Politics
What 7 political experts will be watching at Tuesday’s debate
The debate Tuesday between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will be one to watch: the first time the two personally meet and the first time they’ll face off.
But what should you watch for?
We asked seven BLN analysts to weigh in on what they’ll be looking for during the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump. Here’s what they said.
Follow live updates on the Trump-Harris debate.
Steve Benen
When Trump takes the stage, he won’t have one opponent; he’ll have two. The first, obviously, will be Harris. The second will be himself. What I’ll be watching is whether the Republican nominee — who’s long struggled to maintain his composure while targeting women, especially women of color — has the discipline, decency and common sense to strike a presidential tone, treat the Democratic nominee with a modicum of respect and avoid the temptation to throw a tantrum that could cost him dearly. If recent history is any guide, even his most optimistic supporters should probably keep expectations low.
Brendan Buck
Harris has worked hard to present herself as the challenger in this race, but Trump has figured out a retort that is difficult for the vice president to answer: “Why didn’t you do it?” She will need a good explanation for why she now will be able to solve problems that she hasn’t while in the White House.
Brian Tyler Cohen
Will Harris be able to bait Trump into descending into one of his unhinged tirades and, if so, what should that tell us about the ease with which Trump can be manipulated (and what are the national security implications that come with it)? Will Trump be able to control himself when challenged by not just a Black woman — but the one who replaced his dream opponent — Joe Biden — on which Trump’s entire campaign was built?
Susan Del Percio
Watch how Harris uses her time. With muted microphones, time management will be essential. Trump rambles, often unable to deliver a clear, coherent response to just about any question. Harris will watch the clock and make her point — although she may sound a little over-rehearsed — and still leave time to get under Trump’s skin. She wins.
Voters want to know more about Harris. She must share her biography, accomplishments and plans for her presidency.
Alicia Menendez
Persuadable voters are the key audience. They may not watch the debate in real time, but they will catch key moments in clips. For those voters,new informationis what will move their candidate preference. Voters want to know more about Harris. She must share her biography, accomplishments and plans for her presidency, specifically around her opportunity agenda. Moreover, she must not only remind voters what Trump did during his first term, but connect those actions tofutureactions.
Michael Steele
I wrote about this for the BLN Daily newsletter on Friday. I want to see if Harris can thread the needle between appearing prosecutorial and being presidential. When she’s on the stage with a pathological liar, her instinct will be to correct him and throw facts back. That might work to a degree and at specific times, but the trap is to remember she’s not running for California attorney general; she’s running for president of the United States.
Charlie Sykes
Because Biden’s debate performance was so historically disastrous, people forget how genuinely awful Trump was. He lied incessantly, blustered and got lost in his own gibberish. If anything, he’s gotten worse since then; and now he faces a far more formidable opponent in Harris. This is her challenge: she has to be the grown-up in the room while calling out his lies, his threats, and his insults — without being dragged down into the Trumpian muck. If she does, she will have turned the corner in the race.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for BLN. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine, Bloomberg News and CQ Roll Call. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies.
Democrats are deeply conflicted over the Trump administration’s arrest of a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University who faces deportation for his prominent role in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
Senate and House Democrats have condemned the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil as a violation of his First Amendment rights to protest — but have tempered their criticism to avoid supporting campus protests that at times featured harassment and assault of Jewish students.
They are also being careful to condemn Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250, and prompting an Israeli response that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, including many civilians.
“I abhor many of the opinions and policies that Mahmoud Khalil holds and supports, and have made my criticism of the antisemitic actions at Columbia loudly known,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a post to X on Tuesday.
But the New York Democrat challenged the Trump administration, which has called Khalil a supporter of Hamas, to justify his arrest by immigration agents outside his New York apartment over the weekend.
“If the administration cannot prove he has violated any criminal law to justify taking this severe action and is doing it for the opinions he has expressed, then that is wrong, they are violating the First Amendment protections we all enjoy and should drop their wrongheaded action.”
Khalil is a Palestinian from Syria who entered the U.S. on a student visa and had obtained legal permanent residency, commonly referred to as a green card. His wife, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant, his lawyers said in court papers.
President Donald Trump, who has said he wants to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses, celebrated the arrest in a social media post, saying it was “the first of many to come.”
A federal judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Khalil on Monday, and scheduled a hearing on the case for Wednesday.
Schumer’s statement echoed a similar one from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released Monday.
“To the extent his actions were inconsistent with Columbia University policy and created an unacceptable hostile academic environment for Jewish students and others, there is a serious university disciplinary process that can handle the matter,” Jeffries wrote. “Absent evidence of a crime, such as providing material support for a terrorist organization, the actions undertaken by the Trump administration are wildly inconsistent with the United States Constitution.”
Other prominent Democrats are similarly wrestling with the arrest. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state said he had concerns about some of the campus protests that erupted around the nation after the Oct. 7 attack. But he noted in a social media post that “Khalil committed no crime” and “shouldn’t be locked up for expressing his political views.”
A small number of Democratic representatives have taken a less nuanced view, demanding Khalil’s release while expressing support for the pro-Palestinian movement in a letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“We must be extremely clear: this is an attempt to criminalize political protest and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country,” said the letter, whose signatories include Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. “Khalil’s arrest is an act of anti-Palestinian racism intended to silence the Palestinian solidarity movement in this country.”
Other Democratic House members to sign the letter include Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, New York Rep. Nydia Velázquez, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Ohmar and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, was censured for her comments about the Israel-Hamas war in November of 2023. Ohmar was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2023 for remarks she previously made denouncing the Israeli government.
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