The Democratic vice president opened the confrontation with a power grab by walking across the stage to Trump’s lectern to shake his hand.

“Kamala Harris,” she said, introducing herself when the pair first met. “Let’s have a good debate.”

“Good to see you. Have fun,” the former Republican president responded.

The exchange set the tone for the 90-minute debate that followed, with Harris dominating the conversation at times, taking aim at Trump with comments about his economic policies, his refusal to concede defeat in the 2020 election and even his performance at rallies.

Trump, though initially moderate, grew increasingly exasperated as the evening wore on. And a key moment came after the two candidates left the stage, when megastar Taylor Swift said she would vote for Harris.

Some conclusions from a historical debate:

From the opening handshake, Harris took on Trump in a way Biden could not

In her first response, the former prosecutor said Trump’s tariffs would effectively create a sales tax on the middle class. She quickly accused Trump of presiding over the worst attack on American democracy since the Civil War: the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on the Capitol. She accused him of telling women what they could do with their bodies. And she mocked Trump’s praise of dictators “who would eat you for lunch.”

Harris effectively controlled much of the conversation with such attacks, provoking Trump into responses that sometimes provided an outlet but at other times served as a reminder of his wild rhetoric and fixation on the past.

“You did lose that election,” Harris said of the 2020 race, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, but he continues to maintain he won. “Donald Trump was unseated by 81 million people,” she said, referring to Biden’s winning vote total.

But Harris perhaps most unnerved her opponent when she criticized his performance at his rallies, noting that people often leave early.

Trump became visibly irritated, insisting that his rallies were bigger than hers.

Harris delivered her message from Trump to the American people with a smile over and over again.

“You’re not going to hear him talk about your needs and your dreams and your wants and your desires,” Harris said. “And I’ll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first.”

Trump had a label for Harris: ‘She is Biden’

Trump often defended himself, but he delivered the core message of his campaign: inflation and immigration are taking a heavy toll on Americans.

Immigrants, Trump said, have “destroyed the fabric of our country.”

He repeatedly linked Harris to Biden.

“She is Biden,” he said.

“The worst inflation we’ve ever had,” Trump added. “A terrible economy because inflation has made it so bad. And they can’t get away with it.”

Harris responded: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.”

Trump also attacked Harris for moving away from some of her progressive positions during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, urging voters not to believe her more moderate tone this campaign.

“She’s going to follow my philosophy now. I was actually going to send her a MAGA hat,” he said, referring to the red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps worn by many of his supporters. “But if she ever got elected, she would change it.”

Swift steps off the sidelines

One of the key moments came in a post on one of the most followed accounts on Instagram, shortly after the debate ended.

Swift has a loyal following among young women, a demographic that Harris should appeal to in droves. She called Harris a “gifted leader” and told her fans to do their own research and make their own decisions, but “I did my research and I made my choice.”

Trump on race and Harris on the attack

ABC host David Muir bluntly asked Trump about his claim last month that Harris had “gone black” too late. Harris is Black and South Asian and graduated from Howard University, a historically black school in Washington.

Trump tried to downplay the issue. “I don’t care what it is, if you make a big deal out of something, I don’t give a damn,” Trump said.

Harris had her chance, though, and she rattled off a long list of Trump’s racial controversies: his legal settlement for discrimination against potential black tenants in his New York apartment buildings in the 1970s; his ad calling for the execution of black and Hispanic teenagers — who had been wrongly arrested — in the Central Park jogger case in the 1980s; and his false claims that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

“I think the American people want something better than that, something better than this,” Harris said.

Trump accused Harris of trying to “divide” people and dismissed her claims as dated and irrelevant.

“This is someone who has to go back 40, 50 years in time, because now there is nothing left,” he said.

Harris and Trump delved into abortion positions

Harris came out with a flourish to defend abortion rights, perhaps the strongest case for Democrats since Trump’s nominees created a Supreme Court majority designed to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. Her sharp arguments were a vivid contrast to President Joe Biden’s rambling remarks on the issue during his debate with Trump in June.

