While Trump scores points by highlighting Harris' apparent reversals from her previous stances on fracking, guns, and immigration, he cheapens his criticism exaggerating her positions to an absurd degree.

• One of Trump's statements initially looks like it could be a straw man, but it turns out to have some factual basis. That's when he says of Harris that

She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.

In 2019, at least, Harris adopted a stance aligned with Trump's description. As reported by the Telegraph:

One of the questions put to Ms Harris in 2019 was whether as president she would ensure transgender and nonbinary people who rely on state medical care “including those in prison and immigration detention” would have access to gender transition surgery.

Mr Harris answered “yes” before adding: “It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition.”

Of course, this may be among numerous of Harris' views that have changed since 2019 -- which itself is the main subject of this segment of the debate.

Although Trump cannot be accused of putting up a straw man in this particular case, he does so in other areas of the debate (explained below).

1. appeal to ridicule and appeal to vanity • Trump attempts to discredit Harris's policy changes by suggesting that they are so ridiculous that people are laughing at them.

And everybody's laughing at it, okay? They're all laughing at it.

This is the equivalent of a "horse laugh" and has no argumentative merit from a critical thinking perspective. It could also be interpreted as an appeal to vanity, a fallacy that Trump used in both his RNC speech and his previous debate against Biden.

2. straw man • Trump exaggerates and distorts Harris's positions to make them easier to attack.

She wants to confiscate your guns and she will never allow fracking in Pennsylvania.

Even when Harris talked about mandatory gun buy-backs (a kind of "confiscating") in the past, it was only for assault weapons, not all guns in general. And although she once said she wanted to ban fracking, that is not her official position today. So none of these remarks are an accurate representation of her complete and current positions.

3. slippery slope • Trump suggests that Harris's policies will lead to a chain of negative consequences, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the country.

If she won the election, the day after that election, they'll go back to destroying our country and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead.

Trump may be alluding to Harris' original sponsorship of the Green New Deal some years ago, which had the goal of greatly reducing emissions from fossil fuels. It may be that Harris has changed her position on this. But even if the Green New Deal were to come to fruition under a future Harris administration, it does not necessarily mean that "oil will be dead." As Factcheck.org sums it up:

The primary climate change goal is to reach net-zero greenhouse emissions in a decade. “Net-zero” means that after tallying up all the greenhouse gases that are released and subtracting those that are sequestered, or removed, there is no net addition to the atmosphere. The goal, then, is slightly less ambitious than calling for no greenhouse gas emissions at all.

Furthermore, the Green New Deal is a non-binding resolution, and would require multiple acts of both houses of Congress to come into effect. So all in all, the slippery slope Trump asks us to image is highly unlikely.

4. hasty generalization • Trump likely overestimates how many policy positions Harris has changed.

She gave up at least 12 and probably 14 or 15 different policies.

Trump's number seems high. We tried to check on how many major policy issues Harris has changed her opinion.

While it is not 100% clear what Harris' current position is on all of these issues, these are the ones we found where it appears she has changed, or is leaning toward a change, in her stance. ​

1. Banning fracking and off-shore drilling
2. Banning fossil fuel leases on public lands
3. Support of single-payer health care (Medicare-for-all and abolish private health insurance)
4. Supporting all elements of the Green New Deal
5. Mandatory buy-backs of assault weapons
6. Decriminalizing border crossings
7. Federal provision of transgender care for those in prison and immigration detention

This is not nearly twelve, let alone 14 or 15. So it seems that Trump is over-generalizing.