Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Graphic / NZME
THREE KEY FACTS
Barry Soper is Newstalk ZB’s senior political correspondent
OPINION
How on earth anyone can go out and vote for a man like Donald Trump is beyond me?
His stupidity in another setting would be certifiable and he’d be admitted to an institution for the confused.
But this 78-year-old is running for what’s arguably the most powerful job on earth and if you listen to him he’d have no problem in putting that power into action.
We were told in his first debate with Kamala Harris that if he won in November he’d resolve the two-and-a-half-year-old Ukraine slaughter even before taking the oath of office next January.
And the conflicts in the Middle East would be a piece of the proverbial for him. This is the same man who heightened the volatility on the North Korean peninsula calling its leader Rocket Man. After annoying him, they met and subsequently exchanged love letters.
Nothing happened to reduce the tensions on the peninsula while Trump was in the Oval Office.
So what did we get from the man who wants to occupy the White House again? Nothing on how he was going to deal with the economic woes of the United States other than dealing to illegal immigrants.
Trump would have the debate viewers believe that every ill America has at the moment is the fault of the Biden administration.
He includes in this the 11 million to 12 million immigrants in the country. They’re not walking around waving signs about their immigration status, but Trump will round them up and send them home.
It seems Trump’s animal welfare soldiers will be able to find out where they are. He says they’re eating cats and dogs, people’s pets – well that’s what he said. Apparently, that bizarre extrapolation came from someone he saw on telly saying their pet was missing.
And not only is this man morally conservative, but when it comes to other people, rather than himself that is, he wants to crack down on abortions. If you believe him, babies are being “executed” after they’ve been born in the United States, which of course is offensive rubbish, as a debate moderator had to point out.
The bullet that grazed his ear a few months back has now been amplified by him saying he “probably took a bullet to the head because of the things the Democrats say about him”.
Never looking at Harris, the would-be President accused her of trying to get transgender operations for “illegal aliens” who are in prison.
It was pure, jaw-dropping, off-the-rails stuff from Trump but it should have been expected from a man who is like a disjointed word machine, spilling out verbiage without any thought.
It was said of Kamala Harris in the lead-up to her first debate with Trump, and the first time she’s actually met the man, that all eyes would be on whether she was a match for him.
Who wouldn’t be? If he was a Joe Blow in a bar you wouldn’t give him the time of day.
Harris gave her view of what America should be looking for.
“What’s important is a President who actually brings values and a perspective, that is about lifting people up and not beating people down.”
There was no debate: Harris won.
The Kremlin refuses to comment on Ukrainian allegations.