314. Trump stumbles - but did Harris see him off?

Will Tuesday’s US presidential debate be remembered as a turning point in the campaign? Why was Donald Trump so off-message? Did Kamala Harris miss the chance to destroy the MAGA movement once and for all? Join Rory and Alastair for a bonus episode of The Rest Is Politics where they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy, a green electricity supplier powering homes across the UK. Use referral code POLITICS after sign up for a chance to win tickets to the TRIP O2 Arena show in October. Learn more at getfuse.com/politics ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [email protected] Assistant Producer: India Dunkley and Evan Green Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Producer: Nicole Maslen and Fiona Douglas Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. And it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanuts, sweet, sweet caramel, wrapping you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  When you think about Crocs, you think the classic clog. But did you know there's also a canvas clog? A vegan suede clog, a coastal-inspired style. A style with studs, straps, and lots of sass. Honestly, I could keep going with the surprises. You've got to see them for yourself because there is literally a style for every kind of girl. So do your thing and head to crocs.com or a store near you now.

• 1:55Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome to The Rest Is Politics, with me, Alice Campbell.

• 1:57Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Stewart.

• 1:58Alastair Campbell?

  And this is a bonus episode because Rory and I, in the interests of podcastery and The Rest Is Politics, we both, at our various homes, got up and watched the Trump-Harris debate. And we thought we'd just share our views.

• 2:12Rory Stewart?

  Yep, you've got me straight off a plane from the United States, so I'm coming from the raw centre of this whole thing. So I'm relying on you to be the more awake one and me the slightly more American background one. Tell us what you thought. What was your basic overall view?

• 2:26Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I tried to watch it. I took on board what David Urban, the Trump guy, and Frank Luntz, who we interviewed on leaving, I took on board what they said and said, when you're watching these people, try and put yourself in the head of a swing state voter. And I tried to do that. And I have to say, even admitting my bias, I thought Trump was absolutely awful. And I thought she was good.

• 2:47Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 2:49Alastair Campbell?

  And I thought she was good from the off.

• 2:50Rory Stewart?

  When you're putting yourself in the head of a swing voter. So there are different swing voters. There are, I guess, young African American men, who are a big lot, who may be voting for Trump. Hispanic men, who seem to be voting for Trump in larger numbers. I guess there's also, talking about Pennsylvania.

• 3:07Alastair Campbell?

  My guy was a white, working class, middle aged Pennsylvanian bloke.

• 3:13Rory Stewart?

  Okay, in a rural area.

• 3:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, kind of. I didn't place him geographically. Worried about Trump, does he really want to go back to all that stuff? But not sure about Kamala Harris. That's where I was trying to be.

• 3:23Rory Stewart?

  And you imagine somebody who would have seen them a lot before, so it's about changing their view? Or maybe were you thinking seeing this so fresh? Because I think that's something that's interesting.

• 3:32Alastair Campbell?

  Definitely knows him inside out, but doesn't know much about her.

• 3:35Rory Stewart?

  And that is, I think, important, isn't it? Because often in these debates, there are ways of introducing someone. The odd thing about Trump, we've all seen him before. So there's not much he can say, either positive or negative, that particularly changes one's perception of Donald Trump. But a lot of it was about Kamala Harris.

• 3:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, and that's why I say, I think, from the word go. So they came out, she went and did this handshake, which, you know, in normal human civilisation, that's quite a normal thing to do. But he looked quite taken aback by that, you know, very, very uncomfortable. I thought she started quite nervously. But I think she got into her stride really, really well. And the, the great thing for me, I've always thought he's so thin skinned. And there were just these several moments as she was saying it, you thought, oh my God, here she goes. She's throwing him a big piece of bait. Surely he's not going to bite. So when the, the one that everybody was talking about is the rallies, you know, I want to invite you to go and

• 4:30Rory Stewart?

  Yes.

• 4:31Alastair Campbell?

  attend a Donald Trump rally.