“The government and Donald Trump should certainly not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said, painting a vivid picture of women facing medical complications, heartbreaking decisions and the need to travel to another state for an abortion.

Trump was equally vehement in his defense, saying he was returning the issue to the states, an outcome he said many Americans wanted. He struggled with accuracy, however, repeating the false claim that Democrats support abortion even after babies are born. He stuck to that claim even after being corrected by moderator Linsey Davis.

“I did a great service by doing that. It took courage to do it,” Trump said of overturning Roe v. Wade and constitutional protections for abortion. “And the Supreme Court had a lot of courage to do it. And I give those six justices a tremendous amount of credit.”

Polls show there is a lot of resistance to reversing Roe, and voters punished Republicans for it in recent elections.

Who’s speaking here?

Trump took a Harris talking point and turned it directly on her, when he objected after Harris interrupted him.

“Wait a minute, I’m talking now,” Trump said. “Sound familiar?”

He put his own spin on a line Harris famously made to Mike Pence during the 2020 vice presidential debate, when she rebuked Pence for interrupting him, saying, “Mr. Vice President, the floor is mine.”

A message to the center

In a divided country, elections are ultimately decided by a small share of swing voters in just a handful of states. And in a nod to that fact, Harris made an explicit appeal to voters across the political spectrum — including Republicans.

She noted that she is a gun owner. She quoted the “late, great John McCain,” a reference to the Republican senator and war hero from Arizona who criticized Trump for being captured by enemy soldiers. And she listed the many Republicans who formerly served in the Trump administration and are now supporting her campaign.

Trump, meanwhile, made little attempt to influence centrist voters, ignoring calls for unity he made in his summer convention speech.

Harris used the January 6 attack on the Capitol to make another explicit appeal to undecided voters.

“It’s time to turn the page,” she said. “And if that was a bridge too far for you, well, there’s a place in our campaign for you.”

A subdued Trump – except when he wasn’t

Democrats hoped and Republicans feared that Trump would lose his cool on stage. At first he didn’t, but as Harris got under his skin, he went to some dark places.

Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating pets. According to ABC’s Muir, local officials say that’s not happening. He claimed the Biden-Harris administration was allowing dangerous immigrants.

When Harris pressed him about the raft of criminal and civil cases against him, Trump was similarly furious, accusing Harris and Biden of engineering the cases.

“I probably got a bullet in the head because of the things they said about me,” Trump said, referring to the July assassination attempt by a gunman whose motives are unknown.

When asked if he was responsible for the Capitol riots, Trump raised his voice and blamed both Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who was then the speaker of the House, and the Democratic mayor of Washington. He said the rioters were “treated so badly” and again denied that he had lost the 2020 election.

Harris responded: “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, let’s make that clear, and he’s clearly having a very hard time processing that.”

An early skirmish over the economy

The debate began with an unexpectedly odd discussion of the economy, with Harris attacking Trump for his plan to impose steep tariffs and for the trade deficit he ran as president; Trump criticized Harris for inflation, which he wrongly called the highest in the country’s history.

Trump said people look back on the economy of his presidency with nostalgia. “I created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country,” he said. Harris told viewers bluntly: “Donald Trump has no plan for you.”

Americans trust Trump slightly more than Harris when it comes to handling the economy, according to an August poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs.

Gender a side issue

Harris would become the country’s first female president. But her gender was a side issue during the debate.

She made no reference to the historic nature of her candidacy. Neither did Trump.

And there were no performative moments where gender was an issue. Who can forget Trump’s decision to stand behind his last female opponent, Hillary Clinton, during a 2016 debate? He also called Clinton a “nasty woman.” Clinton said afterward that she felt uncomfortable.

But on Tuesday night, both candidates remained behind their podiums, as agreed, and no explicit comments were made about gender.