SPECIAL EDITION: The Trump-Harris debate.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: Long.

Well, that was really fun.

Last night we did our first-ever live stream during a debate. Thank you so much to the thousands of people who tuned in — that was genuinely a blast. As one commenter put it, “I love that this chat is ALL over the political spectrum. Everyone’s hot take all over the place. Where else on the internet does this happen? This is Tangle at its core. So refreshing.” 

If you haven’t watched the debate yet, or you missed the stream, you can go watch everything here, including a quick post-debate interview with journalist Zaid Jilani. Enjoy!

Quick hits.

1. The U.S. will recognize the 23rd anniversary of the September 11th attacks today, with memorials being held across the country. (The remembrances)
2. The Consumer Price Index, a broad measure of inflation, rose 0.2% in July while the core CPI rose 0.3%, over economists’ expectations. The 12-month inflation rate is now 2.5%, the lowest since February of 2021. (The numbers)
3. SpaceX successfully launched its Polaris Dawn mission yesterday, which will take a four-person civilian crew 870 miles above Earth. That is the farthest any human has traveled since the Apollo moon missions. (The launch)
4. Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte won the Republican primary in New Hampshire's race for governor. She'll face Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig (D) in the general election to replace Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who opted not to run for another term. (The election)
5. Missouri’s high court ruled a proposal that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution will be on the ballot in November. (The ruling)

Today's topic.

The first Harris-Trump debate. On Tuesday evening, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off for their first debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA. It was the second presidential debate of the 2024 campaign, but the first one since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. It was also the first face-to-face meeting of any kind between the two (when they came on stage, Harris walked over to Trump, shook his hand and introduced herself). 

The 90-minute debate was moderated by "World News Tonight" anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live "Prime" anchor Linsey Davis. For weeks prior to the event, the two sides sparred over the rules. Harris's campaign pushed for microphones to be on throughout the debate, while Trump’s team said they agreed to the same rules that were in place for the first face-off, which included muting one candidate’s microphone when it was the other’s turn to speak. 

Both sides ultimately agreed to similar rules as the Biden-Trump debate in June: muted microphones, candidates behind podiums, no pre-written notes or props on stage, two commercial breaks, and no live audience. 

The debate spanned many topics — including the economy, abortion, immigration, foreign wars, and the 2020 election — but contained very little discourse over the questions posed by the moderators. Harris interjected a few times while Trump was speaking, which drew criticism from the former president. She also baited Trump repeatedly, mocking his crowd sizes and insisting that his former colleagues do not trust him to be in the White House. Trump pushed for the last word several times, sparring with and speaking over the moderators, who fact-checked him four times during the debate. Harris was not fact-checked a single time by the moderators.

In total, Donald Trump had 43:03 of speaking time to Kamala Harris’s 37:41. However, Harris spent 17:25 of that time on the attack to Trump’s 12:54. Several polls taken after the debate showed that most viewers believed Harris to be the winner. According to ActBlue, the donation aggregator for Democratic candidates, the party raised about $24 million in the three hours after the debate began. There was no corresponding report for Republican donations.

Immediately after, the Harris campaign claimed victory and requested a second debate. In a statement, the campaign said that the debate showed voters have a choice “between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump.” Conversely, Donald Trump claimed he won, adding that Harris wanted a second debate because she knew she had lost. Speaking to Sean Hannity, Trump said that the moderators made the debate “three against one.”

Today, we’ll go over what the left and right are saying about the debate. Then, the members of Tangle’s editorial staff — Isaac Saul, Ari Weitzman, and Will Kaback — will give their impressions in a unique structure chosen specifically for this event. Before we do any of that, though, we wanted to share some important fact checks — a few for each candidate. 

Some fact checks.

Before we begin with the commentary, we did our best to fact-check the claims from each candidate in real time last night, but we missed a lot. Here is an incomplete list of fact-checks from the debate, with links to more information if you are interested. Let’s start with Vice President Kamala Harris, who was not fact-checked a single time during the debate. 

What she said: “Let's remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side.”

Fact check: Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” at the 2017 rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, but this was in reference to protesters and counter protestors of the statue removal. In the same speech, Trump clarified that neo-Nazis and white nationalists who attended the rally should be "condemned totally." Snopes has famously rated this claim as false. 