• 4:32Rory Stewart?

  She said, I'm going to say something slightly strange. I'm going to invite you to attend a Donald Trump rally.

• 4:35Alastair Campbell?

  Because what you'll notice Leaving early and he could not resist. I've got the best rallies in the history of the world, blah, blah, blah. And she kept doing that. You know, the thing about world leaders are laughing at him. And he came up with this ridiculous piece of praise for Victor Orban. And we talk a lot about Orban on this podcast because of his influence. But what proportion of the people watching in America

• 4:55Rory Stewart?

  Have any idea who he is.

• 4:56Alastair Campbell?

  Would be aware. So he's holding this guy up as the arbiter of world leadership. And I'll tell you another point where I, I really felt that he had lost it was another piece of bait. When they were talking about immigration, where it was clear from the off, he wanted to talk about nothing else. And yet somehow he takes it into this thing about cats and, you know, people in Springfield, Ohio, home of the Simpsons, eating cats and dogs.

• 5:21Rory Stewart?

  Well, let's take it back to the fundamentals. So this first debate between Harris and Trump.

• 5:25Alastair Campbell?

  First time they met.

• 5:26Rory Stewart?

  First time they've met. Both teams have been preparing them very carefully. There's a lovely comic scene in Veep, if you haven't seen it, where she's getting her debate prep, which we could maybe share in the, in our program notes. But they will have practiced again and again. And she seems to have been unusually comfortable with the idea of Donald Trump. She wasn't sort of thrown off balance by the kinds of unexpected things, he says. She made immense use of contemptuous face. One of the, one of the ways in which it was set up was no audience, unusual for a, a debate. They weren't allowed to interrupt each other. But in most of the ways in which it was depicted on television, they, they had split screen. So while he was talking, she was able to raise an eyebrow.

• 6:08Rory Stewart?

  Peculiar, do all sorts of, and actually undercut off from what he was saying with her facial expressions.

• 6:12Alastair Campbell?

  And he found it literally impossible either to say her name or to look at her. And I mean, is that just a kind of belittling thing? Is it trying to unnerve her? She was completely not nerved, completely unnerved.

• 6:25Rory Stewart?

  He was trying to unnerve her, but he didn't succeed, is what you're saying.

• 6:27Alastair Campbell?

  She was unnerved.

• 6:28Rory Stewart?

  Very good.

• 6:29Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, yeah. And you're right, the thing about, you know, when she put her hand on, on the thing, and the thing, the sense of her.

• 6:33Rory Stewart?

  Sorry, what was the thing about the hand?

• 6:34Alastair Campbell?

  Where she sort of put her, she rested her chin on her hand and it just, you could imagine her doing that in court.

• 6:40Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 6:40Alastair Campbell?

  And I felt there was something quite prosecutorial about the whole thing. She was very, very calm. She never went down the kind of rebuttal rabbit holes that he maybe wanted to. So like when she said, she's a Marxist, she didn't come out and say, no, I'm not a Marxist. She just sort of laughed it off.

• 6:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Alastair Campbell?

  Joe Biden hates her.

• 6:58Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 6:58Alastair Campbell?

  Didn't even address that.

• 6:59Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 6:59Alastair Campbell?

  She hates Israel, she kind of did a little bit.

• 7:02Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Alastair Campbell?

  But, and I, the thing that really struck me was at the end, when they, they had a commercial break and the two percenters said, right, now you've both got two minutes. She used the two minutes, clearly rehearsed, but very well rehearsed, to set out a kind of summary of everything she'd said in a very positive, optimistic way about the future. And she was by this stage so inside his head that he basically spent two minutes saying how awful she was. And I think that said to me, do you remember I've said to you before, I felt that in Trump, Hillary Clinton, Trump got inside her head. In Biden, Trump, Trump did not get inside Biden's head.

• 7:40Alastair Campbell?

