Kamala Harris' Greatest Debate Win

The vice president did the impossible: she reclaimed 'family values' on abortion rights

Last night’s debate went exactly as I hoped: Kamala Harris wiped the floor with Donald Trump, calling him a “disgrace,” “confused,” and, most devastatingly, boring—an insult that sent him into a spiral from which he never quite recovered.

It was the exchange on abortion rights, though, where Harris really shined.

While Trump relied on his go-to claims of abortion “after birth” and the idea that ‘everyone’ wanted Roe overturned, the vice president was able to bring the issue back to what really matters: people. She spoke clearly and passionately about the women and families devastated by abortion bans, calling their suffering “unconscionable.”

In fact, in the ten minutes that the candidates sparred on reproductive rights, Harris did something that would have been unthinkable just two years ago: She reclaimed ‘family values’ on abortion. Watch the exchange below, or read the transcript here.

Harris’ most effective refrain was her response to Trump’s insistence that “every legal scholar, every Democracy, every Republican,” wanted abortion “to be brought back to the states.”

“You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don't want that.”

It was a show-stopping moment; even through a television screen, you could feel Harris’ righteous fury and Trump’s cowed discomfort. I’ve written often that one of the reasons Republicans are so keen to talk about abortion in terms of 6 weeks vs 12 weeks vs 20 weeks is because it’s a lot easier than talking about women going septic or raped children forced to give birth. This was evidence of just that.

Because when Harris spoke about the real people impacted by these laws—the women who have “to get on a plane sitting next to strangers” to get healthcare—it wasn’t just a refusal to allow Trump to frame the conversation, but a reminder that we’re the ones protecting American families.

And when Harris hit back at Trumps ‘after birth’ line, which she called “insulting to women,” the message was similarly clear: This is a candidate who has no idea what women’s lives, health, or bodies are like.

These are moments that would have been impossible if Joe Biden was the nominee. The president, who can barely muster a word in support of abortion without caveats, could never deliver what the end of Roe requires: Enthusiastic and unapologetic support of abortion rights. Harris brought that, and voters noticed.

As a result of the exchange, abortion was the most searched issue in every single state (other than Ohio, thanks to Trump’s bizarre and racist claim that immigrants were eating people’s pets). And Rolling Stone reports that as the Harris campaign monitored reactions of undecided voters in battleground states, their response was “off the charts” when the vice president talked about abortion. “We rarely see dials go this high,” they said, and noted that in that first hour of the debate, 71% of their grassroots donors were women.

Pollster Tresa Undem called the way Harris spoke about abortion “unprecedented.”

“For undecided women and undecided independent men, I think it was pretty powerful and it can have an effect. She reminded folks, including undecided voters, that most Americans are with her. Most Americans believe that women should have control over their own body.”

The best Trump could muster, on the other hand, was calling himself the “leader on fertilization.” And because Harris was so effective at bringing the conversation back to people’s lived experiences, Trump’s comments about “legal scholars” and “the states” seemed even more callous in comparison. In a moment when women are suffering so acutely, the fact that he couldn’t spare a thought or line about what these laws mean for American families is telling.

In that way, Trump is a perfect ambassador for the anti-abortion movement; his lack of empathy mirrors the cruelty of his bans.

The last two years have been unimaginably difficult, and the stories Harris shared were stomach-churning. But there was something incredibly validating about seeing the barbarity of the anti-abortion movement laid out so plainly at the debate. Finally, we are talking about these people the way we should. At last, we’ve wrested the language of ‘family’ from those who destroy them. For that—and for Harris—I’m grateful.

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In Other Debate News…

• Trump refused to say that he would veto a national abortion ban. That won’t be surprising to readers here, of course—but it was pretty hilarious to watch him throw JD Vance under the bus by saying, “I didn’t discuss it with JD.”

• Speaking of JD: Taylor Swift endorsed Harris/Walz last night, throwing a barb at Vance by signing her message on Instagram, “Childless Cat Lady.”

• Debate tracking from The New York Times found that while the economy was discussed more than any other issue at 10 minutes, abortion was the second-most discussed topic at just over 7 minutes.

• There’s concern that Harris’ clear debate win won’t translate into an electoral one—with pundits on Twitter pointing out that Hillary Clinton won the debates, too. But we still had Roe then, and didn’t have the experience of four years of a Trump presidency. I’m feeling good.

• Anti-abortion groups, activists and pundits doubled down on Trump’s false claims about ‘post-birth’ abortion. (As I’ve written before, Democrats have an important opportunity to make clear to voters that Republicans are talking about palliative care for fatally-ill newborns.)

• Trump hit the terms Abortion, Every Day has been tracking, from his ‘post birth’ abortion nonsense to saying abortion is now “a vote of the people.”

• Finally, in the least shocking news ever, Trump says he’s “less inclined” to do another debate. Why? Because he supposedly won this one. Sure, Jan.