What she said: “Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath, if… the outcome of this election is not to his liking.”

Fact check: Trump made this comment in the context of a speech on the loss of U.S. auto manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. The full quote was, “We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars.” It’s fair to say that “that’s going to be the least of it” introduces ambiguity as to what exactly Trump meant, but the specific line in question was in reference to the auto industry.

What she said: “And as of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world, the first time this century.”

Fact check: This is a bizarre claim. Americans have been fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels since October 7 in intense naval combat in the Red Sea, and we still have troops in Syria, Jordan and Iraq who are routinely attacked by militants. Three died in Jordan this year. 

What she said: “Understand, if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he would sign a national abortion ban.” 

Fact check: Trump has never supported a national abortion ban and has never indicated he would sign one. He would also need Congress to do so, which seems unlikely. Harris makes this claim mostly by referencing Project 2025, which Trump has repeatedly disavowed and distanced himself from. 

Now, let’s fact-check some of Trump’s claims.

What he said: “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating — they're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Fact check: Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly made this claim, but so far, there is no evidence of household pets being eaten by Haitian migrants (or anyone else) in Ohio. As moderator David Muir noted shortly after Trump made this comment, Springfield police and officials have said “there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community." Earlier this week, the Springfield News-Sun reported that the claim seems to have originated from a local Facebook group. However, there have been reports of these migrants hunting local geese or ducks, and tensions about migration in Springfield have been rising in recent weeks.  

What he said: “We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation's history. We were at 21%. But that's being generous because many things are 50, 60, 70, and 80% higher than they were just a few years ago.”

Fact check: This is false. Inflation hit 9% in the middle of 2022, a 40-year-high, and annualized inflation for all of 2022 was 6.5%. But inflation hit 12.5% in 1980, 13.3% in 1979 and 18.1% in 1946. As for the claim that some goods and services are 50, 60, 70, and 80% higher than a few years ago, it’s unclear what exactly Trump is referring to. The closest reference might be energy commodities, which rose approximately 45% between 2021 and 2022, but no major consumer price categories saw increases of that magnitude. 

What he said: About January 6, “I said, ‘I'd like to give you 10,000 National Guard or soldiers.’ They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.” 

Fact check: A final report by the Bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack determined there was “no evidence” Trump ever issued this order. Trump’s own acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller testified under oath that this did not happen. However, Miller did say that Trump floated the idea of having National Guard troops to protect his supporters from left-wing radicals. 

What he said: Trump claimed repeatedly that Democrats allow abortion after birth. 

Fact check: There is no state where killing a baby after birth is legal. His claims stem from some Democrats opposing any legal restriction on abortion, and from comments made by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), a doctor. Northam once said that there are rare, late-pregnancy cases when fetuses are non-viable but doctors resuscitate the baby, and then have a “discussion” with the mother about what to do.  

What he said: “Crime in this country is through the roof. And we have a new form of crime. It's called migrant crime. And it's happening at levels that nobody thought possible… the FBI — they were defrauding statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud.”

Fact check: Violent and property crime rates have been decreasing for decades, with violent crime falling 49% between 1993 and 2022, including large decreases in robbery (-74%), aggravated assault (-39%) and murder/nonnegligent manslaughter (-34%). In 2020, however, the U.S. murder rate had its largest single-year increase on record; but the rate fell sharply in 2023.  

The claim that the FBI was issuing “fraudulent” crime reports seems to be a reference to its recent quarterly crime report, which was incomplete. Further, it’s true that data from some cities aren’t included in the FBI crime data. However, most cities compile their own crime data, and their rates largely reflect the trends reported by the FBI. 

What the left is saying.

• The left thinks Harris’s debate performance was as strong as Trump’s was weak.
• Some say Harris’s strategy effectively put Trump on the defensive.
• Others caution that the debate may have done little to move undecided voters.

The Washington Post editorial board said Harris won the debate “on both tone and substance.”

“The two candidates in Tuesday’s presidential debate walked onto the stage with dueling imperatives. Kamala Harris needed to show voters who she is: her character, her record and, most important, her vision. Donald Trump needed to hide the same things about himself. Only one succeeded,” the board wrote. “Ms. Harris presented a positive vision for a nation that, despite its flaws, is in remarkably good shape — imploring the country to escape from the viciousness that has defined its recent politics. Mr. Trump, by contrast, depicted a fictional United States that is a ‘failing nation’ teetering on the brink of ‘World War III.’”