  And I think in this one, Kamala Harris has got inside his head in a way that will have left his team last night feeling, why did you not stick to the strategy that we'd agreed?

• 7:50Rory Stewart?

  Let's go back to the strategy. So one of the things I noticed with Kamala Harris, which was impressive, I mean, she did debate well. And I think if we're right, that basically nobody's views on Trump's going to change very much. His very firm supporters will still have responded to his comments about immigration and cost of living and how terrible Biden is. And obviously his strong opponents went into the debate thinking he's a crazy old man. And he did a lot to confirm their general view that he's a crazy old man. So it was Kamala Harris who was really up in lights there. And she came in, six months ago, people would have said that she's spoken word salads.

• 8:26Rory Stewart?

  She hadn't had a great performance as vice president in terms of dealing with immigration and the border. People were very anxious about her as a candidate. She did some very good speeches at the Democrat National Convention, but people even there were saying, yeah, that's fine, but what's going to happen when she's into the debate? People were worried that because the mic was muted, she wouldn't be able to do her normal prosecutorial stuff of interrupting him. But I thought, just as a, setting aside the policy we're going to propose in a second, but just as a pure exercise in technique, one really good example of the way that she did it well was in the middle of the debate, when the question of

• 9:06Rory Stewart?

  January 6th had been raised. He gave one of his responses blaming everybody else.

• 9:13Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I just turned up to make a speech.

• 9:14Rory Stewart?

  And when it turned to her, she very deftly did three things. First, she said, I was there. Second, she said, this is, and she became very serious. She didn't avoid it. This is a threat to the constitutional law. And thirdly, she said, and it's not an isolated incident, she turned it into a bigger thing. So there was the personal, there was the incident itself, and then there was the bigger story she made around. My only complaint, though, is that there were occasions when she went on too long. That was an example where I wanted to applaud after 30 seconds, after 60 seconds, I was thinking, hmm.

• 9:46Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, I think, I think the, no, I get that. Because they said right at the start, you have two minutes and then you can come back with one minute answers. But the truth is, you don't have to use all of that time. But I see that he had 11, I think it was 11 minutes more than her.

• 9:59Rory Stewart?

  Oh, goodness.

• 10:00Alastair Campbell?

  Of the microphone.

• 10:01Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 10:02Alastair Campbell?

  And I'll tell you when I realised that I felt that the Trump people realised they were losing, he was losing, was when you saw this rash of kind of Trump people on Twitter saying, this is the worst moderated debate I've seen. The story tonight are these biased moderators. And I think if they were biased, I don't know they were, but if they were biased, I think it was, they were allowing him far too easily to break the rules, to speak over, to carry on with it.

• 10:25Rory Stewart?

  But it didn't help him.

• 10:26Alastair Campbell?

  But I think it damaged him.

• 10:27Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 10:28Alastair Campbell?

  I think some of his worst excesses came through when he was insisting on coming back, often because she was yet again just doing a little dig that she knew he would feel he had to come back at. And that's where I think the narcissism came through. You can obviously read a lot about the strategy from when you see the, in the so-called spin room afterwards, where there are all the surrogates are out there talking. And one of the things that her surrogates will say. Was he was all about himself, she's all about you, the American people.

• 10:54Rory Stewart?

  Can I just, it's a bit unfair to you because you're a friend of Hillary Clinton's, but being non-triple for a second, stepping back, what is it that Kamala Harris was doing which was more successful than Hillary Clinton? What did Hillary Clinton slightly fail to do in these debates with Trump?

• 11:06Alastair Campbell?

