There’s been lots of conversation about the unprecedented nature of the upcoming 2024 presidential election, and the first debate between candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was just as unpredictable. The hour and a half-long event was full of viral moments, and Black Twitter was tuned in for every moment.
Vice President Harris was largely praised for her performance in the debate, earning kudos for confronting Trump on his record and luring him with comments that made him lose his composure. For Harris to be participating in her first presidential debate (compared to Trump’s seventh presidential debate appearance), users thought she showed poise that was befitting of an experienced prosecutor.
“So far, this debate has been characterized by Kamala Harris dropping a lot of bait and Trump eagerly picking it up and rhetorically wandering around the room,” said CNN anchor Abby D. Phillip.
Users also commented on Harris’ varied facial expressions throughout the night, as she responded to many of Trump’s comments with incredulousness, disappointment, and ridicule.
Trump, meanwhile, was chastised for statements that the debate’s moderators fact-checked in real time and proved untrue, and for quotables that users thought were silly or dishonest.
God-Is Rivera said that the debate is further proof that the race shouldn’t be so close in the first place, and that she’s disappointed that Harris was even in such a position to have to prove herself.
“The fact that a competent and qualified Black woman has to go up for a job against a clearly incompetent and unhinged man is such a spot on representation of so much of the experience of being a Black woman in this world,” Rivera wrote.
One of the most memorable moments of the evening was when, after being asked about coming up with an alternative to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Trump said that he had “concepts of a plan” that he would use instead. The phrase was memed endlessly, with users teasing Trump for his vagueness and imitating it with their own scenarios of poor planning.
“If a woman in a presidential debate said that she had the ‘concepts of a plan’ for national freaking health care... that would be all the news media talked about for a week and it would functionally end her campaign,” said The Nation correspondent Elie Mystal.
At one point, Trump also stated that Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison” — phrasing that users found ridiculous and silly.
Comedian Desus Nice compared Trump’s topic-jumping to a level on the adventurous video game “Crash Bandicoot,” and journalist Joel D. Anderson made his thoughts on his performance even more plain.
“If your elderly parent started talking to you like this,” he wrote, “wouldn’t you think they were suffering cognitive decline?”