“True enough, not every plan Ms. Harris has proposed makes sense. But she got the better of Mr. Trump simply by explaining why his policies would be worse. His would explode the debt more than hers. He would double down on tariffs that would stoke inflation on all sorts of goods Americans buy, claiming falsely that foreign countries pay the cost,” the board said. “Tuesday night might be best remembered by Mr. Trump’s outbursts… Yet Americans would do well to remember what happened on the other side of the stage. Ms. Harris won on tone and on substance.”

In Bloomberg, Erika D. Smith suggested “Harris knew exactly how to rattle Trump.”

“Harris managed not only to introduce herself, her values and her policies to voters but also put Trump on the defensive in a way no other opponent has done in a debate. The split screen told the story. On one side was Trump, squinting, glowering and snarling through his sentences. On the other side was Harris, alternately smiling and incredulous over whatever falsehood Trump happened to be delivering at the moment,” Smith wrote. “By the end of the debate, Trump was reduced to angrily sputtering conspiracy theories and nonsensical phrases on topics ranging from abortion to the economy, even immigration.”

“On abortion, Trump refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban if one landed on his desk as president. He also again insisted that he won the 2020 presidential election. He repeated his claim that ‘millions’ of immigrants were flooding the country and taking Americans’ jobs,” Smith said. “Meanwhile, Harris touted her plans to build more housing, make health care more affordable and support small businesses. Most debates don’t change the trajectory of presidential elections — especially in an America so politically and culturally polarized. But this one just might.”

In CNN, Stephen Collinson wrote “Harris bests Trump in debate, but there’s no guarantee it will shape the election.”

“From Harris’ point of view, the night could hardly have gone better. She came across as energetic and brimmed with a positive future vision. Trump glowered and ranted and blasted America as a failing nation and seemed off his game. The vice president, who has sometimes struggled in spontaneous situations, delivered the most imposing performance of her political career,” Collinson said. “The vice president’s performance seemed more likely to expand her coalition. Trump, meanwhile, didn’t make much effort to change perceptions about his dystopian intentions among the key swing state voters who will decide the election.”

“While Democrats were euphoric after Harris’ performance, partisans often judge a debate based on their own political preferences. Even if he loses ground after the debate, Trump has long had the advantage on the top two issues in the election – the economy and immigration. With many voters still awaiting the benefits of the post-pandemic economic rebound, it’s not certain that any debate will be a decisive factor in their vote,” Collinson wrote. “Trump’s dark messages on immigration and crime might be hyperbolic, but they’ve proved to be potent in the past. There’s also always the chance that shock events at home or abroad in the next two months could tip the balance.”

What the right is saying.

• Many on the right criticize the debate moderators, suggesting their fact checks were biased against Trump.
• Some say Harris failed to deliver any substance in her responses to key issues.
• Others say Trump’s performance was disappointing.

In The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson argued “the debate was so biased it was divorced from reality. Trump should refuse to do another.”

“The fact-checks were flying, but only in one direction. As expected, ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were criminally biased, making the debate effectively three-on-one against Trump and practically amounting to an in-kind donation to the Harris campaign,” Davidson wrote. “The lying and gaslighting were so brazen from Harris, and the ‘fact-checking’ from Muir and Davis so lop-sided (they failed even once to push back or correct any of Harris’ obvious falsehoods), that the entire spectacle eventually took on an air of unreality.” 

“At one point, Harris recited a litany of the most obvious, thoroughly debunked lies about Trump, from the ‘fine people on both sides’ comment on Charlottesville, to the ‘bloodbath’ remark about the auto industry, to claiming he ‘incited’ the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6,” Davidson said. “With Trump, it was of course much different. Muir and Davis routinely inserted themselves into the debate under the guise of ‘fact-checking’ the former president, even on trivial matters… What was different about this debate, though, was how brazen the bias was, how unconcerned ABC seemed to be even with presenting the appearance of journalistic integrity or fairness.”

In The Hill, Derek Hunter called the debate “just another night of Kamala Harris dodging substantive questions.”

