The Daily Beast Podcast - Harris Came Prepared to Get Under Trump's Skin at Debate

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy react to the first–and possibly only–presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So that was something. Yeah. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not quite sure who came out on top in this one. So maybe we should go frame by frame because it was so close. Does anybody have a picture of who won at the exact moment of the finish line? It feels very Olympics like to me. It feels like the 100 meter dash. I'm not sure whose toe came across.

But yeah, let's, you know, let's get into it. You guys may have a different opinion than me because I have eyes and ears, but you know, you offer, you know, let's see. Let's see where we land. I would say much like the 100 meters, the white man lost. Oh, man. Yeah. I think that he lost his fucking mind. Whoever debate prepped the vice president, hats off, bravo. I have no notes. Because getting under Donald Trump's skin and making that man internally and then externally meltdown is not that hard, evidently. You just have to use a few key words like weak, lost, loser, laughed at.

And then just sit back and watch it go. Crowd size. Ah, yes, crowd size. Yeah, I mean, look, we could sit here and discuss the issues. But honestly, I don't see the point. Just, you know, these things are performance. They're theater. They're not about policy.

I personally think it's silly to pretend they are. So, yes, exactly what you were saying, Danielle and Jesse. I mean, going after his rallies saying people are leaving because they're bored, that is just, I mean, that's A-plus trolling. You know, it's just really, really good work. She had a great line. Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people and clearly he's having trouble processing that. And then it was right after that, which he said, world leaders laugh at you, military leaders think you're a disgrace. Look, this kind of stuff, sadly or not, is as important as policy.

And I mean that not obviously in terms of how they would govern, but in terms of winning this race. And I think she came prepared to do exactly that, just to get under his skin and to say things that, quite frankly, needed to be said and have needed to be said for eight years. and I think Biden kind of tried to start doing that towards the end, but he was never the right messenger for that kind of thing. And I really think she is, she just, she is poised and she is calm. She's cool, calm and collected, as they say. And she is, she was everything that he was not temperament wise. I said this on Twitter.

It was a masterclass. In all honesty, I could not have asked for better. I think that she was able to not. only deliver her policy points, she was able to handle Donald Trump. She looked at him and said, he's just going to stand here and lie. He's going to stand here and talk about his grievances. And let me tell you, like not once does he come out and talk about you. And then she looks directly into the camera, the American people. And we know, I've said this before, that these debates are political pageantry. I don't really feel like you change people's minds with this debate. But,

However, this one, I may be wrong. Because for those people that said, oh, I don't know about Kamala Harris and, oh, I don't know this, that, and the other thing, there is no way that the millions of people that tuned into this say to themselves, oh, I don't think that she can handle Donald Trump. Oh, Donald Trump seems to have a plan. Donald Trump got caught up defending Victor Orban on national television. Donald Trump got caught up defending Putin and applauding him on national television. Every bit of bait that she dropped in the water, that motherfucker went to and nearly choked on it. And it was a beautiful thing to watch. And he couldn't even say anything bad about Putin, no matter what they did to him, he fawned the whole time.

The two world leaders that he cited, the ones that you just named Daniel, are both, you know, authoritarian strongmen. That's not a coincidence. That's not an accident. Those are the people he likes. You know, I will say, and again, this is why I think getting into policy in these debates is a fool's game. My guess is the vast majority of Americans don't know who Victor Orban is, and I don't mean that as a slight. I would very much like to not know who Victor Orban is. A lot of the things that Trump was saying, and I am not going to claim originality in this thought because I saw it a lot on blue sky,

a lot of the things Donald Trump was saying and talking about were very, very online. And it is very clear that he has online poisoning, you know, much in the way that Elon Musk does. It's a very, very similar thing. And I suspect that a lot of people are going to be like, what the hell is he even talking about? And good. I mean, I'm glad. And I think Victor Orban is a perfect example. I just, you know, I think most people go about their lives in America not knowing or particularly caring who the leader of Hungary is.

But to Donald Trump, Victor Orban is a big name because he's a big name in conservative circles. He's a big name at CPAC. You know, he's a big name in the conservative media echo sphere. And so I think he kind of, you know, he falls into these traps because he doesn't know anything else. I want to just say something, speaking of very online, Taylor Swift has just officially endorsed Conlar. I was just about to tell you.

