THE BUZZ: DEBATE DEBRIEF — The first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris brought the usual personal jabs, accusations of lying and question-dodging.
It also brought some … less expected moments. The debate opened with Harris chasing down a reluctant Trump to shake his hand. In the first 20 minutes, the vice president avoided directly answering questions on the economy and struggled to get out her talking points while Trump went after the Biden administration on inflation. When the conversation turned to abortion — a key Democratic issue — Harris picked up steam. Trump’s claim that some states were “executing” babies after birth was promptly knocked down in a fact-check by moderators, and from there, the former president grew increasingly irritated as Harris dug in. The ABC hosts asked about a wide range of topics including health care, Israel, fracking and immigration, but that didn’t stop the candidates from veering off course — in some cases, wildly so. We did our best to predict the key moments of the night, but these things definitely weren’t on our bingo cards — California wasn’t mentioned … at all — Trump spent plenty of energy accusing Harris of destroying the country but did little to tie her to San Francisco or California, which have become the favorite punching bags of conservatives. Harris called Trump’s rallies boring, and Trump took the bait — This appeared to be a new dig from Democrats on Tuesday, and it proved extremely effective in getting under the skin of the former president, who has made no secret about his sensitivities around crowd size. Harris, in response to a question about immigration, knocked Trump for seeking campaign fodder rather than solutions, then criticized his rallies for what she characterized as a lack of substance. “What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” she said. That did it for Trump. When it was his turn to speak about immigration, he declined, telling moderators, “first let me respond to the rallies.” “People don't leave my rallies. We're the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies, in the history of politics,” he said. “That's because people want to take their country back.” “They’re eating the dogs.” — When Trump did finally get around to talking about immigration, he pulled from a viral piece of misinformation that had been making the rounds on conservative social media circles, claiming, incorrectly, that immigrants are eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats,” he added. “They're eating the pets of the people that live there.” Harris, unfazed, responded coolly: “Talk about extreme.” “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison." — Trump’s claim appeared to stem from an ACLU questionnaire Harris answered in 2019, where she said she supported gender-affirming care for incarcerated and detained people, including those in federal custody, which could include undocumented immigrants. Awkward: Trump distanced himself from his VP pick — As moderators pressed Trump on whether he would veto a national abortion ban bill, pointing out that his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, had just last month declared he would, the former president threw his VP pick under the bus. "I didn't discuss it with JD, in all fairness,” he said. “I don't mind if he has a certain view.” Trump got an “I’m speaking” moment — We were ready to see Harris repeat her viral remark from the 2020 debate with Mike Pence, but it was Trump who chastised her for interrupting him — multiple times. “I’m talking now, if you don’t mind,” he said to the VP on one occasion. “Does that sound familiar?” Dialoguing with the Taliban — In defending his negotiations over Afghanistan, the former president recounted his 2020 talks with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to pause violence in the country. “And I told Abdul, ‘Don't do it anymore. You do it anymore, you’re going to have problems.’ And he said, ‘Why do you send me a picture of my house?’ I said, ‘You're going to have to figure that out, Abdul,’” Trump said. Read more of POLITICO's takeaways, including who won the debate. GOOD MORNING. It is Wednesday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? Returning from Philadelphia, where he attended the debate and worked the TV news circuit for Harris.
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