“Kamala Harris was trying to simultaneously ‘reintroduce’ herself and ‘redefine’ herself after more than two decades in public office. It did not go well… If you came to this debate looking for specifics, you went away empty-handed. Neither candidate is known for those, and neither tried to give them,” Hunter wrote. “Harris whiffed badly on the very first question. She was asked about those (the majority of Americans) who do not feel as though they are better off now than they were under Trump. She didn’t even address the question, reverting instead to a prepared speech about her vague policy proposals.”

“At the end of the day, there were no knock-out punches. Not that Harris didn’t seem desperate to land one. She spent much of her time trying to take credit for things Democrats see as popular, all the while pretending she hasn’t been vice president for four years,” Hunter said. “Harris needed to show something to the public to give them a reason to think she would be different than the last four years and she failed to do it. She didn’t even try.”

National Review’s editors wrote about “Trump’s missed opportunity.”

“The moderators vigorously, and at times misleadingly, fact-checked Trump… They asked him more pointed questions than they asked her,” the editors said. “But nobody forced Trump to go down the many blind alleys he took. He didn’t have to defend the January 6 rioters, claim that he won in 2020, or get in a dispute about crowd sizes — or, for that matter, name-check Sean Hannity and Viktor Orbán as fans of his. Anyone cheered by those comments is already an active supporter of Trump.

“Harris did not have a good answer when asked whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago, or what she would do differently from Biden, or why she had flip-flopped on many issues, or even — and here we should give credit to the moderators for the question — whether she would draw any limits on abortion. But Trump did more to raise doubts about himself than about her. The race is still close, and her defects still glaring, but he did neither himself nor his supporters any favors.”

Our take.

Much like the Biden-Trump debate, today we are going to try to cover as much ground as possible. To do that, I called in some help from Tangle editors Ari Weitzman and Will Kaback. Below, you’ll find some answers to a few broad questions about the debate, with responses from each of us throughout our take. 

What moment is being over-discussed and doesn’t really matter?

Isaac: The exchange about the Haitian immigrants eating people’s dogs. The press is going to have a field day with this story, and Twitter already is. The upshot, basically, is that something very interesting is happening in Springfield, Ohio: Some 20,000 Haitian immigrants have legally migrated to a town of about 80,000 people. Those immigrants are both filling jobs and revitalizing the economy, while also stretching social services thin and driving up the costs of goods. One of them also crashed his car into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. We discussed this story on the Sunday podcast and how it is a microcosm of immigration debates.

Amidst all this, there have been rumors that some of these immigrants are hunting local ducks or geese, and even taking people’s pets. One image of a person holding a goose went viral; commenters claimed it was a Haitian migrant from Springfield, though the photo was taken in another Ohio town and there’s been no confirmation the person is a Haitian migrant. 

Anyway, Trump got stuck on something about how these people are eating local Ohioans’ pets. JD Vance has said he’s heard rumors like this from constituents, but there are very few specifics. The town’s spokesperson said there are no credible reports of this happening on the ground, just internet rumors. It all sounds pretty over the top and absurd, but it’s a distraction from real immigration issues towns like Springfield are facing. That is what the candidates should be talking about — not whether migrants are eating people’s cats or not.

What moments told us the most about each candidate?

Ari: Debates don’t have a rich history of being high-minded affairs, but they have not always been what they are now: a contest of who can speak the most, who can score a clicky soundbite, and who can fluster their opponent. In that kind of setting, moments where the candidates give us something to learn about them are precious. And for me, I think there are two moments, on abortion and immigration, that were very instructive about each candidate.

On abortion, Trump and Harris pushed each other to the brink of answering a direct question, and their non-answers told us a lot about each of them:

TRUMP: You should ask, will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month?

HARRIS: Come on.

TRUMP: Would you do that? Why don't you ask her that question —

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Why don't you answer the question, would you veto [a federal abortion ban]?

Harris and Trump both gave true answers that probably satisfied their voters: For Harris, she said that women don’t carry their pregnancies to term and then opt to get abortions when they aren’t faced with dangerous pregnancies or non-viable births. For Trump, he said that a federal abortion ban would never make it to his desk, because he wants it to be decided by the states and he’ll influence enough Republicans not to pursue that legislation. 

Both are right, but here’s the quiet part out loud: Harris is ardently pro-choice, and almost definitely would not put any legal limitations on abortion in place. Trump’s record on abortion shows he points wherever the winds blow, and if Republican pro-life sentiment is strong enough to be able to propose and pass any kind of federal ban on abortions (with exceptions or after a certain number of weeks), he would probably sign it. 

