From Biden to Gabbard, here’s what Harris’ past debates show before a faceoff with Trump
WASHINGTON — Vice-Chairman Kamala Harris has repeatedly mocked her opponent’s apparent reluctance to debate, saying a row of noisy listeners about Donald Trumps criticism of her: “As the saying goes, if you have something to say, say it to my face.”
After Trump first withdrew from an agreement, turned itself around and said he would meet Harris on September 10 for an event hosted by ABC. It sets up a long-awaited showdown between the Democratic and Republican nominees — and indeed, a chance for both to fire their attack lines directly at each other.
Sharing a stage with Trump offers Harris a crucial opportunity to define herself and her opponent in a truncated campaign, with many open questions about her policy positions. But it is also an important test — one that President Joe Biden failed bad enough that he ended his campaign and made way for her.
Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, has long presented her debating skills as a strength, and her sharp questioning of opponents has produced many career highlights. But she has also had some tough exchanges that didn’t work out so well.
“She’s certainly had a good rollout over the last few weeks, and that’s obviously going to translate into expectations on the debate stage,” said Aaron Kall, director of the University of Michigan’s debate program. “Part of the problem is that President Biden did so poorly in the first one, there’s no way she could have done worse, and so that comparison isn’t going to help. But her debate history is a mixed bag.”
Trump also has high expectations. And Biden’s disastrous performance helped obscure the fact that the former president many untruths — from lies about the January 6 riots to misleading claims about abortion and immigration — that went unchecked during the debate.
Perhaps the highlight of Harris’ short-lived 2020 presidential campaign was a broadside against then-candidate Bidenwho later made her his running mate. She seized on Biden’s opposition to busing to integrate public schools in the 1970s by describing a young girl getting on such buses, before saying, “That little girl was me.”
It was memorable but also planned. Harris’ campaign then posted the same line on social media alongside a photo of her candidate as a schoolgirl in pigtails.
But a low point in Harris’ campaign came during a subsequent debate. Another rival, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, launched a lengthy attack on Harris’ record as a prosecutor.
Gabbard said Harris “put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana offenses and then laughed it off when asked if she had ever smoked marijuana.” As the audience roared, Gabbard further accused Harris of “blocking evidence that could have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so.”
Gabbard now recalls being angry that Harris’ record wasn’t scrutinized more closely during the primaries. She said she uncovered the issues she raised not through opposition research but by using Google.
“I was surprised at how unprepared she was to respond to it. Just, you know, I would imagine you prepare before you go into a debate,” Gabbard said in an interview. “And also that she made no attempt to deny them or, frankly, justify them.”
Gabbard added: “Ultimately, this is disrespectful to voters when she doesn’t respond to questions about a record that she says she’s proud of.”
In her response on the debate stage, Harris attempted to brush off Gabbard, saying, “I’m proud that I’ve made the decision to not just make fancy speeches, or sit in a legislative body and make speeches on the floor, but to actually do the work.”
She got even more personal after the debate, calling herself a “top candidate” and suggesting that Gabbard was polling at “0 or 1% or whatever she might be.” During a subsequent debate, Harris hit back, saying that Gabbard had spent years “full-time on Fox News criticizing President Obama.”
Ironically, Gabbard, who worked for Fox News, remained in the presidential race long after Harris withdrew.
Sometimes a little resistance can help.
Harris first established a national reputation as someone who was exceptionally verbally adept, while to interrogate Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, William Barr, and his Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh.
After Kavanaugh repeatedly dodged questions about abortion, Harris demanded to know if he “could think of laws that would give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Kavanaugh was forced to admit, “I’m not thinking about it right now.”
Kall, of the University of Michigan, said Harris’ 2020 debate performance against Republican Vice President Mike Pence was also well-received. Her most memorable line then was probably rebuffing Pence’s interruptions by responding, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.”
She used that phrase again when protesters questioned the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza Harris interrupted during a rally last week near Detroit’s airportThe vice president was initially accommodating, saying, “I’m here because I believe in democracy, and every vote counts.”
But she continued: “I’m speaking now,” drawing sustained applause from attendees before adding: “If you want Donald Trump to win, say so. Otherwise, I’ll speak.”
“Abandon Biden,” a progressive group that opposed the president’s now-defunct re-election campaign over his Israel policies, was angry about Harris’ “contempt for citizens of this country who are calling for an end to genocide.”
Cullen Tiernan, who served as a spokesman for Gabbard’s 2020 campaign, spent hours preparing for the debate with the then-congresswoman before the onstage exchange with Harris. He played another of her primary rivals, Tim Ryanand laughed about how “the coastal elite is starting to become a big problem for me,” quoting one of Ryan’s famous sayings.
Tiernan, now a political director for a labor union, said he saw similarities between Harris’ response to Gabbard’s criticism during the debate and the interruption in Michigan, but not in a positive way.
“As a progressive person, I look for change and empathy, and understanding of what’s happening,” he said. “Not gaslighting, and feeling like the reality that’s being discussed never existed.”
Gabbard said she hoped a debate between Trump and Harris would show voters the vast differences between the candidates.
“Given the history of many presidential elections, political theater is unfortunately the norm,” she said. “But that substantive debate is really what we need and what we deserve right now.”