Harris, Trump trade blows in heated U.S. presidential debate

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed in often personal terms during their only scheduled debate and first-ever meeting ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, a high-stakes tilt that could break open a race currently tied in the polls.
The Democratic Vice-President said the Republican former president “wants to be a dictator,” that “world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump,” that U.S. military leaders “have told me you are a disgrace” and admonished Mr. Trump: “Don’t lie.”
Mr. Trump accused Ms. Harris of being “a Marxist,” falsely claimed her vice-presidential running mate, Tim Walz, supports “execution after birth” and heckled her during the debate. “Wait a minute – I’m talking now. Does that sound familiar?”
The pair also tangled on a suite of policy matters, from immigration to abortion to trade to the economy. But many of the specific policies were overtaken by their combative attacks.
Mr. Trump wasted no time firing an opening salvo on immigration, answering a question about the economy by instead repeating his baseless assertion that migrants are coming to the United States from “insane asylums.” “They’re destroying our country,” he said.
Ms. Harris, meanwhile, derided Mr. Trump’s economic plans as entailing “tax breaks for the richest people” while imposing 10 to 20 per cent tariffs on imported goods, which she dubbed a “Trump sales tax.”
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In one of their sharpest exchanges, Mr. Trump incorrectly asserted that all legal scholars “wanted” Roe v. Wade overturned. Ms. Harris fired back with the example of a woman suffering a miscarriage who cannot get an abortion.
“She’s bleeding out in a car in a parking lot – she didn’t want that,” Ms. Harris said. “A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that.”
The 90-minute-long debate, hosted by ABC at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, unfolded in the shadow of the election cycle’s only previous debate, in June between Mr. Trump and President Joe Biden. Mr. Biden had trouble forming sentences and sometimes stood with his mouth agape, raising concerns of age-related decline that forced him out of the race.
Tuesday’s debate used the same rules as the previous one, largely dictated by Mr. Biden, with no studio audience and microphones muted for the candidate not speaking. Ms. Harris had unsuccessfully sought to get the second rule changed, apparently in hopes Mr. Trump’s interruptions would irritate voters.
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During many of Mr. Trump’s answers, Ms. Harris smiled in his direction and shook her head “no,” at one point seeming to wave away one of his comments with her hand.
The former president was grilled over his criminal convictions, pending trials and attempt to overthrow the democratic result of the 2020 election. He faced attacks over plans, both outlined by himself and in Project 2025, a document written by the Heritage Foundation think tank, to massively expand the power of the presidency if he returns to the White House.
Mr. Trump repeated his calls for a crackdown on migration at the U.S. border with Mexico and tried to blame Ms. Harris for the arrivals of asylum seekers. As Vice-President, she was tasked with working with Latin American countries to slow the flow of migrants.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was another sharp divergence between the pair. Ms. Harris supports continuing to back Kyiv while Mr. Trump has said he would immediately bring a halt to the fighting, drawing accusations that this would mean Ukraine giving up territory to Russia. Mr. Trump once mused he would encourage Russia to invade NATO members who don’t spend enough on defence.
Other dividing lines were on climate change, gun control and international trade.
On Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Ms. Harris walked a fine line, hewing to the U.S.’s long-time policy of support for Israel while also advocating a ceasefire in a bid to placate pro-Palestinian voters who have previously leaned Democratic.
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Ms. Harris’s campaign openly attempted to bait Mr. Trump in the lead-up to the contest.
On Tuesday, they ran an attack ad making fun of him on Fox News and in the Palm Beach, Fla., and Philadelphia media markets – places he was most likely to see it. The spot clipped former president Barack Obama mocking Mr. Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes” while making suggestive hand gestures at the Democratic National Convention. It also showed seemingly sparse attendance at Mr. Trump’s events next to a roaring crowd at one Harris rally.
While Ms. Harris has cultivated a laughing, “happy warrior” persona, she has so far faced few unscripted exchanges, making the debate a crucial test of public performance.
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