Both candidates know this.

But let’s get into the “cats and dogs” moment, which I think can tell us a lot. First off, Trump’s comment came in response to a topic where Harris is weak: immigration. It started with Harris fielding a question from David Muir about why the Biden-Harris administration waited until six months before the election to propose a bill addressing issues on the border. A fine question. Harris focused on that bill in her answer, and blamed Republicans and Trump for blowing it up. Not a direct response, but a serviceable answer politically. Then, she told viewers to go watch Trump’s rallies, saying he talks about how “windmills cause cancer” and that people leave out of “exhaustion and boredom.”

Trump spent the first part of his answer boasting about his rallies, then dragging Harris for hers having worse engagement, getting visibly worked up. He then ended by getting into a fact-check exchange with the moderators over whether or not illegal immigrants are eating cats and dogs in small-town Ohio.

It checked a lot of the boxes for Trump: insulting, boasting, engaging with fringe media, confronting mainstream media, and spanning many topics in one answer — all on an issue where he genuinely connects with tens of millions of voters.

Trump’s diversion wasn’t a lucky accident on Harris’s part — it was strategic. And it was predictable (I actually did predict it to the Tangle team pre-debate).

Harris spun a question on her record into an attack on Trump, then spun her attack into an out-and-out goad. Essentially, what she said was, “I may not have the answer, but what would Donald Trump say about this if he gets angry?” It was the perfect example of her campaign strategy: Harris isn’t trying to convince moderates and undecided voters to like her; she’s trying to convince them that they should despise Trump.

What were Trump’s high and low points?

Will: Trump had a relatively strong start to the debate, and the first 15 minutes were spent squarely in his strike zone: attacking the Biden administration for inflation and promising he’d return the U.S. to its pre-Covid economy if reelected. Throughout, he landed a few of his best lines of the night about Harris changing her policy views (like “I was going to send her a MAGA hat” because Harris had moved toward his position on so many issues).  

The former president also leaned into his foreign policy vision, offering a compelling answer on relations with Iran and how his policies had limited their financial and military power. He also emphasized his intention to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza (though without going into any specifics as to how), which is a message that undoubtedly appeals to anti-war factions on the left and right (even as it alienates others on both sides). 

For some in the pro-life and states-rights camps, Trump’s answer on abortion was coherent and reasoned, even though it included several falsehoods about Democrats’ stance on the issue. Trump said he supports whatever states decide on the issue and affirmed that he believes in exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. If he sticks to that line, he may be able to diffuse some of the volatility of the issue for Republicans. 

Unfortunately for Trump, the low points seemed to pile up as the debate went on. This will probably be remembered as the “taking the bait” debate (or maybe just, “DeBait”?), in which Trump was goaded into spending most of his time talking about his weakest issues. 

What did he do when Harris dodged a question about immigration by bringing up the size of Trump’s rallies? Talked about the size of his rallies, then about migrants in Springfield eating dogs. What did he do when Harris took a question about the crime rate and used it to talk about Trump’s criminal conviction? Spent two minutes relitigating his grievances against his political opponents. What did he do after Harris suggested he lacked the temperament and grasp on reality to be president? Talked about how Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán — an authoritarian leader —  is a “tough” and “smart” person who respects him. It was remarkable to watch Harris tee him up for an outburst over and over, and for Trump to fall for it every time. The fact that such a transparent strategy could be so effective is far more damaging than any individual comment Trump made.

What were Harris’s high and low points?

Ari: It’s hard to find a better example of the vice president showcasing her oratory skills and passion than when she got on a roll talking about the rights of women and abortion. 

HARRIS: I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about [repealing Roe] is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that.

But that quote is less important than when it came during the debate. Early on, Harris seemed a bit nervous and unable to find her footing. This moment set her straight. Not only that, but the optics were powerful: Harris turned to give her answer directly to Trump, who looked forward or down and away from Harris, giving the impression that he was being scolded.

