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Welcome to this whistlestop edition of voter Nomics, where markets and politics collide, and we're talking about the first debate between the former president Donald Trump and the Vice president and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. It was hosted last night in Philadelphia by ABC News. I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Economics and Government at Bloomberg.
I'm alecro Stratton, and I'm Adrian Wooldridge.
And Tim O'Brien is here, head of opinion for Bloomberg. I mean, Tim, this was President Trump's sixth debate, but I think it was probably I think it's fair to say it was the first in which he's been so often on the defensive. I mean, Kamala Harris came with a plan to bait him clearly and let voters see the Donald Trump that is least popular with those crucial, kind of middle of the road undecided voters. But I mean, I suspect everyone else who's debated Trump has also had
a plan. Hillary Clinton surely did. But the difference seemed to me staying up in the early hours, was this time it worked. I mean, I think a lot and a lot of that came from Kamala Harris just having the confidence to pick a fight with him. I mean, she wasn't brilliant, but she was kind of the alpha female, and I don't get the impression Donald was really ready for that at all.
Well.
Also, you know, time has gone on. In twenty sixteen, he was less of a known quantity. I don't think his weak points were less known to his appointments. If you ran tape of Harris last night against Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen. He was also younger then, and he he's noticeably degraded just physically since twenty sixteen. He's hard of hearing, he's more mush mouthed, he's hunched over. He's not as acute as he once was. You know, one of his primary skills is performance art, not policy, And
as a performance artist, he's clearly degraded. So there was that set of factors at work. And then secondarily, and I think probably most importantly, is she did her homework and she came into it knowing that how you get Donald Trump off balance in any forum is it's not about policy, it's about going after his sense of himself, because he's narcissistic and insecure. And to me, the kind of pivot point in the whole debate was when she mentioned that people were getting bored at as rallies and
leaving early. And I looked at his face at that moment you could sort of like, you know, he sort of froze, and it led him then to give also one of the most bonkers answers of the night.
And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaust, question and boredom.
What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk. Not going to be Aurora or Springfield, a lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating they're eating the pets of the people that
live there. And this is what's happening in our country.
And I don't know if you meant that as a commentary on inflation and grocery prices, which had been one of his bugaboos, or it's just one of his inflammatory things about immigrants. I think probably definitely the latter. And then he came back to say, but my rallies are really popular, the most popular in history. You know. She was a little unsettled at the beginning of the debate, I think once they got into abortion, and then she
teed him up with that statement. It was her debate from there on in, and he just got more and more like Jack Nicholson and a few good men. You know. He was raging against the universe, probably more like King Lear than anything else.
So did his team have a strategy and he didn't execute it or did they just not have a strategy?
Yes, there's always which you can never have strategy in Donald Trump in the same sentence, because he doesn't he doesn't listen to other people. He believes he's a force un to himself, and he never he never he thinks emotionally. And I know for a fact that the guidance he was getting from his team was to be a kind, nice Donald. But that's not who he is. You know, he's he's a juvenile, nasty man at his core, and that's the person who showed up.
Even if you're going to be the nasty Trump, you could be the nasty but reasonably disciplined Trump. And what she was very successful. He was quite disciplined at the start.
And I think we could we could talk a little bit about the economy section because it was probably his best section, and talked about tariffs and some other things he's stuck to some of the topics that you know, his advice is have been telling him to, but he couldn't help himself once she was sort of needling him going into his sort of rally mode.
Well, I mean, I think one of the virtues of Donald Trump in the past is that he's had a very good sense of humor. I mean cruel and unpleasant sense of humor, but he was able to tell a joke and amuse people and feel people made people feel a bit good about their resentments. That was completely absent.
I mean, he seems like a bad tempered, grouchy old man, the sort of people that all too many people will know from their home sitting in front of Fox News, agreeing with it and talking to agree, you know, agreeing with everysentiment on Fox News. He seems a bit past.