  I think that Hillary Clinton is, and you met her when we were in Belfast, you know, all of the team that were with us, they sort of said, God, she was so warm, she was this, she was friendly. And I think there was something, particularly when she was going for the presidency, that she sort of hemmed herself in. She wasn't actually always being herself. She was very, very, very tightly controlled. Whereas I think what we've seen of Kamala Harris since she came on the kind of global scene as the candidate, which we saw very close up in Chicago, is somebody who that genuine empathy is coming through all the time. And by the way, the point about preparation, Hillary definitely prepared a lot. Kamala Harris clearly has been, has prepared a lot, and I think did it very much with that sort of legal mind

• 11:47Alastair Campbell?

  frame. But I don't think Trump did prepare that much. And where he did prepare, I think he's got himself into a mindset where he's surrounded by a set of advisors who his senses are very, very worried about him. And he always thinks he knows best. And I think there's a part of him, I'll bet you, for example, he went into the spin room at the end of the event, right? I bet you they begged him not to do that.

• 12:07Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:08Alastair Campbell?

  Because what it signaled was, they won't be able to spin this, I've got to go and do it myself, because they will all be saying I wasn't very good, right? So that was, I think, indicative of him not working in with a strategy and a team that he trusts, whereas I think she's got a strategy and a team that she trusts.

• 12:21Rory Stewart?

  It is a problem that, isn't it? I mean, if I think about when I went on tilt in my Boris debate, just bring it home to something that I felt strongly, that you're right, when things begin to go off the rails, you have this terrible thing where you think, oh, well, I've just got to be authentically myself.

• 12:36Alastair Campbell?

  You're going to take your tie off now.

• 12:37Rory Stewart?

  And you begin to underestimate your opponent. And I think that's what, maybe slightly what's going on here. He will have convinced himself that he's much better than she is. He will have convinced himself that she's rubbish. He will have thought to himself, I don't really need to prepare this because everybody will see that she's rubbish. And all I've got to do is be myself, be Donald Trump. And as you say, that didn't work. And he particularly didn't seem to be good at her landing the insults. I mean, one of the other differences with Hillary Clinton is that Hillary Clinton did occasionally have a go at him, but it seemed wasn't as effective.

• 13:07Alastair Campbell?

  Her jives were understated, they were provocative.

• 13:10Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 13:10Alastair Campbell?

  And the smile, he's obsessed with her smile. She didn't laugh, but she smiled a lot. She's got a lovely smile and she smiled when he was being particularly ridiculous. So for example, when he says, you know, everybody knows, everybody knows she's a Marxist.

• 13:25Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Alastair Campbell?

  Her father's a Marxist. She could have gone, oh, that is utter nonsense. Why, but she didn't, she just smiles it off.

• 13:30Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 13:31Alastair Campbell?

  And I think he was, I think he had a sense as the thing went on of, I'm not getting to her. And the more that went on, the more you felt she was getting, getting to him.

• 13:42Rory Stewart?

  And boys should get him. I mean, she was belittling him and humiliating him. But as you say, occasionally doing it with quite a lot of lightness to touch, which must have been very unsettling for him.

• 13:50Alastair Campbell?

  So the thing about, you know, eighty one million, you were fired by eighty one million people and Donald Trump's having difficulty processing that.

• 13:55Rory Stewart?

  Yes, he exactly.

• 13:56Alastair Campbell?

  You could imagine, as she said that, I thought, I bet you he is seeing a shrink about how do I process the fact, eighty, and if he's not today, yesterday will be today.

• 14:05Rory Stewart?

  Or her saying, you know, you're here in Pennsylvania and you mind explaining to, you know, eight hundred and ten thousand Poles here in the state that you would hand over to Poland to a dictator who would eat you for breakfast. And, and he hates the idea that someone's going to eat him for breakfast, right? He's the big macho guy.

• 14:21Alastair Campbell?

