Debate: How Kamala Harris outtrumped Trump as a master of branding

Donald Trump has his name on buildings all over New York. He also famously invented the catchphrase, “You’re fired,” on his former TV show, The Apprentice. But during his first, and perhaps only, debate against opponent Kamala Harris, she was the one who put on a master class in branding.

With her calm, controlled performance during the high-stakes debate, Vice President Harris proved as adept as any marketing executive at coining sticky phrases and images.

Harris conducted some epic branding on stage, taking a page from Trump’s playbook and using his name.

Early on, during a question about the economy, Harris likened her opponent’s reliance on tariffs to a “sales tax.” It’s an idea she’s mentioned before during recent campaign rallies, but in this instance, she went a step further. When she mentioned the proposed tariffs a moment later, she referred to them as “Trump’s Sales Tax,” a phrase that quickly caught fire online.

When a delighted Hillary Clinton described Trump’s economic plan as “Trumped-Up Trickle Down” during a 2016 presidential debate, it sounded like a canned line; a little too focus-grouped. Harris instead lightly tossed off her Trumpian phrase, and it got under his skin. Her opponent used the first words of his rebuttal to bluntly declare, “I don’t have a sales tax.”

The next time Harris branded an idea with Trump’s name, it may have had an even more significant impact.

While answering a question about the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, Harris referred to the abortion bans now in place in many states across America as “Trump abortion bans.” As demonstrated by the 2022 midterm elections, which were largely seen as a referendum on the Supreme Court’s decision, abortion is perhaps Trump’s weakest issue. Yoking him to it by name is a devastating attack, again delivered casually.

Later on, Harris sought to draw further contrast between Trump and herself with an evocative rhetorical flourish. She described her leadership goals with the idea of “lifting people up,” while her opponent, she claimed, is a champion of “beating people down.” It was a symmetrical bit of values-based phrasing that will likely have an afterlife in campaign ads.

Harris didn’t just deploy words to draw a contrast with Trump, though. She also showed a keen understanding of optics, using the split-screen format as an opportunity to create a visual distinction between herself and her opponent. As Trump grew increasingly agitated, always glaring dead-ahead at the camera, Harris reacted to his debate answers by facing in his direction—with an array of smiles, smirks, disbelieving eyebrow gymnastics, and many other gif-able facial expressions. This collection of gestures, each of which felt organic to its moment, belies an understanding of how the meme economy works.

Harris appeared in command of her image all night while coining several new potential slogans. Even one of Trump’s attempts to needle her relied on flipping an expression she recently made famous. “I’m talking now,” Trump said at one point. “Sound familiar?” While meant as a jab at her recent line, “I’m speaking,” which she said in response to being interrupted during a speech at a recent rally, it only underscored how much attention her own words have lately garnered.

Trump shouldn’t worry much about his ability to coin phrases, though. During the debate, his brand new epithet, “transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison,” started trending on X.