She also remember when Tim Watz was first nominated, and one of the things that people said was one of the reasons why he'd sort of caught fire when people were campaigning kind of informally to be her running mate, was that he'd sort of had this line about, you know, they were weird. You know that there was that weird stuff that that Trump and Mats were talking about in fact, and he wanted to sit round a Thanksgiving table and not have a weird argument with his aunt or his
uncle about something strange. And she was really channeling that at various times. She was sort of he was there. He had a very kind of he had his kind of mugshot pose for most of it in the in the two shot when you could see one next to the other, and she was sort of she was very effective at saying, this is a man who just wants us to be shouting at each other all the time and divisive, and we don't want to go back to that.
I thought she delivered that was obviously prepared, but she delivered it very well.
Think about the fact that he wasn't aware of how to handle the split screen, because it so did Biden in in their June debate, and Biden didn't know how to handle it, and maybe couldn't because he looked catatonic when you know, when Trump was speaking, Biden was sort of looking out into space and slack joed and it was like, you know, is he actually breathing? And and you would think anyone watching that debate, and especially Trump,
he's a former reality TV star. He understands the power of celebrity and the visual mediums that he would have had in his mind, don't stand there repeating the look of your mugshot in Georgia.
Well, except for it worked so well for him, right, so he thought this is a shot that people like. But I mean, to your pot adrin about you know, having been funny. It is true that people have sort of found him amusing, but it is interesting given his the one thing that she wasn't. She didn't get him on was talking about her laugh although she did laugh several times at him, and I wondered whether he was going to go there. But he's talked about a lot
about her love. But you know, as people have commented, it's very hard to find him laughing. He doesn't seem to ever laugh. So I think even that played against he seemed just very negative, very dow And I have to say a leg I mean just being a woman
for a moment. You know, one has always thought, gosh, the prospect of debating Donald Trump as a woman even more challenging in some ways, and certainly the risk is you will come across, as Hillary Clinton did, as someone who was terribly well prepared and really was just felt she just deserved to be listened to. Why would you listen to this awful man? Yes, a swat exactly, so you don't say swat in America, but yeah, absolutely. But I thought what was really interesting about the way she
did it was it was like that second step. I remember having a professor who would say, you know, there's learning a difficult text, and then there's learning to be knowing it so well you can just walk around in it. She didn't just know her debate prep. She was then able to walk around in it. And when he mentioned something, you know, when he said you're Biden, she was like, oh, great,
I can do the line that I'm not Biden. And by the way, I'm a different generation from Biden and you Donald Trump, I thought, as it sort of showed that there's if you were brave enough, it's actually easier to debate him as a woman, do you think yeah.
And gender is also playing a different role from the one it played before with with Hillary Clinton, because abortion has so been electrified as a political issue that she is now the standard bearer for defending abortion right. So whereas before with with Hillary Clinton, it hadn't been weaponized in that way, it is now a political battering ram for her to make all, you know, women across America very anxious about this guy. So and I don't think
that was a thing back then. Trump also tried to kind of do a little bit back at her, where he's like, I'm talking now, what a.
Minute, I'm talking now, if you don't mind, please does that sound familiar?
Subverting the kind of previous charge of you know, let me finish. She is a prosecutor, she is a parent in the land. She is superb. The worry had been that previously during the Democratic primaries back in the day, she was wooden. I don't know why she was so off her pace back in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, but she's now with this nomination, got a new confidence. I don't think people saw even as vice president.
We didn't see it. Frankly in the CNN interview.
Absolutely, I think that's absolutely right. I think it's not just that Trump had a really bad evening, but she had really good evening in the sense, well she was slow to start, but she got off some really well. The stakes were so high. She came across as likable, charismatic and actually quite articulate. It wasn't expected because she's been.
She has had some shockers. But my queasiness, and I really want you to kind of kind of give us a kind of gauge on this, tim My queasiness is sometimes with Donald Trump, the sort of rambling shambalism works for a bunch of people at home, they kind of we look at it and think how in articular incoherent and and rambling, and and then you know, he gets a bite spike in the polls or or people go, yeah, it's kind of reassuring because he's not super clever, and
he's not super shiny, and he's not really he's not. He doesn't make me feel stupid or you know, because Kamela is she's she is, she is so so polished and so assured.