Excellent. She posted a picture of herself on Instagram, holding a cat. And I just want to read this tidbit that says, like many, of you, I watch the debate tonight. If you haven't already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country. And she goes on to say, I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in 2024's presidential election. And I'm voting for Kamala because she fights for the rights

and causes, I believe, need a warrior to champion them. And it goes on from there about standing up for LGBTQ rights, IVF, a woman's right to her own body. This was posted roughly two minutes ago and it has 1.2 million likes on Instagram. Signed a childless cat lady. Yeah. I mean, like, if you don't think that Kamala Harris just bodied that debate to end with like with this, which is something that people have been waiting for. I mean, folks know I'm not a huge fan of Taylor Swift's music, but, you know, whatever.

We'll edit that out. Sure. But I think that millions and millions of young women are. And to say this in this moment right now matters a great deal, particularly after the fake AI bullshit that Donald Trump pulled and we hadn't heard a response from her. That's great. I'm glad she did that. And hell, if it makes, you know, young voters who might be voting for the first time or whatever,

if it makes them pay attention and whatever, all of that is fantastic. You know, I do want to go back to the debate, but it's sort of along those same lines. It's what made me think of it. At one point, Trump started talking about that fake story about Springfield, Ohio, where right-wing media and right-wing politicians have been claiming that Haitian immigrants have been kidnapping and eating people's pets. and he went on this whole thing. And David Muir, one of the few times that the moderators actually jumped in, he said, we reached out to the city manager of Springfield.

He said there were no credible reports of people kidnapping pets and eating them. And Trump's response to that was, well, I've seen people on television. And I just thought to myself, if anyone's sentence sums up Donald Trump as a presidential candidate perfectly, it's probably that one. Well, I've seen people on television. And I cannot imagine hearing something like that and not thinking to yourself, This guy president? Really? I mean, in so many ways, we got to see that the emperor has no clothes.

Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. He rambles. We've said this over and over again. But when asked direct questions, when provided with facts that David Muir tried to give us, I mean, and I'll just say this, he did a hell of a lot better than the folks over at CNN, which was not hard to do. But him offering up and trying at the very least to fact check in real time and say, well, I'm not looking at the TV. Here's what's actually coming out of Springfield, Ohio.

And the things that you were saying are not true. Because again, and I've said this, is that that is race baiting and dehumanization at its finest, is what Donald Trump and the MAGA folks are doing in terms of. spreading these lies about Haitian immigrants. And I don't even want to justify it and dig into it. But the fact that every question that he was asked, he would go back to immigration, go back to fearmongering, go back to the bullshit,

just showed you that he had nothing to, even his closing statement. I mean, I know we're not there yet, but I mean, you're given an opportunity to speak freely and directly to the American people. Give them, you know,

the finale of the meal. he just, I mean, off the rails. Off the fucking rails. You hate to say anything that he does is planned or is a strategy. But, I mean, it's been very clear for a long time now that either he or the people around him or whatever, think that immigration is going to win them this campaign. Because it really is all he focuses on. He pivots to it in every answer. He did the same thing in the first debate with,

Biden. I remember we talked about it. He does the same thing at his rallies. And first of all, the rhetoric that he's using is going to get someone killed. I think more attention has to be paid to that. And talking about people kidnapping and eating pets is everything you said it's race baiting. It's racist to just, you know, call it what it is. It's all of those things. It's also going to get people killed. It's going to lead to violence. And I would love to be wrong about that. But I am really, really worried. that that's the kind of shit that leads to angry mobs and leads to people getting hurt and people's homes being burnt down and stuff like that if history is any guide. I want to talk about there was one thing that she said, and I don't know the answer to this,

so I'm curious what both of you think. When she said, the American people want better than this and then she gave a really long pause and then she said former president. Do you think that was planned or an either? way I liked it, but I couldn't decide if that was planned or if she legitimately stopped herself from saying something that, you know, maybe you can't say on TV. I honestly, I was like loving that moment because in my mind, she did what all of us have wanted to say, this motherfucker. Yeah, oh, for sure.

And because, and you know, what's funny is because I feel like she was on some show and she was asked a while ago what her favorite swear word was. And she's like, I can't say it, but I will say that it starts with mother or something like that. And like it was, it was something that was really like just funny. And so I feel like in her, in her, it was like bubbling up like you son of a, like just and be like, mm, former president. Let me just try and get that out because we on air. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that they always teach you in media training once you get to any level of politics as Danielle and I both, though, as people who've done a bunch of this, is that they teach you what you say in private is going to sometimes try to slip out. And I think one of the greatest evidences of this was John McCain and Lindsay Graham kept talking like pirates all the time when they were running against Obama and it kept slipping out because they couldn't keep it in. And I'm going to be honest, if she affected it, she is a great actor because it felt natural to me.

