‘Leaving his rallies early out of boredom’: Harris hit Trump where it hurts, with cold hard facts

One of the main reasons I was excited when Kamala Harris became the new Democratic presidential nominee was that I had complete faith she knew how to deal with Donald Trump in a debate. The September 10, 2024 debate proved that hunch with flying colors.

The widespread conclusion is that Harris easily won the debate. She didn’t go for Trump’s bait, but Trump sure went for hers. Harris knew exactly where to hit him to provoke a reaction. At one point in the debate, while discussing how Trump orchestrated the death of an immigration bill, she did something she professed was “highly unusual” invited the viewers to go to a Trump rally, “because it’s a really interesting thing to watch.”

Harris jabbed at Trump’s fondness for bringing up Hannibal Lector before saying, “What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.” On the word “boredom,” you could see Trump’s eyes go wide. Instead of answering the moderator’s question of why Trump killed the bill, he responded to the deep wound to his fragile rally crowd ego. He claims people are “bussed” to Harris’ rallies and that he has “the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies.” It’s very, very clear Harris hit a nerve, and Trump was furious.

Obviously, the only people getting bussed to Harris rallies are the people taking public transportation to go see freaking Megan Thee Stallion. But what about Harris’ claim that people leave Trump rallies early? Is it true?

It’s true

The Wall Street Journal fact checked Harris’ claim that people leave Trump rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. Their remarks are hilariously brief and blunt: “Reporters who have attended Trump’s rallies have witnessed people leaving early. Trump’s rallies often stretch well over an hour.”

You can’t prove why someone is leaving a rally early without doing an exit interview of every departing attendee. But the fact that Trump rambles on for over an hour, coupled with the fact that people are leaving … exhaustion and boredom would seem to be very reasonable conjectures.

Trump has repeatedly shown that he values the metrics of his crowd sizes over basically everything else. Last month, he compared his crowd sizes in the Washington Mall to the crowd for Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech—saying he had even more people, of course, which is false.

Good for Harris for knowing exactly where Trump’s weak point is. The truth, for one. But also, his crowd sizes.