Amid the heavier economic, immigration and foreign policy issues that surfaced in the debate between U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday night, there were some stranger moments and claims.
Tuesday night’s 90-minute face-to-face debate, widely seen as a “job interview” for the nation’s top job, could very well be the only debate between the two candidates before the November election.
Odd moments during a debate can tell us as much about potential leaders as they do about the bigger issues. What odd comments were made, and how did political rivals handle them?
Trump: “Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio”
Trump claimed that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents' pets.
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs, the people who came here. They are eating the cats. They are eating… they are eating the pets of the people who live there,” he thundered.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance made a similar claim on Monday, posting on his X account: “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos throughout Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets kidnapped and eaten by people who should not be in this country. Where is our Border Czar?”
This rumor appears to have originated in a private Facebook group for Springfield residents, which claimed that a cat had gone missing and was later discovered hanging from a tree at a Haitian neighbor's residence. The rumor was first reported in the Springfield News-Sun.
Trump has long campaigned on reducing the number of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers in the United States, but the claim that immigrants are eating pets in Springfield is unfounded.
According to a statement from Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck’s office: “There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Trump: “Transgender operations against illegal immigrants” in prison
“Now she [Harris] “President Trump wants to perform transgender surgeries on illegal immigrants in prison. That’s a radical left-wing liberal who would do that,” Trump said during the debate.
This statement relates to Kamala Harris's response to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire supporting the use of taxpayer funds to provide gender-affirming care to transgender people.
The question, posed to the candidates in the previous presidential elections, The question was: “As President, will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for health care, including people in prison and immigration detention, have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If so, how will you do so?”
Harris responded “Yes,” writing: “It is important that transgender people who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, including access to treatment associated with gender transition.”
Although Harris' response was recently mentioned in a CNN report, Harris' campaign has not confirmed whether she still stands by that position.
Trump and the mystery of 'Abdul'
In August 2021, during a heated exchange over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Harris accused Trump of being irresponsible by inviting the Taliban to Camp David in 2019, when Trump was president. This meeting was later cancelled by the White House following a Taliban attack in September of that year in which 12 people were killed, including a US serviceman.
During Tuesday night’s debate, Trump referred to “Abdul” in a rambling speech in which he said he had told the Taliban to stop killing American soldiers.
He said: “Abdul is the head of the Taliban. He is still the head of the Taliban. I told Abdul, ‘Don’t do this anymore. If you do this anymore, you will be in trouble. ’ And he said, ‘Why are you sending me a picture of my house? ’ I said, ‘You’re going to have to find out, Abdul. ’ And for 18 months there were no deaths.”
Trump was likely referring to Abdul Ghani Baradar, who during his peace talks with Trump in May 2020 was the Taliban's chief negotiator. Baradar, however, is not the Taliban's supreme leader. He is currently a senior Taliban commander and Afghanistan's first deputy prime minister.
Trump: Democrats emboldened assassination attempt
Trump claimed the assassination attempt on him during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when his ear was grazed, was provoked by Democratic rhetoric.
“I was probably shot in the head for the things they say about me,” Trump said. “They talk about democracy. I am a threat to democracy.”
Several days before the assassination attempt on Trump, the Florida Democratic Party issued a statement in response to a Trump campaign rally at the Trump National Doral golf club in Miami, stating: “And the vision he laid out, Project 2025, is an existential threat to our country. His threats against immigrants, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and more should terrify us all, because if he wins, we know he will do everything in his power to ensure he ends democracy as we know it. That is why we must do everything in our power to defeat Trump and re-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this November.”
At a September event in Tempe, Arizona, to honor the late Sen. John McCain, President Joe Biden said, “If his extreme agenda is carried out, it will fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”
He continued: “Trump says the Constitution gave him ‘the right to do whatever he wants as president.’ I have never heard a president say that even in jest.”
During Tuesday night’s debate, Harris also claimed that Trump would “end the United States Constitution.”
On August 28, the FBI held a briefing to provide updates on the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump and gave details, including the suspect’s possible motives. Kevin Rojek, FBI special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office, said, “We continue to see through our analysis a mix of ideologies. So, I would say that we don’t see any definitive ideology associated with our subject, whether it’s left-wing or right-wing. It’s really been a mix and it’s something that we’re still trying to sort through and draw conclusions on.”
Harris: Trump claims “windmills cause cancer”
Perhaps most bizarre of all, a question about abortion from ABC News Live host and debate moderator Linsey Davis led Harris to mock Trump's rallies and mention Hannibal Lecter, a fictional serial killer in the film The Silence of the Lambs.
Harris said: “You will see that during his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He talks about how windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early because they are tired and bored.”
There have been no official reports on how many people left early during Harris's or Trump's rallies.
Trump decided to respond to this “offensive” mention: “Let me first respond about the rallies. She said people are starting to leave. People aren’t going to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she brings them in on buses and pays them to be there.”
Trump: “Illegal immigrants” vote in presidential elections
Trump repeated his claim that the Democratic Party relies on undocumented immigrants as a voting bloc. In a November 2016 tweet on X, Trump said that millions of people had voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, suggesting that undocumented immigrants were among them.
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you discount the millions of people who voted illegally.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016
“Our elections are bad and they are trying to convince many of these illegal immigrants who are coming to vote. They don’t even speak English. They practically don’t even know what country they are in. And these people are trying to convince them to vote,” Trump said during the debate.
Harris responded indirectly to the claim: “But we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who tries, as he has in the past, to subvert the will of the voters in a free and fair election.”
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a US-based nonprofit that works with policymakers, it is illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote in US elections.
“The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 explicitly prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. In no state is it legal for a noncitizen to cast a ballot in a federal election.”