Yeah, no, it felt natural to me too. And then I thought, wow, that was so great. Like, I actually wondered if it was planned. And again, either way, it was great. So I don't really care. This was just more a curiosity thing. I want to ask, we talked a little bit about the moderators, and there's absolutely no doubt that they were better than Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. But, you know, as you pointed out, Danielle, that's pretty much the lowest bar you can imagine.

So I'm curious what you thought of them overall. I thought they did a decent job. I thought they let Trump respond over and over again when he wasn't supposed to be responding. And the one time that Vice President Harris tried to do that, Lindsay Davis cut her off and wouldn't let her do it. And that annoyed the hell out of me. It felt almost like a rant you went on on the last episode, Andy, of always letting him get away with everything that both of you were saying. Yeah. Here's the thing, because I had mixed feelings about basically he was supposed to be muted, right? And so it's like, but every time he opened up his mouth, they unmuted him.

So, you know, he got to have, I think, the best of both worlds in that way, which is just so classic for Trump. But at the same time, I felt that he looked more and more unhinged. So even though, and I, because they didn't, they would live, put her mic on live for like a second. But I feel like for him, it was just like, let him rock, let him roll. but you did see the disparities. And I think, again, to millions of women that are watching, that we're watching at home, they know that. They know that play where the man in the room at the table is given free reign.

And the moment that you try to inject something, you're told to, uh-uh, now's not the, we're not at the question and answer part yet. No, no. So I think that it can play, and I think that it may have played also in her favor. because we're showcasing his ill temperament. We're showcasing his inability to contain himself. Yeah, I just wonder, though, because I think there's a segment of people that think that that makes him look strong and tough. I mean, but it is interesting, though, too, to counter you, Andy.

She was asking for the mutes to go away because she wanted him to do this because they think, and I imagine they've seen data because they're not idiots, that that's going to play well for her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that they did it, you know, unequally. And it kind of looks like, well, you know, see, Trump was able to steamroll them. And, you know, they wouldn't dare stop him, but they did stop her. So I don't know.

CNN, I was just looking it up. According to them, Trump spoke for 42 minutes and 52 seconds. And Harris spoke for 37 minutes and 36 seconds. So like a five minute difference. Jesus. Oh, I do want to shout out, just lastly on the moderators. I think it was Lindsey Davis, who after Trump went on his. unhinged abortion thing, said there is no state in the country where it's legal to kill a baby

after it's born. So that was the other time, other than the Springfield thing, that I remember them actually fact-checking. Also, it's insane that a moderator has to say that. But anyway, the last thing I want to talk about with Trump is with health care when he said, I have concepts of a plan. First of all, worst Siron ever for my Battleston Galatica friends out there. But second of all, can you imagine? I'm trying to imagine if Kamala Harris said that, what the reaction would be from the media. Yeah.

We don't even have to imagine. Again, women, people of color and damn sure black women and women of color are not allowed to be unprepared, are not allowed to say, oh, let me get back to you. You get one shot at something. So for Donald Trump to even utter, I have a concept of a plan. Uh-huh. Is it the same that infrastructure? was for your entire fucking administration that we were waiting on.

Give me a break. I don't know. I come from the music business. That just sounded authentic like something I experienced all the. No, look, believe me, I felt that when he said I have concepts of a plan. You know, that is something I have thought to myself many, many times. I thought that was actually one of his worst moments because he really did, like, you can tell he felt that he got caught. like his he uh coward a little at the end of that whole sides and his uh body language visually

curled over i hate to be fox news with the body language expert here but oh god okay i do have one controversial thing though here that i'd love to hear your thoughts on i think she messed up by fact checking him and being wrong about something uh you know the truth matters and she should not have fact checked them i saw a democrat kill a baby right on stage tonight so yeah oh my god that whole line of babies being born and then executed. And then it was like, where are, like, where are we? With the transgender aliens getting procedures down in prison. That's where we are. That was, that was, shout out to CNN for providing Trump with that idiotic talking point,

by the way. Yeah, yeah. They were right next to a Haitian eating of animal. I do want to say, Jesse, that what we saw on that stage, though, wasn't, I mean, it wasn't an abortion as much as it was a mercy killing. Oh shit. Well, I hope it terminates his political career. But boom. We'll be right back. And that is the new abnormal. Want more great listens?

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