let's bring in Princeton University political scientist Lauren Wright and Sentinel action fund president Jessica Anderson thank you both for coming on here's what Trump said he called himself an open book watch everybody knows I'm an open book everybody knows what I'm going to do cut taxes very substantially and create a great economy like I did before we had the greatest economy and Jessica it's important to know that independent voters do kind of know like what you know Trump is offering them because he is open that's right trace and he's been made very clear what life would look like under President Trump life was more affordable it was safer it was easier and so when voters were asked today to react to the debate last night I think it's pretty normal to say look my life was better under President Trump I've lived the last year under the B Biden Harris regime I don't want a repeat of the last three and a half years regardless of what haris says which is that she's changed her mind but not her values on all of the issues we're not buying it this is a Hollywood Rebrand and it's not sticking with the American people trace yeah here's a voter panel on kamla Harris being vague look are Americans better off today than they were when you came into office um three and a half years ago and she sidest stepped it she walked around it she wasn't very specific when act certain things I didn't really know a lot about her other than she served as vice president and today unfortunately she didn't get to talk about about a lot of her policy she didn't talk about her policy changes between 2020 and 2024 her whole Centrist moderate stance is just a facade I don't know Lauren right was it a mistake for her not to explain to us how she plans to improve the country and better Our Lives no because she completely got away with it and I put part of the blame on Trump she has some really controversial issue positions that we know very little about she has a price capping policy for instance that mainstream economists across the board think is a slippery slope to socialism even Obama era economists have said the best outcome is that it never ever comes to pass these are kill shots Trump could have made over and over but he spent so much time defending himself that he didn't interrogate her policies and there were so many opportunities where he could have used the time that way yeah a lot of openings there the new NPR Maris poll is kind of interesting put this up on the screen here it has a among voter pre preference Independence Trump 49 KLA Harris 46 the interesting thing is that is a 19 Point swing from just weeks ago Jessica that's right because I think the the honeymoon around haris has totally um faded she got a bump right after the DNC she got a bump uh when Biden's uh was forcefully removed and she replaced him that bump is no more and I think independent and swing voters they recog the issues Safety and Security the Border cost of living the economy we know that these are the things that matter they matter more than style we've seen the style of President Trump for over eight years now we know how he talks what he's about we've seen him take the bait before I don't know that we learned anything new last night in fact we just learned more about Harris which is that she actually can't defend her policies because she doesn't have any yeah got to go here but I want to put this up this is Trump Harris debate stats live fact checks Harris 0 Trump 5 question on Harris policy flipflops it was 40 minutes into the debate before they asked a single question your final thoughts on this Lauren I did look at the transcript today and I saw some of that unevenness to be honest and I think a lot of the blame was on the moderators again I go back to Trump he expected this to be biased against him for weeks he said he thinks he's going to have problems in that regard so what do you do in general you over prepare you learn to interrogate your opponent's issue positions you know the weak spots of your own that's what the conservative students I'm writing about on college campuses du to prepare for these discussions he should take a page out of their book next time he should uh Lauren Jessica thank you both well