Has the Harris-Trump Debate Changed Anything? | FREE PRESS LIVE

ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome to the Free Press live yet again on Thursday night I'm your host Michael moan and what a crackerjack panel we have for you tonight as usual crowd favorite and opinion editor at Newsweek Bacha unar Sargon editorinchief of the Jewish Chronicle firsttime guest Josh kraar and a few for you righteous Gentiles and go out there you know him from axio and National Journal he's he's the big wig in the Young Gun Go For It Free Press reporter frany block you can't get better than that all right we got a lot to cover uh today because you know there's a few things going on in the news um we got to get to this presidential debate right we did an episode of honestly about it but there's a lot more to talk about with different voices um but then because of that debate we have to answer the five maybe five question 5,000 L question are Haitian immigrants eat pets they're not by the way uh there's some Maga infighting which always is amazing between Al Looney Laura lomer and weirdly the less Looney Marjorie Taylor green and finally are colleges pledging that they won't take political stances anymore as institutions probably not in the classroom all right on Tuesday night Donald Trump and kamla Harris took the stage for their first debate and the polls indicate what but I felt a lot of people felt that Harris was the winner uh but throughout the night she kept her cool and Trump so so here's DT Donald Trump taking the bait when Harris claimed that people leave his rallies early respond us to the rallies she said people start leaving people don't go to her rallies there's no reason to go and the people that do go she's busting them in and paying them to be there and and showing them in a different light so she can't talk about that people don't leave my rallies we have the biggest rallies the most incredible rallies in the history of politics that's because people want to take their country back in the history of Politics the biggest the best you fell for it um all right and here is Donald J Trump cramming in a bunch of buzzwords into one sentence we'll see what this means things that nobody would ever think of now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison this is a radical left liberal that would do this she wants to confiscate your guns and she will never allow fracking in Pennsylvania the ones in prison um so Harris comes across as you know kind of prepared and you know didn't get the word salad that we kind of maybe expected and here she is talking about abortion you know one of the issues that she's kind of strongest on and strongest on for Democrats over 20 States there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide Health Care in one state it provides prison for life Trump abortion banss that make no exception even for rape and incest which understand what that means a survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next that is immoral and one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body Josh Crusher thanks for joining us we're very happy to have you on this panel what do you think what do you think I mean she was you know a lot stronger than I expected and you know I guess the low expectations because I'm on on Twitter too much and I see these compilations of her making not a ton of sense what is your read on what happened on Tuesday night so Michael first it's great to be here as a first time uh participant on the on on the live show um look I kamla Harris is an accomplished prosecutor and her best moments in political life have been when she's had time to practice to to you know work on some lines and and have the the the the stage to herself and and to execute with those uh scripted lines and we saw that back back in 2020 in her one moment uh that that she did well in in the 2020 presidential campaign when she attacked Biden for Ping around with segregation of senators and and busing and and that was her high point of of a pretty otherwise lousy campaign but she couldn't follow through there wasn't a whole lot of strategy beyond that but she's shown that she can kind of deliver the scripted moment and she certainly did that in spades on uh on this on the first debate we and maybe only debate we're going to see um look she HED up she was practicing for for almost a week in Pittsburgh we were trying to reach the Harris campaign to get comments on a lot of important news going on and they they a lot of lot of lot of feedback we got was that they're practicing the debate she doesn't have time to actually deal with uh response of of what's going on Josh let me ask you a quick followup you know the question I was asking myself while watching this is you know she's doing extraordinarily well and you know the people are reacting and you know the polls are showing this these snap polls that she did very well is that going to you know prompt her to say you know maybe I can get in front of the news media now maybe I should actually do another interview rather than just the softball danab bash do you expect her to stay underground do the operation bubble wrap she she should I mean I think uh people can sniff out someone who's not being authentic and I still should think she has issues over authenticity and whether she actually means what she says and whether she can actually talk Beyond just having those nice scripted moments at at a debate so look she actually said today I think at her rally in North Carolina she wants to do more interview so we'll see if she means what she says she's certainly because of the success she had in Philadelphia she wants to do more debates uh I mean the the the debate reminded me of