During the debate, Trump interrupted almost every question Davis posed to him. Sometimes she only got out “President Trump—” before he proceeded to speak over her. While her co-anchor David Muir often asked sprawling questions—with Trump often responding directly to him, using his first name regularly in his replies—and racked up nearly 2,000 words spoken, Davis (who Trump never addressed by name) managed just 818. I know because I counted them. And most of Davis’ words came from her direct questions to Vice President Harris.
It might seem petty to get this granular, but, as women, paying attention to who gives voice to us matters.
In this debate, Trump had no choice but to let Harris speak. He chose not to let Davis.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what made him so averse. But certainly Davis’s questions on his abortion stance—right at the top of the debate—put him on the defensive, and marked the beginning and end of her ability to interact with him. And perhaps Davis hit the nail on the head in a broader sense, when she asked him “Why should [women] trust you?” over his constant course-changing on reproductive rights, as well as his opposition to abortion. It’s notable that he never actually answered the question, instead praising the “genius and heart and strength” of the six Supreme Court judges who overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.
From that point on Davis only managed one further question to the former president without being cut off by him. The only ones she was able to ask in full were those posed to Harris. Muir was mostly never interrupted by Trump.
Again, here, it’s worth noting statistically how much men in general dominated the debate. In part due to the number of times Davis was interrupted by Trump, she spoke just 35 times compared to Muir’s 74. But it wasn’t just the moderators. Despite Harris being given her full two minutes to land her point each time, as well as rebuttals, she only spoke 34 times to Trump’s 74. It might have seemed hard to follow during a back and forth debate, but I’d put money on me not being the only woman to pick up just how many times Trump refused to let Harris have the last word. Even when it was clearly her turn to wrap up a topic. And how hard it was, ultimately, for both moderators to rein the former President in.
In the end, even after a debate in which Trump dominated by the sheer volume of words, political experts largely handed the debate victory to Harris. She spoke confidently, clearly, and made a case for the future. “Let’s turn the page” she argued more than once about Trump and his divisive politics, and outlined her vision for an “opportunity economy”. Trump, when pressed on the details rather than insults, especially in relation to healthcare, answered with the astonishingly vague “I have concepts of a plan,” and shrugging it off with, “I’m not president right now.”
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