Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly put former President Trump on the defensive during their debate Tuesday, portraying the Republican presidential nominee as a divisive and distracted leader who would lead the country backward.
Harris, who set the tone for much of the discussion, described herself as the leader of a “new generation,” optimistic about the future, while Trump described a country in decline, threatened by crime, illegal immigration and inflation at home and by unravelling events abroad.
Although Harris is the leader of a sitting administration and Trump has been out of office for nearly four years, it was the former president who was forced to defend his record more often. Harris at times sidestepped questions from moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News, and stuck to her themes, such as her plan to build an “opportunity economy.”
Harris’ team was effusive after the debate, while at least some of Trump’s supporters acknowledged he hadn’t had a great night. Trump quickly took to his Truth Social platform to claim he had been treated unfairly. “I think it was my best debate, EVER,” he wrote, “especially since it was THREE AGAINST ONE!”
Trump, who at times squinted and grimaced as Harris chided him, seemed intent on responding to even the slightest provocations. He veered into issues like the size of crowds at his rallies and a bizarre (and debunked) claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are killing and eating domestic pets.
“Tonight you heard two very different visions about the future of our country, one that focuses on the future and the other that focuses on the past and tries to take us backwards,” Harris said in her closing remarks. “But we are not going backwards … We can chart a new path forward, and a vision for that includes having a plan, understanding the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes, the ambition of the American people.”
Trump said Harris, as vice president, had had her chance in the White House and had shown she was not prepared to lead the country.
“She started out saying she was going to do this, she was going to do that. She was going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it?” the former president said at the end of the 90-minute debate. “She’s been there for three and a half years. They’ve had three and a half years to fix the border. They’ve had three and a half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it?”
The stakes of the nationally televised showdown could not have been overstated, given what came before and what might not come after: On June 27, President Biden’s shaky debate performance knocked him out of the race. And, looking ahead, there is still no other presidential debate scheduled.
Polls, both nationally and in the six or seven key states likely to determine the election outcome, show the race nearly tied. Harris received an apparent boost when pop megastar Taylor Swift announced Tuesday night that she plans to vote for Harris, calling the Democrat a “talented and steady leader.”
In an Instagram post minutes after the debate ended, Swift said she would vote for Harris because she “fights for the rights and causes that I believe need a warrior to stand up for them.”
Harris took the lead early in the debate, forcing Trump to defend his economic policies and tariffs — a surprise given that polls have shown voters tend to prefer the Republican's handling of the economy.
The vice president largely ignored a question from Muir about whether Americans were better off economically than they were four years ago. Instead, she focused on what she would do in the future and not the Biden administration’s record.
Harris said she would propose a $6,000 child tax credit, a $50,000 tax deduction for small businesses and $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers.
He contrasted this with Trump’s proposals, which include a tax cut that he said would benefit billionaires at the expense of ordinary Americans. He said Trump’s plans would add $5 trillion to the national deficit and that his tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States would raise product prices so that middle-class families would pay a “tax” of $4,000 more a year.
Harris said she was formulating her policies as someone who “was raised as a middle-class kid,” adding: “I’m actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that looks to help the middle class and working people of America.”
Trump responded that Harris and Biden had been “a disaster for the people, for the middle class, but for all classes,” and that prices for some goods had risen by as much as 80%. He also rejected Harris’s comments about tariffs, saying the burden of those levies had fallen on foreign countries, particularly China.
The former president quickly changed the subject to another of his favorite topics: immigration. He reiterated a baseless accusation he has made many times: that other countries have emptied prisons and mental institutions and sent the inmates to the United States.
Referring to Haitian immigrants who arrived in Springfield, Ohio, and other migrants in Aurora, Colorado, Trump denounced that “they are taking over the cities; they are taking over the buildings; they are breaking in. These are the people that she and Biden brought into our country, and they are destroying our country.”
The debate began awkwardly when Harris crossed the stage and introduced herself to Trump, extending her hand; he seemed intent on staying behind his lectern, before finally shaking it. “Have fun,” Trump told the vice president.
On many issues, and particularly when the discussion turned to abortion, the vice president turned and spoke directly to Trump, sometimes making forceful gestures with her index finger. Trump remained largely unmoved, though he raised his eyebrows in surprise when she mentioned a point of pride for the former president: his rallies.
She claimed that many of her supporters ended up leaving her rallies out of “exhaustion and boredom.” He countered by claiming that “people don’t go to her rallies,” adding: “There’s no reason to go. And the people who do go, she busses them in and pays them to be there.”
The abortion issue sparked another heated exchange. The Republican falsely claimed Democrats support killing babies after birth, and Harris said Trump cannot be trusted because of the dizzying array of statements he has made on the issue.
“It's an execution,” Trump said, claiming that Harris, her running mate Tim Walz and his party support allowing babies to be killed in the last months of pregnancy or after birth.
Harris, looking skeptically at Trump, responded: “Well, like I said, you’re going to hear a lot of lies.”
Killing newborns is not legal in any state. Late-term pregnancies (after 21 weeks) account for less than 1% of abortions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They largely occur because the baby's health is severely compromised and not viable.
Trump reiterated his claim that his rulings for the U.S. Supreme Court had helped return the abortion issue to the states, a decision he says is popular with Americans. However, polls have repeatedly shown that voters did not support overturning the Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortions in the first two trimesters in all states.
Trump repeated his claims that crime is “through the roof” and that much of it is caused by immigrants.
Asked about his proposed “largest deportation operation” in the nation’s history to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, Trump said the number of people in the United States illegally is more than 11 million because Harris and the Biden administration “allowed criminals, many, many millions of criminals, allowed terrorists, allowed common street criminals, allowed people, drug dealers, to come into our country.”
The data suggests both claims are incorrect, and as in several other responses during the debate, Muir corrected the former president. The ABC host noted that statistics show violent crime is down.
When Muir pointed out that the FBI says crime is down, Trump called it a “fraud.”
His repeated attacks on immigrants peaked when he spoke about Haitian refugees who have legally settled in Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people who came here,” Trump said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people who live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a disgrace.”
Muir again offered a silent correction, saying ABC had reached out to the city manager in Springfield, who told the outlet there had been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Unfazed, Trump said he had heard about it on television. Harris's response: “How extreme!”
