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Through 17 presidential debates since 2015—Donald Trump attended 11 during the primaries in the 2015-2016 campaign, three against Hillary Clinton, two against Joe Biden in 2020, and the pivotal one against Biden in June—both Trump's opponents and the media have been trying to figure out how exactly to combat his firehose of falsehoods and random accusations. So far, no one has truly succeeded.
Hillary Clinton tried to remain poised throughout their three confrontations, during which Trump tried everything from bringing her husband's accusers to watch to stalking her around the stage. The Democrat emerged as the winner by general consensus, yet it didn't sway many viewers and didn't stop Trump from an Electoral College victory.
Joe Biden's first presidential debate in 2020 against Trump was probably most famous (and maybe most effective) for the moment when Biden told Trump to "shut up." Yet this past June, an older and slower Biden was completely flummoxed by Trump, and appeared practically enfeebled, in part because he was unsure of how to respond to Trump's more than 30 false claims.
Neither Trump's Democratic opponents nor his Republican ones in the primaries have found an entirely effective method of dealing with him because Trump thrives in chaos, which is why he looks to create it by constantly making false or misleading accusations and inventing his own facts.
On Sep. 10 in Philadelphia, Vice President Kamala Harris will have her chance to debate Trump. Harris has never actually met Trump in person and seems ready and eager to battle, repeatedly daring Trump to "say it to my face."
What Trump will likely say to her face will be more of the usual fabrications and exaggerations—that "every legal scholar" wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, that 20 million people have crossed the border during the Biden administration, that he had a stronger economic record than Biden, or even that Harris only recently "happened to turn Black." All untrue, but all likely to fly at the vice president at rapid speed.
Yet Harris can reverse the tables on Trump and leave him practically shell-shocked with just two words: "Google it."
Democrats still tend to debate like it's 1984, and everyone doesn't have an information device in the palms of their hands. They count on the media to do fact checks after debates, as if those checks will be sufficient, and most people will still be watching and will still care.
But Harris can stem the tide of Trump's onslaught and leave him completely stymied by directing herself to the audience after he speaks, and when she knows he's being deceptive, simply say, "He's lying again. Google it."
She can await Trump's fabrications like a fighter anticipating a wide right hook, then duck in and uppercut him. If she wants to be even more effective, she can direct viewers to a particular fact check, like one on Snopes or PolitiFact, or—better yet—to one on Fox News or the The Wall Street Journal—sources even Trump's followers will trust. All she has to do, though, is tell them to check for themselves and say that they should do it right now, while the debate is going. She might add, "See if you can trust what he's saying or not."
Will this be a perfect solution? No—Google, for one, can sometimes give people incorrect information; neither its algorithm nor its use of AI produces ideal results.
But it doesn't have to be perfect. First off, the Harris campaign can scan Google results beforehand; secondly, the search engine is still much more likely to produce accurate results when Trump makes blatantly false claims.
More importantly, though, Trump will know when he's lying, exaggerating, or just talking without any real consideration for the truth. This means that he'll have to suddenly worry about the facts—something that has generally not concerned him in the past. That worry will leave him stymied rather than his opponent, putting the truth on Harris' side. He'll fear the real-time fact check.
It would also mean that the media would have to discuss the areas of contention Harris points out, allowing her to choose what issues to place focus on in the usual post-debate-debates on the networks.
Trump is going to bluff, again and again. Harris can call his bluff and strike fear into him with two simple words: "Google it." And once Trump can't lie anymore, he might just not know what to say at all.
Ross Rosenfeld is a political writer from Long Island. You can follow him on Twitter/X and his Substack.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
