A few streets away from ABC News’s presidential debate on Tuesday at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia, a vast digital billboard projected a question towards the people below: “Are You Better Off?” 

Rather than providing an answer, it delivered a command: “Vote Trump”. GOP campaign advertising has concentrated on the cost of living crisis. Voters frequently say that the issue is at the forefront of their mind and it was the first issue addressed in the debate. While the Republicans were keen to stay on policy discussion, the Harris team lobbied for microphones to be turned on throughout the event because they believed Trump’s tendency to interrupt and veer off message was to their advantage. Brian Hughes, who was hired as Trump’s Florida Director for the election, said that Harris “essentially has the Biden operation” and that “they fought very hard to have the rules”, until “two weeks out they suddenly want to change the rules”; “her team has spoken anonymously about how they have a real fear that this format may not be good for her”, he added. 

Although Mr Hughes mentioned that the format might put the Democratic candidate at a disadvantage, most Republicans played down its importance. When asked whether he believed the structure or moderators would impact the evening, Rick Scott, who has served as the junior Senator from Florida since 2019, said “No”. Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, offered the same view and remarked that “President Trump has shown himself to be a very effective debater regardless of the rules”.  

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas concurred. “I really don’t think the style or the manner of Kamala Harris or the format of the debate makes all that much difference”, he said and added that “what’s going to make a difference is the record of the candidates, I think that will far outweigh any questions about the format”. 

The format was the strictest in history. Microphones were meant to be muted when it was not a candidate’s allotted time to speak. No notes were allowed on the stage. And there was no studio audience, a departure from previous debates. When contrasted to the debates between former presidential candidate Hilary Clinton and Trump — where audience members contributed to an authenticity and unpredictability, with one even asking both to identify a positive trait about the other — the run-in with Harris was densely regulated. The environment was controlled because the moderators wanted to avoid the chaos seen previously. When Biden went head-to-head with Trump in 2020, he was interrupted ten times within the space of one question. Similarly, Trump interrupted Clinton twenty-five times in the opening twenty-six minutes of their first debate. 

This debate was no different. Despite the stringent setup, and in contrast to Senator Cotton’s claim that the candidates’ record would be more important than the format, Trump broke from the rules and tried to push his message through the moderators. The discussion between candidates was unusually stable, but the severity of the structure only made Trump’s belligerence more striking. After Harris named several economic institutions that have endorsed her financial plan over Donald Trump’s, he responded by stating: “that’s just a sound bite, they gave her that to say”, at which point his microphone turned back on. Later, David Muir, anchoring the event alongside Linsey Davis, cited FBI information to dispute Trump’s comments on “migrant crime”, only for the former president to bite back: “they were defrauding statements”. The two found themselves at loggerheads repeatedly, which compounded Trump’s irritation. 

Harris, by comparison, stayed within the guidelines. Although she seemed nervous at the outset, with lots of audible swallowing and hesitation in her voice, she came into her own when Trump started talking about immigrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. She was equally effective when criticising Trump’s decision to take out a full-page advert in The New York Times calling for the execution of the “Central Park Five”, a group of Black and Hispanic youths exonerated for violent crimes. Yusef Salaam, one of the five, confronted Trump when he arrived at the press room after the debate. The former president didn’t respond and, instead, fielded questions about the debate; he took issues with the moderators, saying they treated him unfairly. 

Fellow Republicans … dedicated many of their post-debate comments on the moderators and the conditions of the debate

Fellow Republicans followed suit and dedicated many of their post-debate comments on the moderators and the conditions of the debate. Congressman Michael Waltz for Florida’s sixth congressional district said that the story of the night was the moderators: “we have 2025, no fact check; we had Charlottesville, no fact check; Afghanistan, no fact check”. Vivek Ramaswamy, former Republican presidential candidate, said “I do believe that the moderators, particularly David Muir, had one side of fact checks and set this up for softball questions to Kamala Harris”. 

Democrats, on the other hand, claimed to be standing by the rules for the debate. Senator Laphonza Butler remarked that “these were rules agreed to by the Trump campaign and I think the moderators tried to stick to those rules”. 

Before Tuesday’s exchange kicked off, Trump’s supporters tried to marginalise the importance of the rules, format, and moderators. In fact, the densely regulated conditions of the debate directed attention towards Trump’s mounting frustration and made his irritated interruptions ever clearer. The restrictive structure of the discussion between candidates held greater influence over the outcome than the policy detail covered, which is why the Republicans attacked the people that they had claimed, just hours before, were insignificant: ABC News.