Harris sticks to talking points, gets assist from ABC News moderators at her first (and perhaps last) debate

Donald Trump debated Kamala Harris and, at times, the ABC News moderators during the second (Harris's first) and perhaps final presidential debate on Tuesday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Harris exceeded (low) expectations by reciting carefully rehearsed talking points no matter the subject, with an assist from moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who lobbed a bunch of easily deflected questions and repeatedly declined to press Harris for a more coherent answer. "So I was raised as a middle-class kid," she said when asked about the state of the economy under the Biden-Harris administration. "My passion, one of them, is small businesses." She described her plan as "what I describe as an opportunity economy."

Asked about her numerous reversals on key policy issues—fracking, defunding the police, whether illegal immigrants should receive taxpayer-funded sex change operations, among others—Harris explained that she "grew up a middle-class kid raised by a hardworking mother who worked and saved" and concluded by saying the "true measure of a leader" is understanding that "strength is not in beating people down, but lifting people up." The moderators didn't follow up.

Harris certainly did enough for journalists and other Democratic activists to declare her the winner. They were certainly thrilled with the moderating. "Incredibly commendable job," Puck reporter Dylan Byers wrote. Indeed, Muir and Davis repeatedly interrupted Trump to "fact check" his statements or to demand that he answer the question. CNN's fact expert Daniel Dale concluded that "Trump has been staggeringly dishonest and Harris has been overwhelmingly (though not entirely) factual." Republicans complained, which liberal observers took as further evidence that Harris had won.

Trump delivered some memorable lines throughout the night and was occasionally on message. "She doesn't have a plan," he said after Harris dodged a question about her economic record. "She copied Biden's plan, and it's like four sentences." Trump was referring to reports published hours before the debate about how large portions of Harris's new policy page were copied from President Joe Biden's campaign website. "The people of our country are absolutely dying with what they've done," Trump continued. "They have, she has destroyed our country with policy that's insane."

Though he clearly intended to highlight Harris's ties to the unpopular Biden administration, Trump didn't really hit his stride until his closing statement. "She just started by saying she's gonna do this, she's gonna do that, she's gonna do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it?" he said. "She's been there for three and a half years." At one point earlier in the night, Trump suggested that Harris go down to Washington, D.C., and find her "boss, if you can call him a boss, he spends all his time at the beach," and "get him out of bed at four o'clock in the afternoon" so they could sign an executive order to shut down illegal immigration at the southern border.

Trump also allowed himself to get easily baited by Harris, who brought up several subjects—however unrelated to the question at hand—that she knew would irritate Trump and compel a response. She talked about the size of his rallies and said people were leaving early due to boredom. She mentioned his now-infamous comments about the Charlottesville rally, and his rivalry with former U.S. senator John McCain. At one point, Muir baited him with a question about the results of the 2020 election. In almost every case, Trump was eager to oblige and spend the first 20 seconds of his response defending himself and relitigating the past, which played into Harris's efforts to cast herself as the "change" candidate who would "chart a new way forward" despite having served as vice president for nearly four years.

What ABC News billed as a "high-stakes showdown" and possibly "the most consequential event" of the candidates' campaigns could be boiled down to a brief exchange midway through the two-hour contest. "She's Biden," Trump said of Harris, who disagreed. "Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump," she huffed back. There weren't many fireworks or meme-able moments. The Harris campaign had tried unsuccessfully to keep the microphones live so that Trump could interrupt her and she could tell him, "I'm speaking." But it was Harris who attempted to interrupt Trump several times. "Wait a minute, I'm talking now," he said the first time she spoke out of turn. "Please. Does that sound familiar?"

Harris, who bragged about receiving an endorsement from Dick Cheney, the former vice president and legendary neocon war advocate, won another—albeit less coveted—endorsement from NFL star Travis Kelce's lover, the musician Taylor Swift, who announced following the debate she "will be casting her vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election" and signed off as a "Childless Cat Lady." How much the debate, or Swift's endorsement, will ultimately matter in the remaining 55 days of the election is anyone's guess. The race remains a toss up, according to the most recent New York Times poll, which showed Trump with a narrow lead over Harris, 48 percent to 47 percent. Much punditry awaits.