“One of the things striking to me about the debate was she shifted the power dynamics,” former Biden administration White House press secretary and current MSNBC host Jen Psaki said, noting how Harris approached Trump to shake his hand before the debate began. “From the moment she did that handshake — she didn’t just reach her arm out, she chased him down. He never really recovered control of the debate, which is interesting. It is a reflection to me of how she has been underestimated over and over and over.”

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod equated the debate to the final court room scene of the film A Few Good Men, comparing Harris to to Tom Cruise’s character that corners the colonel on trial.

CNN’s Van Jones reflected on Harris’s debate performance, saying she “baited” Trump and “whooped him.” 

“People have wanted to see somebody put this bully in his place,” Jones said. “She got out there and put him in his place. She baited him and then she spanked him.”

Harris’s body language and facial expressions, however, also drew scrutiny. 

Former Department of Defense body language expert Lena Sisco expert noted that Harris had several moments of nervousness and fear while attempting to “look very confident.”

Sisco commented on Harris putting her hand to chin, calling it the “Steve Jobs’s pose.”

“It’s, ‘I want to look very important. I want to look very confident.’ So, they’ll do this to kind of have this air of superiority,” Sisco said. “It’s an embellished sign to say, ‘Pay attention to me now.’”