Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump presidential debate: Barbs and insults traded, but America no closer to deciding
Kamala Harris routinely called Donald Trump a ‘liar’ while Trump accused Harris of flip flopping and fakery during their first face-to-face meeting. The two candidates have drawn battlelines for the final 54 days of the campaign trail.
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Battlelines have been drawn for the last 54 days on the campaign as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris clashed over the key issues of economy, immigration, abortion and foreign policy in an acrimonious high-stakes debate ahead of November’s presidential election.
The former president, who declared afterwards he’d had “the best debate ever”, failed to deliver the knock out blow he enjoyed against Joe Biden on the debate stage in June, as Ms Harris tore into his record on Covid-19, his criminal convictions, and penchant for praising foreign autocratic leaders.
In a sign Democrats were happy with the Vice President’s performance her campaign immediately called for a second debate in October, which Trump, who appeared angry and flustered at times throughout the 90 minute exchange, later appeared to dismiss.
“I was very happy with the result … I thought we had a great night,” Mr Trump told media about an hour after the debate wrapped up in Philadelphia’s convention hall, stopping short of agreeing to a second debate in October, which had previously advocated.
“She wants it because she lost, I don’t know I have to think about it, but if you won the debate maybe you shouldn’t do it,” he said, likening his performance to a winning “prize fighter” who has no incentive to seek another confrontation.
In what was their first face-to-face meeting, the two candidates awkwardly shook hands a little after 9pm (11am AEST) Tuesday night before proceeding to hyperbolically tear each other apart over their policy records and personalities, Harris routinely calling Trump a “liar” while Trump accused Harris of flip flopping and fakery.
“She’s a Marxist — everybody knows she’s a Marxist,” Trump said in the most personal attack of the night as he sought to pin record US inflation on the vice president. “Her father’s a Marxist professor in economics, and he taught her well.”
Harris, who was under pressure to introduce herself successfully to American voters after an historically short stint as de facto party leader, declared it was “time to turn the page”, delivering one of numerous seemingly rehearsed lines that might have appealed to independent voters in an election pollsters say remains neck and neck.
“I imagine her campaign couldn’t have been more pleased with Trump repeatedly taking the bait literally every time that she offered it,” respected pollster Nate Silver pointed to a “strong consensus” Harris “won the night”.
The former president’s lead in political betting markets narrowed slightly over the course of the 90 minutes debate hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, from a 51.5 per cent chance of winning in November to 50 per cent, reflecting a widespread view among pundits and pollsters that the Vice President bested Trump overall.
The former president sought to hammer Harris over her previous support for the now highly unpopular ‘defund the police’ movement, her allegedly lax approach to enforcing immigration laws amid widespread concern about illegal immigration, and her previous opposition to fracking, a critical part of swing state Pennsylvania’s economy.
“Why hasn’t she done it, she’s been there for 3.5 years, they’ve had 3.5 years to fix the border, 3.5 years to create jobs,” Trump said in his closing remarks.
Harris accused Donald Trump of telling lies and “insulting the women of America” as the conversation turned to abortion, a strong point for Democrats amid polling that suggests widespread dismay at the ending of Roe v Wade in 2022 by a Supreme Court that had been heavily influenced by Trump’s appointments of conservative judges.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government — and Donald Trump, certainly — should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said.
On immigration Trump appeared to have the upper hand amid an unprecedented surge of illegal immigration into the US over the course of the Biden administration. “A lot of this illegal immigration is about getting them to vote … that’s why they are allowing them to come into our country,” Trump said, returning to a common Republican talking appoint.
Republicans railed against the two debate hosts, David Muir and Linsey Davis, for ‘fact-checking’ the former president over his claim abortion could occur at nine months in some states, the debate while ignoring the vice president’s own exaggerations and falsehoods, such as in relation to her previous support for gun control.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a Trump loyalist said host Muir “was particularly disgraceful … It’s unprecedented in American history to have a three on one debate”.
As the debate wound up pop superstar Taylor Swift formally endorsed Kamala Harris in a social media post to her 280 million followers, declaring Ms Harris a “steady-handed, gifted leader”, a widely expected endorsement with uncertain implications.
The debate had its lighter moments, including Trump’s threatening to send Harris “a MAGA hat” because “everything she believed three and four years ago is out the window, she’s going for my philosophy now”.
Harris appeared to genuinely laugh out loud when Trump brought up unsubstantiated rumours from earlier this week that Haitians were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, a town struggling with an influx of immigrants.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said.
Harris said supporters were leaving Trump’s rallies “early out of exhaustion and boredom”, while Trump tried one of Harris’s own trademark lines on her.
“I’m talking now if you don’t mind,” Trump said about halfway through the debate. “That sound familiar?”
Democrat California governor Gavin Newsom, often canvassed as a future party leader, crowed in the ‘spin room’ about Harris’s performance, expressing hope they would all be “back here in October”. “I’ve seen her perform at exceptional levels and this was another level. And she’s going to take it up a notch still”.
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