Trump expertly exposed as 'America’s Fox News-besotted grandpa' by Kamala Harris: analysis

Former President Donald Trump was torn to shreds by Vice President Kamala Harris on the debate stage on Tuesday, wrote author and political opinion columnist Will Bunch for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Trump's performance was widely considered to be a disaster by pundits, as he repeatedly made false claims about migrants, January 6, and the economy. He also became visibly flustered as Harris attacked his record, and at times appeared unable to answer questions.

"For 100 gobsmacking minutes, the Californian who would be America’s first woman president was all of us, as the split screen showed Harris’ highly expressive face ranging from bemused puzzlement to barely suppressed laughter to blinking eyeballs of shock, as the 45th president of the United States dourly ranted about made-up 'migrant crime' statistics or falsely claimed that Democratic states allow doctors to murder newborn babies," wrote Bunch. Meanwhile, he said, Harris "dominated the screen" — and with her facial expressions, conveyed "a kind of sorrow and pity" for Trump's apparent cognitive decline.

Essentially, he wrote, Trump choked on a national stage: "The brilliant cross-examination by Harris produced his absolute worst nightmare. The man who was once keeper of the nuclear football was exposed as America’s Fox News-besotted grandpa, eagerly gobbling up the latest unhinged racist rumors that his neighbors were posting on Nextdoor or Facebook."

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Harris did not offer a perfect performance, noted Bunch, at times coming off as too canned in her responses and, in the eyes of some progressives watching, didn't offer a clear enough path forward to end the war in Gaza.

However, he concluded, "policy stuff wasn’t what really mattered at the end of the night. Under the white lights of the South Philly tap room, the mostly millennial and very urban debate watch crowd told me again and again that what won the debate for Harris was her command of the room — which came across the second she strolled over to the recalcitrant Trump and forcefully shook his hand, booming out 'Kamala' with the right pronunciation — and her poise that never wavered."