Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off on the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night for the first and possibly only time before voters cast their ballots for the 2024 presidential election.
In a heated debate that lasted more than 90 minutes, ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis asked the nominees a series of questions about the economy, immigration, abortion, energy, the 2020 election, Israel’s war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine and more.
During the debate, Trump refused to say whether he would sign legislation banning abortion and stuck to the false claim that he had won the 2020 election. Harris distanced herself from the immigration crisis, claimed she is not Biden and revealed that she is a gun owner.
Although the moderators tried to keep the discussion focused on the issue, the debate occasionally veered into uncharted territory, with accusations of eating pets and executing babies, and comparisons between the size of audiences.
The nominees continued to talk over each other, despite the fact that the microphones were turned off when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak, forcing the moderators to intervene.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump participated in a presidential debate hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia on September 10, 2024
Here are the main conclusions from the debate:
Donald Trump takes the bait
Throughout the debate, Harris continued to challenge Trump, and the former president fell for it again and again.
The vice president irritated the ex-president when she raised the issue of attendance at meetings.
“People leave his meetings early because they’re tired and bored,” Harris said. “The only thing you don’t hear him talk about is you.”
Trump kept pressing for a response, even when moderators tried to ask him a question.
“People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go,” Trump said.
“She buses them and pays them to be there and then she paints them in a different light,” he alleged, citing a debunked theory that Harris relied on AI for her crowded rallies.
Moderators fact check Trump
On Tuesday night, Trump was fact-checked multiple times by debate moderators, sparking anger among MAGA supporters online.
Trump made false claims about migrants eating pets in Ohio and Democrats killing babies.
“In Springfield, they eat the dogs, the people that came in. They eat the cats. They eat — they eat the pets,” Trump said in his same rambling response about the size of the crowd. The former president was referring to false allegations that Haitians in Ohio were eating pets.
“I want to clarify, you mentioned Springfield, Ohio,” Muir noted. “And ABC News contacted the city manager there. He told us that there are no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals.”
“I’ve heard people on television say my dog was taken,” Trump argued. “A dog was eaten by the people.”
“Again, the Springfield city manager says there’s no evidence of that,” Muir replied.
Donald Trump was fact-checked several times by debate moderators, including when he made false claims about migrants eating pets and Democrats supporting the murder of babies after birth.
Trump’s claim that Democrats are radical on abortion was also checked.
When asked why he could be trusted on this issue after changing his mind several times, the former president made the false claim that Democrats support executions after birth.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” Davis corrected.
Later in the debate, Trump also claimed that Harris had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Muir gave Harris a chance to clarify. The vice president said she had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kamala Harris urged changing positions
ABC News asked the vice president if her views had changed from the last time she ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Davis noted that Harris said at the time that she wanted to ban fracking, that she supported mandatory government purchase programs for assault weapons and that she wanted to decriminalize border crossings.
“Now you’re taking a harder line,” Davis noted before asking her why her views had changed.
Harris responded that her values haven’t changed, which also aligns with what she said in her CNN interview last month.
Vice President Kamala Harris claimed her values haven’t changed when asked about her shifts in position since the 2020 primaries
“I made that very clear in 2020: I will not ban fracking. I did not ban fracking as vice president of the United States. In fact, I was the deciding vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened up new concessions for fracking,” Harris said.
The vice president did talk about fracking, but she struggled to articulate exactly when her positions changed.
“My values haven’t changed. The important thing is that we have a president who actually brings values and a perspective that is focused on uplifting people, not oppressing them,” Harris said.
Harris distances herself from Biden
The vice president was given the chance to reintroduce herself as the Democratic presidential candidate. She immediately set the tone, casting herself as the change candidate while distancing herself from Biden.
“Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country,” Harris said.
During the debate, the Vice President spoke about turning the page.
“Let’s turn the page. Let’s not go back. Let’s chart a course for the future and not go back to the past,” the vice president said when speaking about the January 6 attack.
The vice president was also asked about the former president’s comment about her blackening. She argued that the American people want better than that.
“We don’t want a leader who is constantly trying to get Americans to point fingers at each other. I meet people all the time who say to me, ‘Can we please just have a discussion about how we are going to invest in the aspirations, ambitions and dreams of the American people?'” Harris continued.
She argued that the American people want a president who invests in dreams and ambitions, “not hatred and division.”
Candidates clash over who is respected by world leaders
Harris and Trump clashed over who had the respect of world leaders.
“I’ve traveled the world as vice president of the United States and world leaders laugh at Donald Trump,” Harris said.
The vice president blasted her rival during a segment on foreign policy, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin “would be in Kiev right now” if Trump were president.
The vice president claimed that European and NATO allies are grateful that Trump is no longer president.
Moments later, she asked Trump, “Why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up a favor and what you consider a friendship with what is known as a dictator who would eat you for lunch?”
Trump would not say whether he wants Ukraine to win when asked when he raised the issue of the war in Ukraine, but he did say he knows Zelensky and Putin “very well.”
“I have a good relationship, and they respect your president. Okay? They respect me,” he argued.
“We are a failing nation. We are a nation in serious decline. We are laughed at around the world,” the ex-president claimed at another point.
“I know the leaders very well. They come to me. They call me. We are laughed at all over the world,” he continued.