You know.
I think what we are learning about about voters is some people that makes them feel, you know, you know, lower in the self esteem. So I'm just wondering, is it this time does that work for Donald Trump? Or actually, this time is it just too to Stephanie's point, were and incoherent, it's just too much.
It will continue to work for him with about thirty percent of American voters, and it will always work for
him with those voters. And there are long routes to that, the most recent which is the two thousand and eight financial crisis, in the wake of which neither political party in the United States addressed the needs of middle class Americans who saw their mortgages, pensions, and hope evaporate standards, and Trump filled that vacuum when he campaigned in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen and He basically said, I'm on
your side. The oppressive federal bureaucracy and all these people of color sneaking across the borders are the ones doing you in, and I will go after them on your behalf. And he'll have the imagine hearts and minds of those voters probably forever. But moderate and independent voters are not there.
But if you look at the reaction to this debate, it's quite interesting that the magaworld reaction has not been He's on our side. He said some really good things. They've been really quite shocked by how bad his performances. I think he's becoming so that Elon Musk says, well, he's obviously had a bad night. It's very hard, but I still think they'll vote for him.
The electoral impact of it, I don't think is abandon it's embarrassment.
But is the memes that have taken off on on on, on Twitter and everywhere else. They're all very bad for him, particularly on the issue of roasting pets or full of people putting pets in in the oven and barbecuing them. We go, that's not good for him.
With sort of segueing into the sort of reality check zone, and I'm interested, Tim, I mean when you look at the polls afterwards, about which we know in the end don't make much difference. You've often had poles that he was perceived to have lost and it didn't make a difference.
He was perceived to have lost in the debates, at least on points and debates against Hillary, and you had I think most of them have shown thirty eight forty five, depending on which one you lookt still thinking that Donald Trump won the debate. You know, obviously a majority thinking Kamala Harris one. And I just wonder, you know, for the first fifty minutes was about the economy, he was more or less on message. She was fine, but definitely not great. A lot of people would have just turned
off after that. Do you think there's I mean, it certainly is possible that this does not move the needle at all. We saw that even after the most catastrophic debate. The first debate had a huge impact on the race because it changed the candidate. The polls themselves barely moved after that first debate. We saw a few points, but that was probably the most catastrophic debate that any candidate has ever had. So are we are we inevitably going to be surprised by how little this affects anything.
I don't know the answer to that. I think that you know, debates have a mixed record in terms of whether they're predictive or they have an influence. The thing to remember about what's transpired between late Tune and now is that Trump was ahead by three to six points in various swing states. That gap has completely closed, and in some cases Harris is ahead of Trump, and in Florida it's only two points. That has to terrify the Republicans.
If Florida flips, Trump loses, and it's a generational change for the GOP. I think that you know a couple things to remember or focus on, and I was thinking about it when you asked alegra The quick question about women and gender is that when Hillary Clinton campaigned in twenty sixteen, one of the campaign models was I'm with her, And what Harris is saying is I'm with you. She's not denying that she's a candidate of color or obviously that she's a woman, and she strategically embraces that when
it's useful. But she has I think the strength of character to say I'm not doing identity politics here. I'm trying to deliver solutions to voters and that's a really powerful place to be. And I think the Kamala Harris who has emerged on this international stage since being anointed as Biden's successor is not Kamala Harris any of us saw before. And I think I think it's a lesson in people who were on the ground with one another in any organization, whether it's politics or companies or families.
You know people better when you're with them every day. And clearly the sharpest democratic operatives in the land, from Nancy Pelosi on down, knew that she had evolved. And there will be a very interesting TikTok written someday of what happened when Biden got nudged down to that stage, self emolated, and then with like clockwork.
The party.