Her pivots away from direct answers, as with the immigration response above and on the economy later, were frustrating — but they were politically savvy, so it’s hard to rate those tactics as among her “worst moments.” For me, her low point came in her rebuttal to Trump defending his actions on January 6. Harris said that Trump promised a “bloodbath” if he were to lose. Here’s why this was Harris’s low moment:

1) David Muir started to follow up, but Trump talked over him, saying “it was a term that related to energy, because they have destroyed our energy business.” Let’s be clear: That’s true, and Harris was taking this quote out of context in a way that’s a borderline lie. This is similar to her “very fine people” attack about Charlottesville, and we provided full fact-checks to both of those moments above.

2) Her quick jab essentially ended the exchange on January 6, a topic where the former president is very weak. 

3) Because Trump talked over Muir, we’ll never know if he had a fact-check ready to give Harris. But the way events unfolded definitely played into the image of moderators holding Trump to account while Trump did all of Harris’s accounting himself.

What did you think of the moderators?

Isaac: Moderating is really hard. After live-streaming the debate last night, with my own commentary, I can tell you it is difficult to do so with live fact-checking. So I grade them on a curve; but I still thought they were below average. By far the biggest issue with Muir and Davis is that they didn’t fact-check Kamala Harris a single time while fact-checking Trump four times, which is remarkable (see our fact checks). Still, the talking point from the Trump campaign that it was a “3 on 1” debate is an exaggeration; it’s also similar to what Trump has said after every debate he’s ever participated in. It is one of his favorite things to do: Blame the media. 

Here’s the truth, though: Trump bulldozed the moderators all night. He still spoke much more than Harris did, and they let him. Furthermore, the moderators were appropriately tough on Trump with fact-checks — they should have brought that same toughness to Harris, which they didn’t (again: see our own fact-checks). But fact-checking Trump is easier, since his lies are often more obvious and blatant, while Harris’s are better rehearsed and require a closer eye.

One other thing worth noting: Trump was almost assassinated two months ago and the moderators didn’t bring it up a single time in the entire debate. Do you think if someone had nearly shot Kamala Harris in the head two months ago the moderators wouldn’t have asked about it at the debate? 

Who won?

Isaac: Harris. Anyone telling you that Trump won or that she didn’t is blinded by partisan bias. I’m sorry. After the first 15 minutes (where she seemed pretty nervous and a little all over the place), she basically got the better of every exchange, or at least brought it to a stalemate. Focus group voters seemed to agree. Democrats raised record money during and after the debate, then Harris immediately asked for another one (while Trump demurred). Generally speaking, here is the tell on things like this: Every committed Trump supporter I know or follow was criticizing the moderators, and only a few said Trump won. Every moderate I follow or talk to said Harris won. And every liberal I follow or talk to said Harris destroyed him. 

Fox News’s Brit Hume said “she was composed, she was prepared, she kept her cool, she saw advantages, she took them, she baited him successfully… she came out ahead in this in my opinion, no doubt.” Chris Wallace compared it to the thrashing Biden took in June. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called it a disaster. This is not what happens when Trump wins.

It’s also worth calling out that Trump once again refused to admit he lost in 2020 (he did). This is, to a lot of Americans, his most dangerous rhetoric. A lot of moderates and Republicans will vote against him on this issue alone, and he dove headfirst back into the kind of “stolen election” claims that have turned so many voters off the last four years. 

All that being said: I also think it is pretty likely this entire debate is out of the news cycle in 48 hours. I suspect it’ll move a few voters toward Harris, and while that will matter, this wasn’t the kind of debate (like Biden’s performance in June) that is going to fundamentally change the race. 

Take the survey: Who do you think won Tuesday night’s debate? Let us know!

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about the migrant crisis in New York City.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the Associated Press deleting their post where they quoted JD Vance out of context.
• Nothing to do with politics: A high school football team in Kansas with four sets of twins.
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,603 readers responded to our survey on charges against the father of a recent suspected school shooter with 31% supporting all the charges. “As a parent and grandfather I find too many parents spend little time with their children, regardless of income level. Too many kids are left to their own devices without supervision,” one reader said.

Have a nice day.

For the second time in six weeks, LEGO is making nice-news headlines. By 2032, LEGO is seeking to create bricks entirely out of renewable and recycled plastics. In the shorter term, the company is looking to make 50% of its bricks from these materials by 2026. These goals have been announced as part of a broader green push from the company: LEGO has also expanded their “Replay” program that provides individuals with free shipping to donate old bricks. The Guardian has the story.