Republican nominee Donald Trump immediately took Vice President Kamala Harris’ bait at Tuesday night’s presidential debate — even though he surely knew that was her plan of attack, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said.
“It wasn’t a hidden strategy. [The Harris campaign] were literally telling people, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna try to get under Donald Trump’s skin. This is the strategy. We’re gonna get under his skin, and we’re gonna let Donald be Donald,’” the lawmaker said in an appearance on the liberal MeidasTouch network.
“The Donald Trump strategy was also very public. ‘We’re gonna make sure we don’t let her get under our skin,’” Moskowitz went on. “And literally, 11 minutes in, she goes, ‘crowd size,’ and he goes: ‘Viktor Orbán. They’re eating puppies and cats.’”
“I mean, it was like diarrhea of the mouth as soon as she said ‘crowd size,’” he added.
“I can’t actually recall [anyone ever] telegraphing your plan, letting your opponent know what your plan is, your opponent prepping against your plan, and then, within a second of launching your plan, your opponent falling for it immediately.”
Minutes into the debate, Harris told viewers that people leave the former president’s “rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
It clearly hit a nerve, and prompted one of Trump’s most widely ridiculed tirades of the evening. (He claimed baselessly that immigrants are eating Americans’ cats and dogs.)
She successfully repeated the strategy multiple times.
Ahead of the debate, Harris advisers had told media that unnerving Trump would be part of her approach.
Political commentators have widely assessed the debate as a clear win for Harris, who expertly set traps that Trump stepped into without fail.
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