Except for media pundits and political strategists, few are analysing the outcome of the first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Even Republican operatives are convinced, some reluctantly, that Tuesday evening was not certainly with the former President who simply could not stay away from his rants. Neither could he resist the temptation of repeating a wild and nonsensical assertion that immigrants in Ohio were killing dogs and cats and eating them.

Trump strategists and debate preps must have been quite edgy every time the 45th President wandered into a set up of Harris, a skilful ploy of wantonly getting him worked up so much as to make him ramble or say things that were simply incomprehensible.

There’s barely 50 days to go for the final showdown in November; and the campaigns are down to business. Harris may have scored a facile win of 63 to 37 per cent in a post debate flash poll; and mega stars like Taylor Swift have endorsed her.

But the numbers are still tight with Trump continuing to do well on economy and immigration. And this is what advisors of the former President are telling him: stay focused on the issues as crowd sizes, cats and dogs are not critical.

Taunting Trump

It is official now — at least for the time being — that there will not be a second debate between Trump and Harris as the former President has taken to his social media site to announce his decision. But Harris continues to taunt Trump for a second appearance stressing that they owed it to the people as she made it known in a rally at North Carolina, a state that has not been with Democrats since 2008 but now seen in a “can win” category.

Harris may have done well in the first encounter but still has a long way to go by way of fine tuning economic and immigration policies of her administration. Trump may have exaggerated notions of “millions and millions” of illegals laying waste to America and pulling the country down, but many analysts believe that Harris must have a clear plan of how to tackle the illegal immigrant problem — put at around 12 million — including securing the borders and a pathway to citizenship.

The former President takes the view that illegals drain the economy without acknowledging the contributions; likewise crime rates are going down, not “going through the roof” as claimed by Trump. The challenge for Harris is not in the absence of a plan but in clearly explaining it to people, especially those who are yet in the ‘undecided’ category.

Even as the campaigns are restlessly counting the days to November 5, they are also looking at September 30: the deadline to reach a compromise on a Continuing Resolution to keep the federal government running. The uneasiness seems more with the Republicans, especially in the swing states, on the implications of a shutdown and in the context of Trump urging the Grand Old Party to take a hard-line on “election security” language.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said that if Republicans do not get absolute assurances “… They should, in no way, shape or form, go forward with a Continuing Resolution”. Even a partial shutdown of the governments make lawmakers edgy. Or as one unnamed Republican legislator put it, “We are not going to shut the government down. Trump must want a Democrat majority in the House. We don’t.”

The writer is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and United Nations

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