Harris aims for center on energy in fractious debate with Trump
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Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photos: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images and Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
A few things stood out from last night's first Kamala Harris-Donald Trump contest ...
🎯 Harris aimed for the center. She embraced the U.S. oil boom in her latest pivot from her 2019 call for a fracking ban, and later shouted out record gas output.
- When she touted investment in "diverse" sources, Harris called this a way to ease reliance on foreign oil.
- She made a pocketbook pitch when climate surfaced far later, noting extreme weather makes home insurance expensive or unavailable. Harris also touted "clean" energy as a U.S. manufacturing and jobs driver.
- Trump ignored climate in his answer, but argued that Biden-Harris policies hurt the auto industry.
⚡ Trump sees energy as a Harris weak spot. Despite today's record oil and gas production, he repeatedly said Harris would thwart U.S. development.
- If Harris wins, "oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead," he said.
- The former president urged viewers not to trust Harris' claim that she's no longer interested in ending fracking. It's an important topic in Pennsylvania, a pivotal battleground and massive gas producer.
- He also knocked Joe Biden for killing the Keystone XL pipeline (recall that Biden revoked its federal permit).
🤷 It wasn't a banner night for facts. Trump inaccurately claimed, for instance, that solar power requires a "whole desert to get some energy to come out."
- He also suggested U.S. oil production would be four to five times higher today had he won in 2020. Politico nicely takes this apart this wild claim.
- Harris shaded the truth by asserting she "made very clear" in 2020 she would not ban fracking. She's referring to a VP debate when she said "Joe Biden will not ban fracking."
- Reminder: a "ban" has never been in the offing. But producers chafe at White House restrictions and regulations, arguing they deter investment in future output.
🧑🤝🧑 Climate change has been friend-zoned in White House debates — it's on the scene, but network anchors don't embrace it.
- Climate questions have been standard in general election debates from 2020 onward. That's a change! They were simply absent in 2012 and 2016.
- But last night's lone question surfaced at the very end of the 90+ minutes.
- It's a pattern: these climate queries surface late in the night. That happened in both Biden-Trump 2020 debates and their lone 2024 rematch.