Yeah, yeah, because I think I think there were probably some people in the White House who knew he would embarrass himself and the only way to get him out of the race was humiliate and public Well, I just think it's practical politics. You know, politicians are egotists, and they don't move easily. And then the speed and the alacrity with which she was put in place, and how she's risen to the occasion people knew she could do it.
But quick question on that, I mean that Kamala Harris doesn't go away and that she's this still is that wreck? I mean, how many staffers has she kept with her through from the beginning of being vice president to to now or to shortly before becoming the nominee for president? Like not many. So there's a kind of.
Virtue when a man moves through an incompetent staff, and when a woman does it, it's.
People do think it's about someone who's works in politics. I don't think it is a virtue when people turn through people very quickly. You need who are you? Who are your kind of long term confidence. I'm not saying I think it disqualifies her or that she's going to be a bad president because of it. I'm just saying that that that's slightly poor performing Kamala Harris. How much of that is going to come back to the fore
at some point in terms of advisers she's had. I mean, you're right that she's gone through that there is a double standard because clearly, clearly, as Adrian says, Donald Trump's not the one to talk about having gone through.
Lots of people. I thought, if we just talked briefly about I mean, there were quite a lot of areas where she could have. You know, one of the failures that Donald Trump had is he didn't get enough onto Whenever the discussion had moved to her flops and her weak areas like immigration, she would just sort of, rather very obviously and transparently pivot back to something that would bait him and distract him. But it did mean that she got away with some of that. I thought, though.
There was a bit more substance on foreign policy, or at least more discussion on foreign policy than I had anticipated to talk about. Gaza talked about Ukraine, where he was unwilling to say that he wanted Ukraine to win. Even in that earlier section, she was quite She took the offensive on China in an interesting way. How did you think she was tim on foreign policy?
My own bias is that I think the United States has to be a citizen of the world, and that we play an indispensable role in global security and our partnership with our allies in Western Europe and further abroad. And I thought her most effective statement of the night was how she described America's leadership role in the world, her commitment to national security. I thought she was excellent on Ukraine. She was excellent on Gaza, she was excellent
on China. All three of those theaters are are perilous right now. China could invade Taiwan Gas as a potential tinderbox for the rest of them Middle East. And if we don't stand up to Vladimir Putin and Ukraine, he becomes an even more predatory presence throughout the rest of Europe. And I think the essential player in every one of those theaters is the United States, for better or for worse. And she made a statement of purpose around that I thought was spectacular.
It's not just that she did very well on that, It's just that it's also that Trump did very badly on that, in the sense that he has dealt with a great many people. He's been president for four years, and he didn't make any real use of that depth of experience or knowledge or comforting the world by saying that I know these people, I can deal with them. I'm a man who makes deals. He made nothing of.
The fact the Barker's statement of Victor.
He was citing.
So nothing, you know, no Nixonian depth of experience. And the other thing was immigration again, which is one of his things, is one of the things that he just had on the book. In the polls, people are worried about it, and he fluffed it completely. He didn't talk about people's real fears about immigration in fact, and Gren sorry to mention this line, but he made it all about cats and dogs, which was you know that that.
Had been a debunked meme. And the issue that where average Americans fear immigration is that their jobs are going to take not that they're going to be that someone down the block is reading, you know, the kitchen and making dinner, eating fluffy.
I mean, I suspect I toightly disagree with you, Tim, in the sense of I suspect probably the bit her advisors will have been least happy with, or at least will not will not be so excited about is her fulsome defense of the role of America in the world.
Which is not to say she shouldn't say it, but I think what is the only bit of the foreign policy that she spoke to that is very popular is being tough on China, which Is, which was again sort of taking the game to Trump, and I thought it was very interesting that she went on China first and even managed to insert the sort of reference about the origins COVID and accuse him of being too close to
she and talking about girls. His response was, she hates Israelis and Arabs, which I thought was a fantastic statement.
She hates Israel if she's president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, and I've been pretty good at predictions, and I hope we're wrong about that one. She hates Israel at the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up.
You really can't have it both ways.
