This week on our live show, David Dayen and Ryan Cooper discuss Tuesday’s presidential debate—not so much a debate as a massacre, David notes—and what it might mean for the election. Donald Trump, as he is virtually all the time, was incoherent, spewed blatant lies, and otherwise sounded totally incomprehensible.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, did an excellent job letting Trump hang himself on his own rope. Her ability to articulate the policy of her potential administration was more mixed. On economics, the campaign still has some work to do in articulating a coherent vision for working Americans. But on abortion and reproductive rights, where Harris has been the administration’s most prominent voice for years, she convincingly made the case for how the administration shares the anger of voters having their rights stripped from them and will fight to protect the right to an abortion, presenting a stark contrast to Trump’s unintelligible rants.
The most worrying moment of the debate was Trump repeating J.D. Vance’s outrageous lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating household pets, It’s a problem that racist conspiracy theories circulated by dark corners of the internet can be eagerly spread through Donald Trump’s enormous platform, targeting groups of people and encouraging racist violence.
In any case, this will be a very close election, if the flood of direct mail from outside pro-Trump groups targeting swing-state voters (like Ryan!) is any indication. Polls show a very close race, and the far right has made worrying gains among male voters. Is the Harris campaign ready for this challenge?
As we head into the homestretch of a contentious election season, we’ll be livestreaming every Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET to give you the information you need to understand the week in news. Join us next week by subscribing to our YouTube channel today!