  But I thought that she handled the theme of dictators quite well. These are people that you like because you want to be like them, but they like you because they know that you're vulnerable to flattery and favour. Okay, Roy, we're going to have a quick break and then I know you want to come back and be maybe a little bit more critical than I have been of Kamala Harris.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanuts, sweet, sweet caramel, wrapping you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  When you think about Crocs, you think the classic clog. But did you know there's also a canvas clog? A vegan suede clog, a coastal inspired style, a style with studs, straps and lots of sass. Honestly, I could keep going with the surprises. You've got to see them for yourself because there is literally a style for every kind of girl. So do your thing and head to crocs.com or a store near you now.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 16:24Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to the Rest is Politics special edition on the US electoral debate with Rory Stewart.

• 16:30Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alice Campbell.

• 16:31Rory Stewart?

  So I think that Kamala Harris stuck to the formula. But let me point to a couple of things where I think there is an issue. One of them is that on some of the policy stuff, Trump simply failed to deliver what could have been quite good attack lines. So he talks about Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan was a catastrophe. And Kamala Harris is trying to take credit for everything around the Biden regime. So she's got to take blame as well. What could Trump have done to land that better? Another example, she was the immigration czar and the number one issue for many people in this election is immigration.

• 17:14Rory Stewart?

  And she clearly is associated with what's perceived as a failed control of the immigration. What could he have done to land that better? Because I guess if you wanted Trump's advisers, you'd think, okay, there are a couple of things there, and I think cost of living is probably the third, where if you're trying to win this election, there are a lot of American voters who agree with Trump on withdrawal from Afghanistan on immigration and cost of living. How could he have landed it better on her?

• 17:37Alastair Campbell?

  I think by being more disciplined. The one point where I, from her perspective, got really worried was at the start when she looked and sounded a little bit nervous. And it was clear he was basically going to make immigration part of every single answer. When it came to the question about immigration, he sort of went off on one of his weird rants and rambles. And they became ever more extreme. I think if he had been much, much more disciplined about saying, and I wouldn't necessarily put Afghanistan in the same bracket. But if he'd have said relentlessly, failed on immigration, failed on the economy, he would have forced her, I think, to engage much more in rebuttal.

• 18:15Alastair Campbell?

  It's interesting how all through this week, there's been, well, you were in America, you know, there's been this big argument about Afghanistan going through the media, mainly through surrogates. But on the economy and immigration, they do have answers. But I think that what she was trying to do is just let Trump rant on, let him rage away. And I will just focus on the things that I want to communicate and I want to say. So I think what he didn't do was draw her into a debate about those issues because she was able to laugh off the fact that he's talking about immigrants eating cats and dogs.

• 18:42Rory Stewart?

  So is there, let's just try one more time. You're Trump, I'm Kamala Harris. What would be a way of framing it that would almost force Kamala Harris to engage and respond rather than laugh it off?

• 18:52Alastair Campbell?

  I would have asked very, very specific questions about numbers.

• 18:55Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 18:56Alastair Campbell?

  I would have asked very, very specific questions involving data. The problem with him is that he just makes up the numbers. When he went into the spin room, he basically said, well, that was of the seven debates I've done, whatever is, that's the best debate I've ever done. We've got the numbers, I'm winning by 70%, 90%, 63%. They're saying, where are you getting these numbers? And he said, I feel good. And then did this, this is classic spin. You know, the Harris team say they'd like another debate. Ah, well, they're saying that because they know they've lost. I feel that he, on the data, because he just makes stuff up. Because he says, I delivered the most jobs in the history of the world. I'm the most popular, I've got the biggest crowds. He talks in these superlatives without ever having real figures.

• 19:39Alastair Campbell?

  It means that when it comes to something like immigration and the economy, he started off by saying, you were the immigration czar. And then went off on one of his tangents. He should have been armed with fact, information. She would then have been forced to rebut it and then have been just sort of down having a messy draw.

• 19:56Rory Stewart?

  So he clearly thought one of his killer facts, which he returned to, I think, at least twice, perhaps three times, is to say, you're criticizing me for putting tariffs up. You say that's going to put up the cost of living for people, but you didn't get rid of my tariffs. You kept my tariffs against China. That if you disagree with my tariffs, why did you keep them in place? But again, she didn't feel any need to respond to that.

