She looked faux-enchanted, as if tricking him into thinking she was onto something—a nod, a head tilt, a demonstrative squint, a little smile, then a little more—a reel of soon-to-be memes, shrieking with silent glee. hand on his chin.
He looked miserable.
The initial question, at least, is that former President Donald J. Should be fertile territory for Trump: a prompt for Vice President Kamala Harris about immigration, a weakness for her and how she might diverge on the topic from her boss, whose policies on the border have often come under criticism.
But by the time Mr. Trump arrived to speak, he had something else on his mind: attending the rally.
But cats.
It could be said that Mrs. Harris was well prepared to mislead him. After blaming Mr. Trump for helping cite the congressional border bill, Ms. Harris unboxed an attack line that seemed hand-crafted by a team of Trumpologists to anger him, distracting him from his own vanity.
“I’m going to do something really unusual,” she said to the audience at home. “I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies. Because it’s a really interesting thing to watch.”
Laughing, exasperated, Ms. Harris ticked off some of Trump’s usual digressions, such as windmills and the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter. Mr. Trump’s eyes narrowed, and his head tilted to the left.
“And what you’ll also see,” she said, as Mr. Trump bobbed a little, like a pendulum, “is that people start leaving his rallies early because of exhaustion and boredom.”
At those two nouns, Mr. Trump’s eyes welled up. Mrs. Harris finished her thought: “The one thing you won’t hear him talk about is you.”
And then, Mr. Trump talked about Mr. Trump.
The former president, a contentious anarchist from his first campaign, can usually be counted on to touch every stove, blow every air horn. This is a man who Seen once In an eclipse.
Yet in an evening riddled with missed opportunities and strange rabbit holes for Mr. Trump, this was the exchange where he seemed to lose his way — a temptation he couldn’t resist, no matter how many allies hoped he would obey his pleas. will listen Double back.
As ABC moderator David Muir forced the conversation to redirect, asking Mr. Trump about the immigration bill brought up by Ms. Harris, he was not interested.
“First, let me just answer the rallies…”
Soon, Mrs. Harris’ right hand returned to her chin.
When Mr. Trump finished suing his rally crowds (“We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics”) and conspiracy-casting about him (“People don’t go to his rallies – there’s no reason to) go – and the People go, she takes them in and pays them to stay there”), he turned aside Widely debunked yarn about Haitian immigrants in Ohio Kidnapping and feasting on their neighbors’ pets.
“They eat dogs!” he said. “The people who came in – they eat cats!”
Mrs. Harris threw back her head. She held her hands. Mr. Muir denied the claims as Mr. Trump took a shine.
“I’ve seen people on television!” He protested. “People on television say, ‘My dog was taken for food and used!'”
Mrs. Harris nodded, projecting the deep concern of a disappointed relative. He smiled for a moment.
“Talk about extreme,” she said, a little risk-averse after she got what she wanted. A different candidate — Bill Clinton, Mr. Trump — might have let fly a ferocious zinger, clumsy and unkind. She let him rest.
But she had something else to add, again drawn from her roster of buzz-phrases that make Mr. Trump look matador red.
What, she wondered, would viewers like to know about the Republicans who have endorsed her campaign? Republicans like Liz Cheney, former congresswoman and relentless Trump nemesis?
Mr. Trump shook his head skyward. Now he was pretending to laugh incredulously.
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