Vice President Kamala Harris may have won the presidential debate, but former President Donald Trump won the attention of social media after they faced off earlier this month. 

Harris was able to derail Trump a number of times throughout the night. Most notably, Harris made a comment about people leaving Trump’s rallies.

“What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” Harris said.

Rather than ignore this comment and stay focused on policy, Trump responded to her attack with more vitriol than necessary. He was easily thrown off from his message and it took him a while to regain confidence. 

However, this does not show the full story. After the debate, Springfield, Ohio, was trending on X and TikTok after Trump said he’d heard reports of Haitian migrants harming and eating animals in the area.

“They’re eating the dogs,” Trump said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Though evidence for Trump’s claim is dubious, it is true that his comments have gotten people talking about the immigration crisis. Whether or not pets are being harmed in Springfield, the town has seen a population growth of about 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian migrants according to NewsNation.

Regardless of the background information, this moment from the debate has gone viral. What may have seemed like an absurd statement at the time of the debate may have been Trump’s smartest publicity decision– even if that wasn’t his plan.

A parody song called “Eating the Cats” went viral on TikTok post-debate. While the song was originally intended to make fun of Trump, there is no denying that it’s gotten people talking about the situation in Ohio.

Trump does best when people are talking about him. When the media covered every outlandish comment he made in 2016, he was able to win the presidency. Trump succeeds in the spotlight.

This election cycle has made it clear that virality — even for absurd comments — can be a positive for a political campaign. 

Earlier this year, memes of Kamala Harris’s infamous “coconut tree” comment swept the internet. The memes had nothing to do with her policies, beliefs, or record. Nonetheless, her campaign leveraged these memes to her advantage, and it worked. These brief comments by Trump may have just helped him to regain social media sway.

Harris held her own in the debate against Trump. However, one week later, Trump seems to have taken the internet by storm.