How Harris Turned a Question on Immigration Into a Bait on Trump’s Crowd Size

Early on in Tuesday’s debate, Vice President Kamala Harris turned a question about immigration — an issue that is among her weakest, according to polls — into a personal dig at former President Donald Trump and his rallies.
He took the bait.
Harris was asked what she would do differently from President Joe Biden with regard to the border, and used the opportunity to slam Trump’s stance on a bipartisan border bill negotiated by the Biden administration.
The bill, which received initial support from both Democrats and Republicans, lost GOP support after Trump voiced his disapproval of it. Critics accused him of opposing it to prevent Biden and Harris from receiving a political win ahead of the election.
“That bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now, overtime, trying to do their job. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States… That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking guns, drugs and human beings,” Harris said.
She continued: “But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress and said, ‘Kill the bill.’ And you know why? Because he’d prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
She could have ended there. Instead, Harris made a deft pivot to an issue she knows gets under her opponent’s skin.
“He’s going to talk about immigration all night, even when it’s not the subject being raised. And I’m actually going to do something very unusual and I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies, because it’s a really interesting to watch.
She continued: “You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lector. He will talk about windmills cause cancer, and what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
She added the “one thing” he won’t talk about at those rallies is “your dreams, your needs and your desires.”
Moderator David Muir followed up, asking Trump why he did not support the bipartisan border bill. Trump could’ve responded with a question about why the White House waited three years to cobble together such a bill. Instead, he picked up on the crowd size remark.
“Let me respond to this, 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 busing them in and paying them to be there, and then 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,” he said.
It was the moment that changed the tone and direction of the evening. From that point forward, Trump appeared increasingly agitated and angry. His advisors had wanted him to stay on message, tying Harris to the unpopular Biden at every opportunity. Harris knew as much, and she exploited it.
Robert Y. Shapiro, a professor of political science at Columbia University, told Newsweek that Trump needed to “appear calm and levelheaded and emphasize in some way that the election is about the poor performance of the Biden-Harris administration.”
“Harris, by the allusion to crowd size, got Trump off the rails and this looked like an intentional strategy that worked, while she did her best to look presidential and forward looking,” Shapiro said.
Meena Bose, the executive dean of Hofstra University’s Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs, agreed that she “succeeded in provoking former President Trump about crowd size at his rallies and people leaving.”
“Trump was clearly annoyed and bizarrely declared that the Harris campaign was paying actors to attend their rallies, an assertion without any basis in evidence,” she said.
Still, Trump turned the conversation back to immigration at several points, seeking to paint Harris as both extreme and ineffective on the border. He said the Biden administration is “destroying the fabric of the country by what they’ve done” on border security.
“They’ve had three and a half years to fix the border, three and a half years to create jobs, and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it?” he said at one point.
The crowd size dig was one of a handful of times that Harris effectively baited her opponent into discussing issues his team would rather he not focus on. She mentioned his handling of the pandemic, his various legal battles, as well as his actions during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot that led to his impeachment and indictment.
Trump responded to her mention of his court cases by saying that the Biden administration are “the ones that made them go after me.”
She also said that world leaders “are laughing at Donald Trump” and have called him a “disgrace,” another moment that appeared to bruise his ego.
Bose said Harris “addressed several key issues in the debate, from housing and economic opportunities to reproductive rights to protecting democracy,” while Trump “quickly lost control of the debate and did not regain focus” and made “multiple assertions with no basis in facts.”
On social media, many others noted that Harris was effective in provoking Trump at several points over the course of the night.
“Wow. Kamala Harris leaning into the strategy of triggering Trump & throwing him off topic. She managed to throw him off talking about his strongest issue — the border. Instead he used the opportunity to talk about his rallies…,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a co-host of The View and former Trump administration aide posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Trump’s self-image…his political calling card is strength. He was on defense that entire first hour. .@KamalaHarris pushed all his hot buttons, and he unraveled,” wrote Democratic strategist David Axelrod.
“If you love Trump, you should be rattled tonight. VP Harris came ready to stand toe to toe. He has attitude and scorn, but she seems more thoughtful and presidential. And she’s not afraid of him,” wrote commentator Geraldo Rivera.
Going into the debate, the race was a toss-up nationally and in the battleground states. Harris, who was widely seen as the night’s winner in postgame analysis — including on Fox News — will now need to wait until post-debate surveys are conducted to see whether her performance was enough for her to improve her margins.
A Morning Consult poll, conducted among 10,607 likely voters from September 6 to September 8, found Harris with a 3-point lead over Trump (49 percent to 46 percent). A New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted among 1,695 likely voters from September 3 to September 6, found Trump with a single point lead (48 percent to 47 percent).
Elsewhere, a HarrisX/Harvard University poll, conducted among 2,358 registered voters from September 4 to September 5, found Harris and Trump tied, each receiving 50 percent of the vote in a two-way race.