Trump did everything wrong — and gave Harris everything she needs to beat him

Around the 24th minute of Donald Trump’s seventh general election presidential debate he fell into a trap Kamala Harris laid out for him — and dug right under his skin.

The vice president was answering a question on immigration, a subject that has been central to Trump’s political rise and his remaking of the Republican Party, when she noted that he’d pressured his political allies in Congress into killing a bipartisan border security bill.

She could have left it there, instead Harris did something curious. She invited voters to attend one of his signature political rallies, calling them “a really interesting thing to watch” because many of Trump’s supporters now leave them early “out of exhaustion and boredom.”

It was a calculated line, clearly meant to get under the skin of the notoriously thin-skinned ex-president. It was one that her campaign telegraphed earlier in the day by paying to air a television advertisement featuring former president Barack Obama needling Trump about his “obsession with crowd sizes” during last month’s Democratic National Convention.

It was a line Trump’s campaign should have prepared him to face. He had to be prepared for the attacks, and he had one goal in the evening. He had to keep his cool.

And with that throwaway line, Harris got him to fail at that task in the most spectacular manner possible.

As soon as it was his turn to speak once more, the ex-president took the bait the former prosecutor had laid out for him so expertly.

First, he began claiming — falsely — that supporters “don’t leave” his rallies. He called the campaign gatherings “the most incredible rallies in the history of politics” because his supporters “want to take their country back” and are angry at “what’s