• 20:16Alastair Campbell?

  No, I think that the way that he debates has given her almost like a strategic opening sort of to ignore the substance of what he says and stick to what. No, there is a risk in that. There's always a risk in that. People think you're not answering the question. The thing on tariffs, by the way, if you've been following in America, I've seen a lot of stuff really, really, really critical of the New York Times because they have just been swallowing this line from Trump that if you put tariffs on goods, the the country that you're putting them on will pay the price. And there's been this huge argument going on. And I sort of felt that was another one where she might have come back when he talked about tariffs, sort of save the American people.

• 20:53Rory Stewart?

  China's gonna pay.

• 20:54Alastair Campbell?

  And so I think she's got into sort of non rebuttal mode, which historically, my campaign style would always rebut.

• 21:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Alastair Campbell?

  But I can see why with Trump, it's not the sensible thing to do because the minute you're into a kind of messy argument about he said, she said, I think you go nowhere. The other thing I quite enjoyed was I thought the moderators got a lot of flak from both sides. They always do. But actually, I think they did a pretty good job because he's so difficult to keep under any control. They did call out, I think on four occasions, stuff where they said, no, that's not true. Or, you know.

• 21:25Rory Stewart?

  There's no evidence of that.

• 21:26Alastair Campbell?

  There's no evidence of that.

• 21:27Rory Stewart?

  This is true. We've talked to the city manager in Springfield and there's no evidence of any pets being eaten.

• 21:32Alastair Campbell?

  Being eaten by immigrants. That was a very crazy moment, you know, when he said, you know, they're coming over here and they're eating our pets.

• 21:38Rory Stewart?

  That's stuff that, I mean, presumably he's getting it from somewhere. He's seen it on social media.

• 21:42Alastair Campbell?

  He said it on television. Somebody said it on television. But this is the whole thing. And then the other thing.

• 21:47Rory Stewart?

  He spends a lot of time watching television eating his Big Macs.

• 21:49Alastair Campbell?

  Well, if you read Michael Wolff's book of his first term, I mean, he spent the whole time eating Big Macs and talking to his friends while watching television. Couple of things maybe to close off with. I thought the, one of the most significant exchanges policy wise. Was on Ukraine, where twice he was given the opportunity to say that he thought it would be good for the world and good for America if Ukraine won against Putin. And he would not say that. He just kept saying he could sort this war out in five minutes. And I thought she absolutely nailed him on the response with the point about dictators you made earlier. And the second thing I think that's worth reflecting on, if you remember in Chicago, the sort of buzz of excitement that there was around the place when it was thought that Taylor Swift might be turning up to endorse Kamala Harris.

• 22:34Alastair Campbell?

  Well, now she's done it. And she's done it in a, I think, a pretty brutal way for Trump. Because she's basically said that one of the reasons she's chosen to do it was because the Trump campaign were using AI to suggest that she was supporting Trump. She then went into a long thing about how, don't just take other people's words for it, do your own research, check out these people, check out their programs, that's what I've done, and I'm supporting Harrison. Well, so when this was thrown at Trump, when it was announced in the wake of the debate, he looked pretty shaken.

• 23:09Rory Stewart?

  What was lacking, and I think does matter, and it's a bit sad in this, is policy. And I think we can all feel that Kamala Harris performed well, as a technical bit of debating she performed well, or certainly much better than people feared.

• 23:24Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Rory Stewart?

  But this is an American economy which has now got astonishingly rising debt. It's an economy where we don't really know what their answer is going to be to providing healthcare, particularly for the poorest people in the country. It's a country whose foreign policy is arranged around Ukraine and China, but we don't really know what role the US is playing in Africa and the rest of the world. And I think it's a little sad. If you compare it to the kind of things we talk about in UK politics, you know, where we will have detailed discussions about Grenadier Towers, or water policy, or the NHS, that in this US debate, it's coming down so much to what happened to January 6th. What your views are on abortion.

