ticket, against a challenger. Instead, she cast Trump as the incumbent responsible for America’s ills, framed herself as a next generation challenger with new plans, and made a plea for turning the page and not going back. It was not till his closing statement that Trump raised the obvious question: Why had she not implemented these plans for three-and-a-half years?
The American electorate may still send Donald Trump back to the White House. But on Tuesday, Kamala Harris did give the undecided voters enough to think about when they cast their vote, with a more than credible performance, overwhelming the ultimate showman in the performative theatre that is American politics.
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