uh you know the straight A student who practiced and studied for for for for days and weeks showing off uh her her skills and and uh you know she did the work she did the homework and Donald Trump was winging it you he he's doing what a lot you know kind of reminds me in high school when I you know save save things till the last minute and think you can get away with get a for the test and it didn't work out she was prepared I mean look she had some great lines um the one thing that hasn't gotten the quote that she said that I haven't seen get as much attention was her line about him leaving office with the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression the worst Public Health epidemic in a century and the worst attack on Democracy since the Civil War I I'm surprised that that that was sort of one of those things that the speech writers I'm sure Drew up in the practice and uh she landed quite a punch at the I mean I would just say it the first the very first part of that kind of not his fault the unemployment stuff right and the pandemic really you know perception is reality and Michael that's the debate that that she's trying she's she's not the change candidate right she's not she's the vice president she she needs to convince voters uh and probably that she's been in office and she's responsible um for everything that's gone on over the last four years but somehow she's the change from Trump that that's what she's trying to convince people I I would say Josh except for when she isn't because the beginning of the Afghanistan uh question she was like you know when Joe Biden P out of Afghanistan it's like oh now you're not responsible Francesca Franny block what did you make of this I mean I mean I think Josh is is is right about this stuff but let's focus a little bit on Trump here you know I mean there's been a couple days your instant reactions often different and I've seen people make the argument that hey I think that went down with his base and you know it wasn't as bad as the chattering classes and the media type actually think that it you know it's just a typical Trump performance what do you think well I think his base isn't who he needed to play to here in the debate he needs to get independent voters moderate voters swing voters on his side to actually win the election and so does KLA Harris and I think his performance was not something that would have been appealing to those voters that were maybe looking for something that seemed a little bit less chaotic um for their presidential candidate so I think in terms of playing to his base I I I don't see his base changing their opinions I think people probably were like yeah that's old typical Trump but I think in terms of appealing to the voters he actually needs for this election I I don't know if it landed very well for them Bacha I'm wondering if you've changed at all I mean look we did a thing an immediate reaction after this but you know the people who haven't listened to the honestly that we did that evening and shame on you if you haven't what is wrong with you it's the it's free it's amazing Bacha have you changed your mind on this do you think he did better do I mean are are a couple days kind of marinating in this stuff what do you think now so um everyone should go and listen to the honestly conversation we had it was a lot of fun um we were coming right off of this you know it was great TV I mean whatever you say about it right um my analysis then I do stand by it and it was that Trump did very poorly for all of the reasons that make him a good president and Harris did very well for all of the reasons that she would be a bad president and what I mean by that is that Trump very obviously was incapable of taking the advice that he must have been given by the entire consultant class every Elite every donor every you know person with you know any kind of power telling him exactly what Franny just very wisely said which is this is the moment to keep it together and just talk about your record you've got it just be cool calm and collected and he was incapable of heeding that advice because he cannot listen to what the elites want from him which is exactly why he was able to accomplish so much as a president because as we discussed that length and honestly you know he took on the elites of the left and the right as president on things like immigration and tariffs if you think that you know Elite conservatives Elite Republicans like tariffs like I got a bridge to sell you right and meanwhile what Harris did was exactly what Josh just described she was an amazing amazing Act she memorized all the lines she delivered all the lines she was a perfect reflection of what the Elites in the Democratic party the McKenzie consultants and the everybody who's telling her what to do and how to sound and what to everything she was a perfect reflection a perfect apparat and so she really nailed that event but is that really what you want do you really want somebody in office who is going to Simply Be a reflection of this kind of like permanent Bureau rcy um of the democratic party or do you want someone who's going to tell the elites to go screw themselves because his job is to reflect the American people so that's kind of what I said then I really do stand by that I have seen people say that if you are a struggling workingclass person and you saw Trump's performance you wouldn't have seen that as bad you would have seen that as an Adept and accurate reflection of your own rage at the situation and her kind of glib smugness would have come off as a kind of outof touch Elite person Franny I wanted to ask you something I a little bit hesitate to ask it because I'm not sure if it's sexist to ask you