The REAL loser of Trump vs Harris debate: Kamala has no plan to lead…Donald has no will to fight and, despairs MAUREEN CALLAHAN, America will suffer for it

There was only one person on stage who looked presidential and it wasn’t Donald Trump.

Yes: Kamala Harris, she of the cackling word salad, wiped the floor with the former president. She has moved with the times, from ‘brat’ to ‘demure’ with ease.

She was radiant. Her hair was shiny, her makeup perfect, her costume impeccable.

Trump, on the other hand, scowled. He let Harris cross the stage to shake his hand, then pouted from behind his podium, his eyebrows low and heavy and his posture hunched.

Trump suddenly became Joe Biden. Gone was the warrior of the assassination attempt, fist in the air, blood on his face, screaming, “Fight, fight, fight!”

Yes: Kamala Harris, she of the cackling word salad, wiped the floor with the former president. She has moved with the times, from ‘brat’ to ‘demure’ with ease.

His fight, it seems, is long over. Trump is now the old, disconnected man who can’t get it together, who can’t formulate a coherent thought, whose utterances are saturated with anger and resentment.

He looked angry. He barely acknowledged Harris as he made wild claims about “migrants eating pets” and abortionists killing live babies.

That’s how bad the debate was: Kamala Harris gave no real details, beyond a few key points from her so-called “opportunity economy,” yet still won handily.

Trump did indeed have competition for the biggest loser on Tuesday: himself or the United States.

For now, Harris is on her way to the presidency without telling anyone what she plans to do with it.

Her inability to formulate a solution for Israel was perhaps most telling.

She began her answer with one of her standard delays, wasting precious seconds with unnecessary words.

“Let’s look at how we got here,” she said, pedantically reminding us that “a terrorist organization” known as Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

“Israel has the right to defend itself, and how it does so matters,” she said.

Her plan for peace?

“This war must end. And that can only happen if there is a ceasefire and the hostages are released.”

Okay, then. It’s that simple. Oh — and then Harris said she would work out a two-state solution, which finer minds than hers have been trying to accomplish for decades and can’t.

Harris was not asked for details, here or otherwise, by ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who otherwise fact-check Donald Trump in real time. Nor was there “full disclosure” offered regarding Kamala’s best friend Dana Walden, a top Disney executive who oversees ABC News.

How is this fair to the voters?

She was radiant. Her hair was shiny, her makeup perfect, her costume impeccable.

Harris was not asked for details, either here or elsewhere, by ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who were otherwise fact-checking Donald Trump in real time.

Trump, meanwhile, was all grievance and all. Harris was thoroughly prepared for whatever came her way, and her reaction when Trump portrayed her and her father as Marxists — hand on chin, eyes bright, bemused smile — suggests she’s gotten a great education in stagecraft from a Hollywood A-team.

Her bar was low, to be sure. Harris had only to sound serious, speak persuasively—substance was a distant second—and maintain her composure. It was Kennedy versus Nixon for the Internet age, and Harris was Kennedy: relatively youthful, hopeful, and forward-looking.

Trump was about the past: the people he fired in the White House, the election he still claims to have won, the traitors who wrote exposés about him, the credit he still doesn’t get for his handling of the pandemic, his economy, his foreign policy.

“Move forward,” Harris said. “Turn the page on the same old tired rhetoric. The American people are exhausted.”

She has a point. And in the only metric that really matters (I kid, just a little), Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala less than an hour after the debate ended.

“Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight,” Swift wrote on Instagram. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris… I think she’s a steady, talented leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we’re led by calm, not chaos.”

Her closing: ‘Childless Cat Lady’. Meow!

But that’s essentially what viewers saw: a composed, serious Harris versus a crazy-sounding Trump. And for the record, neither Trump nor Harris had any details.

Harris: ‘Let’s talk about our plans. Let’s compare plans. I have a plan.’

That plan remains unknown.

Trump, when asked if he has a plan to replace Obamacare: “I have ideas for a plan.”

Pathetic, both. But at least Harris came prepared for this debate. Trump came in clearly unprepared, as if he had this election in the bag, calling her (and Biden) “weak and stupid.”

That doesn’t look good in the post-Roe era, when women voters are more active than ever before.

In another setback for Trump, Melania failed to show up at all, even though Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff was on hand to greet Harris at a post-debate viewing party.

In another setback for Trump, Melania failed to show up at all, even though Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff was on hand to greet Harris at a post-debate viewing party.

By the only metric that really matters (just kidding, really), Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala less than an hour after the debate ended.

Women often decide elections. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, most women have voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1996. Kamala Harris simply gave them the confidence that she could handle the task — visually, cosmetically, in tone and tenor, if not in substance.

But that’s the way our politics are, and we have only ourselves to blame.

This debate raises one existential question: Does Trump even want to win? His listless, agitated performance suggests he doesn’t.

Perhaps he was defeated by the lawfare, by his impending conviction after the New York election, by the media bias during this debate, and by the assassination attempt that nearly killed him.

“We are a fading nation… in serious decline,” he raged. “We are laughed at all over the world. We are not a leader… We are going to be in a third world war.”

Harris, on the other hand, turned her attention to futurism in her closing remarks. “What I do offer,” she said, “is a new generation of leadership” — a refreshing idea in our current gerontocracy.

America, she said, is “a leader” who “shows strength” and she presented herself as a candidate “who believes in optimism.”

And after that debate, Harris felt extremely optimistic. Instead of taking the win and going back to the metaphorical basement, her team quickly challenged Trump.

“Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate,” her campaign manager said in a statement. “Is Donald Trump?”

Harris undeniably had a great night. America did not.