Americans were failed by the Trump-Harris debate

The first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump was a missed opportunity for both candidates and, as such, a disappointment for American voters. 

Trump had three points he needed to land against Kamala Harris: that voters cannot trust her because she is constantly changing her policy positions without a satisfactory explanation; that she covered up President Joe Biden’s cognitive deficiencies from the American people and then participated in a political coup to take him out when it was politically convenient for her; and that she has had three and a half years to do the things she claims she will do on ‘Day One’ as president. 

Trump pointed out a few times that she had changed her position on fracking and defunding the police, but could have more successfully threaded the needle on what that means for her campaign. Why did she change those positions? Did she have a legitimate political transformation? Or was it, as Senator Bernie Sanders said, that she knew she needed to do it to win the election? If we believe it’s the latter, make the case that she will govern as the radical she presented herself as in 2019.