Peter Wehner, who has said that he left the Republican Party "because of Donald Trump," explained in a Wednesday column published by The Atlantic, how Kamala Harris completed her mission of humiliating the ex-president during the candidates' first debate Tuesday night.
Emphasizing that he's "never seen a candidate execute a debate strategy as well as Harris did," in his 48 years of watching presidential debates, the former GOPer submitted that by forcing "Trump to go on the defensive," the vice president successfully "broke her opponent."
"What Harris appeared to understand, better than anyone else who has debated Trump, is that the key to defeating him is to trigger him psychologically," Wehner wrote.
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"She did it by repeatedly calling him 'weak,' mocking him, acting bemused by him, and literally laughing at him," he added.
Although "by his standards," Wehner noted, Trump started the debate "fairly controlled and focused," the dynamic between the candidates shifted when the vice president "taunted Trump about his rallies," calling them exhausting and boring.
After the pair went back and forth for nearly two hours on the Philadelphia stage, Trump closed by calling the United States"a failing nation," before leaving "the stage, into the shadows, a broken man atop a broken campaign," Wehner emphasized.
Wehner wrote:
Kamala Harris cracked the code. She took Trump apart without losing her composure. She worked to insulate herself against charges that she’s a left-wing radical, even reminding voters that she’s a gun owner. Harris succeeded in presenting herself, a sitting vice president in an unpopular administration, as the change agent. She appealed to unity, inviting Americans to 'turn the page' on a man who belittles the country and seeks to keep it in a constant state of agitation and chaos. And she returned time and again to the argument that Trump cares only for himself, while during her career, she’s only had one client: the people.
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Wehner's full column is available here (subscription required).