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She seemed faux-fascinated, as if coaxing him into pondering he was onto one thing — nodding, head-tilting, performatively squinting, smiling just a little, then just a little extra — a reel of soon-to-be memes, screaming silent bemusement with a hand on her chin.
He seemed depressing.
The preliminary query, a minimum of, ought to have been fertile terrain for former President Donald Trump: a immediate for Vice President Kamala Harris about immigration, a vulnerability for her, and the way she may diverge on the topic from her boss, whose insurance policies on the border have usually come underneath withering criticism.
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However by the point Trump bought to speaking, he had one thing else on his thoughts: rally attendance.
Additionally cats.
It may be stated that Harris was nicely ready in main him astray. After blaming Trump for serving to to tank a congressional border invoice, Harris unboxed an assault line that appeared handcrafted by a crew of Trumpologists to enrage him, distracting him together with his personal vainness.
“I’m going to really do one thing actually uncommon,” she stated, addressing the viewers at house. “I’m going to ask you to attend one in every of Donald Trump’s rallies. As a result of it’s a extremely attention-grabbing factor to look at.”
Smirking, frightening, Harris ticked via some widespread Trump digressions, like windmills and the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter. Trump’s eyes narrowed, and his head cocked to the left.
“And what additionally, you will discover,” she stated, as Trump bobbed a bit, pendulum-like, “is that folks begin leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and tedium.”
On these two nouns, Trump’s eyes shot up. Harris accomplished her thought: “The one factor you’ll not hear him discuss is you.”
After which, Trump talked about Trump.
The previous president, a merry anarchist of a debater since his first marketing campaign, can usually be relied upon to the touch each range, sound each air horn. This can be a man who as soon as stared into an eclipse.
But in a night rife with missed alternatives and curious rabbit holes for Trump, this was the alternate the place he appeared to lose his method — the temptation he couldn’t resist, irrespective of what number of allies may need hoped he might hear their pleas to double again.
As an ABC moderator, David Muir, strained to redirect the dialog, asking Trump in regards to the immigration invoice that Harris had introduced up, he was not .
“First, let me reply as to the rallies …”
Quickly, Harris’ proper hand returned to her chin.
When Trump was performed litigating his rally crowds (“We’ve the largest rallies, essentially the most unbelievable rallies within the historical past of politics”) and conspiracy-casting about hers (“Folks don’t go to her rallies — there’s no motive to go — and the those that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there”), he turned to a broadly debunked yarn about Haitian immigrants in Ohio abducting and feasting on their neighbors’ pets.
“They’re consuming the canines!” he stated. “The those that got here in — they’re consuming the cats!”
Harris threw her head again. She clasped her fingers. Muir refuted the claims as Trump glowered.
“I’ve seen folks on tv!” he protested. “Folks on tv say, ‘My canine was taken and used for meals!’”
Harris shook her head, projecting the deep concern of a upset relative. She laughed for a second.
“Discuss excessive,” she stated, a bit risk-averse after already getting what she had needed. A distinct candidate — Invoice Clinton, Trump — may need let fly a ferocious zinger, unrehearsed and unmerciful. She let it relaxation.
However she did have one thing else so as to add, culled once more from her roster of buzz-phrases that make Trump see matador purple.
Would possibly viewers prefer to know, she puzzled, in regards to the Republicans who’ve endorsed her marketing campaign? Republicans like Liz Cheney, the previous member of Congress and relentless Trump nemesis?
Trump yanked his head skyward. Now he was pretending to snigger, unconvincingly.
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