The Debate

For me, one of the biggest moments of the debate happened when the cameras were turned off.

There are a million articles and clips showing us what happened on screen last night when Kamala Harris wiped the floor with Donald Trump, and I’ll leave that analysis for another time because I want to talk about something that happened during a break.

In recent weeks, I’ve noticed a pattern in the media aimed at demonizing the Democratic presidential candidate for characteristics that are often praised in men. One piece written by two men for the Washington Post - which is owned by a man - described how staffers were “discomfited” (uneasy or embarrassed) by her leadership style:

“It’s stressful to brief her, because she’s read all the materials, has annotated it and is prepared to talk through it,” said one former aide.

“You can’t come to the vice president and just ask her to do something,” said another staffer. “You need to have a why.”

When I saw the screenshot of this, I felt a pit in my stomach and was compelled to find the full article and look for context about why this was a bad thing. And sure enough, the two men wrote:

Some of Harris’s early staff was also discomfited by her prosecutorial leadership style, former staffers said, which included pointed questions from Harris about footnotes in their reports or the reasons behind why certain items had been added to her schedule.

This really struck a chord in me because I have long faced the same kind of treatment for doing nothing more than being prepared and capable. When men are prepared and ask for detail, the are applauded. For example, my friend David Priess wrote this about briefing Robert Mueller:

What stood out to me most upon my starting the job, just months after 9/11, were Mueller’s attention to detail and his desire to understand how the CIA analysts arrived at their assessments. For a while, most of my briefings devolved into de facto intelligence hazing rituals. I discovered the hard way that when my presentation casually offered judgments lacking robust sourcing or logic, Mueller would ask me about the substantiation or argumentation until either my desperate searching through background materials could satisfy him or—more often in those first few months—I admitted that I’d have to get back to him after talking to the experts on that issue.

In time, I came to appreciate the way he thought, and those interrogations went from constant, to often, to seldom. For months, I could only rarely foresee all of his questions on any given day. By the end of my briefing tour—after increasing my understanding of Mueller’s job, appreciating what the president was asking of him every day, and especially internalizing the way he processed information—I got up to about 90 percent over the course of a week. His passion for detail, however, meant that I could never anticipate everything on his mind six days in a row.

And of course the right wing media members - pockets flush with Rubles - attacked Harris for spending a week preparing for the debate while Trump, unfazed and unworried, golfed and relaxed.

In the end, though, doing the work pays off - just as it did in last night’s debate. That’s where some color commentary about what happened behind the scenes during a break comes in, and it really nails the stark difference between these two candidates and their ability (or lack thereof) to lead. CBS pool reporter Sara Cook described it like this:

The second the stage hand said they were clear for a 4 minute break, Trump turned towards the exit, gave a big sigh through closed lips, and walked off stage without looking at Harris. From the time the moderators announced they were going to break, Harris began writing on her notepad. She wrote continuously for the entire first two minutes of the break, occasionally bringing one hand to her chin or brushing hair behind her ear.

She then reviewed what she wrote for the next minute, making a few tweaks, before putting the pen down and looking out around the room with her hands folded in front of her. She took a sip of water from a glass placed under the lectern. "Trump walked back onstage 30 seconds before the end of break. He did not look at Harris, she did not look at him. Harris made small adjustments to her collar. Both candidates looked straight ahead until the program restarted.

I felt this in my soul. So cheers to everyone, everywhere who has taken shit for being prepared and capable. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a win is worth it all.