PHILADELPHIA: Tuesday's US presidential election witnessed a key development as former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump faced off against current Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in their first televised presidential debate.
In the presidential debate, both Trump and Harris clashed over immigration, abortion, diplomacy and other key issues and it was a more spirited showdown than the one two months ago in Atlanta, where President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance led to his withdrawal from the race and Harris's rise.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday's presidential debate.
Combative attitude
He ABC News The debate rules were intended to maintain decorum, but the candidates clashed, sometimes interrupting each other, with Harris clearly prepared to provoke her rival on multiple issues.
Harris attacked Trump for his record, his bombastic style and the “bunch of lies” he often spouts. Using blunt language, Harris said she and Biden worked to “clean up Donald Trump's mess.”
He accused Trump of having a “really hard time processing” his 2020 election loss and, in comments that clearly angered the Republican billionaire, mocked him for how some supporters leave his rallies early.
Trump fired back: “Wait a minute, I'm talking now,” he said at one point when Harris intervened, launching into lengthy diatribes about the Biden administration's “insane” immigration and economic policies.
Trump often looked down and rarely at Harris when she spoke. The vice president routinely turned to her rival, either to level a criticism or to raise her eyebrows at a Trump comment.
Abortion issue
Their first clash was over reproductive rights. Now that the Supreme Court, backed by three Trump-nominated justices, has struck down federal abortion protections, Trump has sought to moderate his stance on abortion.
He claimed that he had managed to return the matter to the United States and said:
“Now it's the people's vote. It's not tied to the federal government.”
“I did a great service in doing so, it took courage to do so,” the former president added.
Trump also repeated a false claim that some states allow abortions “probably after birth,” a procedure that is illegal nationwide.
“Is this what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term and miscarry, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot?” Harris responded, pointing at Trump as he stared straight ahead.
Immigration conspiracy
Trump's repetition of a debunked theory about immigrants eating Americans' pets was perhaps the height of his falsehoods, along with his repeated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
He delved into the baseless conspiracy that Haitian immigrants in a small Ohio town were stealing pets for food.
“In Springfield they are eating the dogs [….] “They're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people who live there,” Trump said angrily.
When they call you alphabet Moderators said city officials found no credible evidence of such crimes, but Trump bizarrely claimed that “people on TV” said so.
Diplomatic duel
Foreign policy largely took a backseat, though each candidate took the opportunity to criticize the other on diplomacy and offer radically different world views.
Harris called Trump “weak and misguided” on national security and angered him by saying he was a laughing stock among world leaders.
He warned that Trump would “hand over” Ukraine to Russian President Vladimir Putin, “a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”
Trump, on the other hand, called her a “horrible negotiator” who “hates Israel.”
“If she is president, I think that within two years Israel will no longer exist.”
Biden's revenge
Some feared Harris would falter under Trump's attacks, but the clearly well-prepared Democrat laid out her own arguments while putting her rival on the defensive, analysts said.
“Trump was terrible and Harris won easily,” said University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato. AFP“He took revenge for Biden's loss in the first debate.”
“The vice president executed her strategy to perfection, dodging the moderator's questions, taking jabs at Trump and provoking his anger,” added Republican strategist Liam Donovan.
Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer described it as Harris's “precision and planning versus Trump's chaos, rage and misinformation.”
