When President Joe Biden gave bumbling remarks about abortion on the debate stage this summer, it was widely viewed as a missed opportunity — a failure, even — on a powerful and motivating issue for Democrats at the ballot box.
The difference was stark, then, on Tuesday night, when Vice President Kamala Harris gave a forceful defense of abortion rights during her presidential debate with Republican Donald Trump.
Harris conveyed the dire medical situations women have found themselves in since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022. Harris quickly placed blamed directly on Trump, who recalibrated the Supreme Court to the conservative majority that issued the landmark ruling during his term.
Women, Harris told the national audience, have been denied care as a result.
“You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot?” Harris said.
I did find it odd that they unmuted him so many times, but they at least waited so it didn’t interrupt Kamala or the moderators.
Having to unmute him for him to go on baseless rants also seemed to highlight the fact that he was interrupting and couldn’t control himself or his lies as they still fact checked his interrupting. They still essentially had to grant him permission to interrupt, and like the way the opening handshake and greeting led by Kamala made him look unprepared and weak, I feel the purposeful unmute had a similarly subtle but tangible effect.
They did let Harris chime in a few times in the same way, so I feel it was fairly unbiased. Without him being in a soundproof booth, the mic cut can only help so much as you could hear him on Kamala’s mic before his was turned back on. The way the handled it felt like a compromise, so as she got a chance to wrap up her thought before the interruption was purposely addressed, while still handling it as an interruption and not giving it additional validity like if he could just jump in, cut her off, and gain control of the situation. The mods were still in control the whole time, which I feel is rare for any conversation with Trump.