this but I'm going to ask asked this I hope so I didn't know how to answer and so I'm really I'm really curious what you think they asked me if I as a woman kind of related to how to this kind of high-powered in my opinion extremely good-look woman like being up there in a very powerful position not only holding her own but really you know really kind of you know taking Trump to task in a way that did exhibit a lot of kind of power um if I related to that as a woman if I felt proud or if I felt represented and I really didn't know I'm still struggling with whether I did and I'm wondering if I could sort of offload that question onto you well I think I I think I see that I mean she did have a presence on stage that I think was very powerful and I mean obviously we saw Hillary Clinton do that back in 2016 and I think people admired her for that as well though I think it also rubbed some other people the wrong way so I guess kinda I also don't know how to answer the question um but I I think what made it better and more powerful was the fact that we didn't hear her at the debate say things like as somebody who's going to be the first woman president or the first black president or the first indian-american president the fact that she didn't play into to those Dei politics made it more powerful in my opinion as a man I want to talk to Josh manto man so you guys can go you know go somewhere else for a moment we're doing the Jezebel section for the moment but Josh quickly before we move on I want to ask you something about this because you know what you see from Donald Trump is what you you typically see um you see him come untethered he's very easy to agitate when you talk about the rallies and stuff but he's also a terrible debater he's just objectively a bad debater and you see what he does in the spin room after you see what's you know very very prominent in conservative media conservative talk radio Etc it is an attack on the moderators and I think that actually would have been because I think they were very bad that would have been a good strategy what did you think about the kind of the moderators and how they handled things and do you think that people on the right and you know Trump partisans are you know overplaying the moderator things that's what they're focusing on at the moment well first let me get to the gender politics and then connect moderators that was a very alpha male move by the waya I'm talking I'm talking okay um I just have to weigh in here like FR Franchesca made the great point that like Hillary leaned in so much uh to her gender in 2016 her slogan was I'm with her like all all the ads were all about the historic nature of K has actually I mean actually this is where I actually have been pleasantly surprised by her messaging at the convention at the debate she has not leaned into identity politics she is she won the debate on Merit not not on like special pleading um and she uh I mean she kicked his ass like she really did very well um on on on Merit based grounds it wasn't uh identitarian grounds and she has been very careful uh she knows that it's very tricky I gender politics plays a big role there's a reason America hasn't elected woman president and I think she understands that if she leans into that too much that was one of the biggest mistakes that that Hillary made I also think that there was a little bit of a scop that we've all been talking about when she went after Trump's narcissism by mentioning the crowd size and I thought Trump was actually kind of he was kind of showing off his uh dominance early on and she looked a little nervous at the beginning asked about the economy her one of her weakest subjects and then she just threw him off psychologically by mentioning the crowd size and and kind of you know punching him where it hurts and that was just a brilliant like scop move um it was more about psychology than actual political Point scoring so that was another like a way of turning the the tables around on the sort of dominance versus um the lack of dominance for lack of a better word um to the moderator the point of the moderators look I I I did not have the same negative reaction to the moderators as a lot of people did um I I thought I thought Jake and Dana did a better job for the CNN debate I I don't like it when moderators try to offer fact checks in real time I I think that's the point of a debate um and I counted three or four times where they try and on two of the three times that they tried to do fact checks I thought it was inappropriate and obnoxious and put the finger on the scale for KLA Harris I will say though that I thought it was appropriate for them the weigh in I think they were prepared to talk about the Springfield Ohio case um that wasn't a political debating point that wasn't about a policy that was like targeting a community in a small town where Donald Trump was making stuff up that that could frankly we've seen it actually had an effect people have been threatened they've had the closed city government in in Ohio because of the tens of millions of people watching and and and the lies that that went out from from Donald Trump Laura lomer apparently was the one feeding him this this information um so I actually do think that there are some moments like where you do weigh in I think they were prepared to weigh in on that I thought that that one was appropriate the other ones you know if you want to debate about abortion let the candidates debate about abortion violent crime yeah the violent crime rate is is is up uh or sorry is down from 2022 to 2023 but it's up from 2019 to to to 2023 so that's that that's the whole point of debating you you make the argument you use the facts at your disposal