• 24:09Alastair Campbell?

  At least.

• 24:09Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Alastair Campbell?

  I tell you what's interesting though, I was watching it with Fiona. She said when Kamala Harris was, I thought of you actually, I thought of Rosa De Laura when she, because in her first answer, she talked about the child tax credit. And she gave a sort of recipe of some of the things. It wasn't really an economic strategy, it was stuff that she wants to do for people. And Fiona said, it's quite weird because if this was Britain now, there'd be somebody shouting out, where's the money coming from?

• 24:28Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Alastair Campbell?

  And it's like a debate totally divorced from

• 24:31Rory Stewart?

  Anywhere from revenue.

• 24:32Alastair Campbell?

  Sort of practical, how are you going to do it? Other than when Trump basically said, well, she's never going to be able to do it because we've got fifty fifty in Congress.

• 24:40Rory Stewart?

  That was in relation to abortion.

• 24:41Alastair Campbell?

  That was abortion, yeah.

• 24:42Rory Stewart?

  That was interesting. And actually, again, it's a problem for Trump because as you say, he tends to operate on such a sort of abstract, sometimes conspiratorial level. That when he's making a practical point, you're never going to be able to get it through Congress. It doesn't really gel and people don't really listen.

• 24:58Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Rory Stewart?

  It's actually quite a serious point. I mean, she's suggesting that she's going to have the kind of majorities that are going to allow her to completely overturn Roe, you know, change the whole Roe v Wade position. Which she can't do, he's right about that. But because of her policy, he can't really land it, can he? I suppose the final thing is, given that this election comes down maybe to fifty thousand votes in Pennsylvania. How much difference does the debate make?

• 25:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, well, I think that is a very, very good question. None of us will know, and even after the event, we won't know how the debate has made a difference. But I think we've talked before about game changing moments. Biden stepping down had the potential to be a game changing moment. I think it's become a game changing moment. And I think that she did better in this debate than people expected her to. He, I think, did worse than people expected him to. I don't know if you've seen the data on the fundraising today for the Democrats. They've had the, I think they had the biggest single hour in the immediate aftermath of the debate. So I think, you know, we're back to the whole thing, there's not long to go now. Less than a couple of months and we've got the whole sort of, you know, momentum, they've got that back in their sails.

• 26:03Alastair Campbell?

  The betting markets have moved substantially in her favour. Now, they swing around all the time, but I think that's worth sort of reflecting as well. I think all in all, the Paris camp will be feeling a lot happier about it.

• 26:15Rory Stewart?

  Pretty happy. And I think what we do know about these debates is they may not guarantee that you win an election, but my goodness, you can damage. And I think there's no doubt that Biden's performance in the last debate damaged him immeasurably.

• 26:26Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think it's possible that history will reckon, depending obviously on the outcome, that debate one destroyed Biden.

• 26:34Alastair Campbell?

  And debate two may have played a part in seeing off Trump. I certainly hope so. Now, that's the first non tribal, totally biased piece I've done, Rick. We should say, by the way, Rest is Politics US colleague, Mr. Scaramucci, was at the event with Team Kamala and he and Kattika will be giving us their views in short order as well. So just search The Rest is Politics US wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:59Rory Stewart?

  Very good. Thank you, Alison.

• 27:00Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon.

• 27:05Speaker 06

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 27:14Speaker 07

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Ravenette.

• 27:22Speaker 08

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You stall, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 27:26Speaker 07

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 27:29Speaker 08

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 27:30Speaker 07

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent.

• 27:35Speaker 09

  Espolone Tequila, balanced, delicious, 100% agave, 0% ego. Just add ice, lime and your mouth. For real margarita, ride the rooster.

• 27:46Speaker 07

  Espolone Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof. Copyright 2026, Compaq America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.