I don't think foreign policy has ever turned a US election. Most US voters don't care about it. And I do think that leadership means you articulate and get out in front on issues that voters aren't either in touch with or in agreement with. But because it's the right thing to do, and we're in a perilous place right now globally, and if the US doesn't assert itself and have someone as with the clarity and commitment that she articulated last
night in spades. Even Joe Biden, who is credited as being the savant on foreign policy, he never articulated as well as she did last night. And I think that that stands in her favor.
So next steps, do we actually think this is going to change the race?
Sixty percent of Independence in the wake of the poll said she won. And I'll sound like a dead horse because all three of us have talked about this multiple times together, I think by this point, but it's going to be seven swing states in November, and the pivotal votes in those swing states will come from moderate and independent voters. And I think they're not only moving to her noticeably. I think they will move to her on Moss and I think that momentum the clips they'll be
able to. Now you know, the Democrats have a lot of money. Airwaves are going to get flooded in Nevada and Arizona. Of Donald Trump saying your neighbors want to eat your cats.
And saying that he has a concept of a concept of an idea, concept of an idea on health.
Comes a concept of a plane. When he was asked for your economic plans, and he said, I have a concept of a plan, and what are your healthcare plans? I have a concept of a plan. He has no concept of anything.
That was one thing, and I don't know me in a legra maybe from a messaging standpoint, I mean, the one thing that I thought was a bit confused in the sort of Carmela messaging was that you know, clearly project twenty twenty five has had a lot of resonance, and she mentioned it a couple of times because she knows that even when people don't know anything about it, they kind of know it's bad. And he distanced himself from it. But you can't say you've got no plan,
which she did repeatedly. But then there is a plan and it's twenty twenty five. And I thought that was one area where I mean, which do we think is going to be strongest for her? That he had an evil plan or that you've got no plan? Should I recognize that from somewhere because it's not very original.
And it is quite tedious, how so much of politics is not particularly clever or original, but it just connects and it just works and as simple as usually best. Because I think you're right, I'm not even sure I think you're being very flattering to sort of Middle America.
I'm not sure most people in Middle America will be cognizant of it, so I would have thought you'd better off sticking to kind of there is the plan, this guy rambles and do we think they should do another d I mean that was the other thing that came straight, and she went straight after the debate had bad saying it wasn't cats they were eating, it was the city geese that I'm not sure it was a lot better.
You had Donald Trump go into the spin room, which is very unusual, but you had the Kamala Harris team saying, yeah, bring it on, We'll do more debates.
You know from Sadusca. She lost, but she wants another one.
Do you I mean, Tim, do you think or Adrian do you think? Do you think there'll be another debate? Do you think she should do a debate on Fox? Because it seems pretty clear that if there was another one, it would have to be on Fox.
Neither of them have anything to gain by doing another debate, but for very different reasons. She now has all of the firepower she needs from a debate, and his advisors must think, well, should we do another debate or should we just drive a car into a wall's as possible, because he won't change in the next debate. He can't
rescue himself from himself. It was himself on the stage last night, you know, King Lear, howling against the moon, not listening to anyone else in this sort of pathetic, angry growl.
Well we will in a week's time. We shall probably find that the debate itself has had very little impact on the race. And the most important thing that did happen last night, of course, was that Taylor Swift the most powerful childless cat lady in the world. And I can't help thinking that will have more impact than anything we've said or anything we had.
And she had a link in her post to voter dot org, so it will produce fundraising and voter turn out just in very practical ways.
And she encouraged justice everyone should people to actually make up their own mind, which I thought was pretty classy, sort of half an hour after the debate finished, Thank you very much, Adrian Allegra, tim a privilege you be here, Thanks for listening to this special episode of voter Nomics from Bloomberg. It was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders, with Allegra Stratton and Adrian will Dridge and Tim O'Brien. It was produced by Summer Sadin, Production support and sound design
by Moses and am Brendan. Francis Newnham is our executive producer. Sage Bowman is Head of Podcasts. Please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast wherever you listen to it