Trump’s Surprise Compliment to Harris About That Debate

Donald Trump has had really bad—even vile—things to say about Kamala Harris, who he’d never met until their epic Tuesday night debate when she forced him to shake hands before igniting his implosion on stage.

But apparently, their newfound relationship blossomed overnight. And by Wednesday, they shook hands for a second time, about 12 hours after their first handshake, at a ceremony in Manhattan to commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. And the niceties didn’t end there.

“Good job,” Trump told Harris as they shook hands when they both arrived to sit in the front row for the commemoration, according to a source at the event.

Trump was seen repeating a compliment—either “good job” or something else, it was hard to tell—as their handshake lingered and the former president brought his left hand to cup her right hand between his palms briefly. He tapped her hand twice with his left hand before letting go.

Former New York Mayor and one-time presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg appeared to play the matchmaker. Harris was busy chatting with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, when Bloomberg tapped her arm. She turned around and there was Trump, wearing his signature red tie and boxy suit.

As the two shook hands for a second time, Harris said something indecipherable to Trump and nodded during their roughly five-second exchange before they went back to standing in line for the somber memorial.

President Joe Biden stood there quietly watching it all unfold. Bloomberg stood next to Trump, who stood next to his running mate, JD Vance.

The 9/11 commemoration offered a pointed contrast to the previous evening, when Trump spewed lies about Harris’ record, suggesting again that she wasn’t really Black and that it was her fault that immigrants are doing unspeakable things—all of them fabricated by right-wing conspiracy theorists—to people’s pets in a small city in Ohio.

Here was Trump, who rails in vitriolic and uniquely nasty ways at his political enemies from the hidden comfort of social media, being gracious and dignified to Harris’ face. It was unusual, yet fitting, for both candidates to put aside their political differences after their fiery and furious debate Tuesday night, when Trump used far-right conspiracy theories to guide him to what pundits in both parties declared was a colossal failure for the former president.

Trump, 78, was also heckled at the ground zero event, and was flamed for winking and smiling at photographers and looking up at the sky while the other political leaders bowed their heads in solemn remembrance of the loss of 2,977 innocent lives on 9/11, 2,603 of whom died at the World Trade Center.

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