PHILADELPHIA — After months of anticipation, former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris met face-to-face for the first time Tuesday on the presidential debate stage.
The 90-minute debate, hosted by ABC News at the National Constitution Center, gave Americans their first opportunity to hear the candidates’ positions since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in August.
Harris and Trump laid out their visions for the country if elected, answering questions on several subjects from the economy and the environment to abortion and the war in Gaza. Moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were intentional about keeping both candidates on topic and within the allowed time limits, though the two candidates nevertheless managed to successfully evade many of the moderators’ direct questions.
Harris frequently appealed directly to viewers in her responses, at one point telling Republicans frustrated with Trump that “there is a place in our campaign for you.”
Trump frequently tried to tie Harris to Biden’s policies on immigration and the economy, also accusing her of flip-flopping on her previous stance on fracking.
While the two bickered less than Trump and Biden at the June 27 debate, the candidates still took shots at one another, with Trump calling Harris a “Marxist” and Harris asserting that Trump would give up the country’s best interest for the sake of “friendship with a dictator who would eat [him] for lunch,” referencing the former president’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Economy
Harris outlined plans for a few specific economic policies, including tax cuts of $6,000 for middle-class families and $50,000 for small businesses. She also described her opponent’s plans as the “Trump sales tax,” which she claimed would only benefit billionaires and financially burden the middle class.
In reference to Harris’ economic policies, Trump said the vice president “doesn’t have a plan” and that she only copied Biden’s “four-sentence”-long economic policy. Trump said the policy Harris and the Biden administration implemented has “destroyed our country.”
Trump mostly dismissed the idea of a sales tax and defended his stance on foreign import tariffs, saying American citizens won’t face higher prices while other countries will. When Harris argued that this policy would cost Americans more money, Trump noted the tariffs have remained in place and untouched under the Biden administration.
Harris said it’s important to consider how Trump left the country after his presidency, referencing high unemployment rates and poor public health as indicators that the former president “has no plan for [citizens]” and only cares about tax breaks for the wealthy.
Ultimately, Trump labeled the country’s current inflation status as “probably the worst in our nation’s history,” contrasting it to “one of the greatest economies in the history of our country” under his past presidency.
Immigration and border security
Immigration was a topic Trump frequently returned to throughout the night, even when it wasn’t expressly mentioned in the question moderators asked.
When asked why the Biden administration waited so long to address border-crossing reaching an all-time high during Biden’s presidency, Harris referenced a bipartisan border security bill that would’ve allocated more agents and resources to the border crisis, which Trump instructed Congressional Republicans to “kill the bill.”
“What we have in the former president is someone who would prefer to run on the problem instead of fixing the problem,” Harris said.
Though Muir asked Trump why he vetoed the border security bill, he never gave a clear answer.
In a separate conversation on immigration, Trump falsely said illegal immigrants are “eating dogs” and other pets of Springfield, Ohio citizens, to which Muir responded that the city’s manager confirmed there were no credible reports of animals being harmed in Springfield.
“Let’s talk about extreme,” Harris responded with a laugh.
Trump went on to assert that crime rates are lower “all over the world except here” because criminals from other countries are coming to the United States. When Muir said the FBI reported “crime is down,” Trump said those statistics are “fraudulent” because certain towns were excluded from the analysis.
“I think this is so rich coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes,” Harris said.
Though Harris explained how Trump called for the defunding of federal law enforcement the day he was arraigned for 34 felony counts, she didn’t elaborate on Biden’s immigration policies or her own.
Abortion and women’s reproductive rights
Trump opened the abortion discourse by claiming that Harris wants to legalize abortion at nine months, and that her running mate Tim Walz even supports “execution” of the baby after it has been born.
“I said you were gonna hear lies,” Harris responded. She later commented that such claims are untrue and “insulting to the women of America.”
Davis noted there are no U.S. states where it is legal to execute babies.
Harris said Trump’s abortion bans make no exceptions for circumstances like rape or incest, and that medical professionals are scared to offer abortion procedures because some states threaten them with prison time if performed.
Though Trump said he personally believes in certain exceptions for abortions, he is proud of himself and the six conservative majority Supreme Court justices for bringing the issue back to the states, making it “the vote of the people now.”
While Harris promised to sign a Congressional bill to reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade if elected, she said Trump will instead sign a national abortion ban — one component of Project 2025 that Harris insisted Trump intends to implement if elected.
Project 2025 is a political initiative proposed by the Heritage Collection and supported by many other right-wing groups for what critics say is its extreme conservative policies.
Trump claimed no affiliation with Project 2025, and said he’s “not a fan” of a national abortion ban. However, when pressed by Muir about whether he would veto such a ban if it was brought to him during his presidency, Trump evaded the question and said “he wouldn’t need to.” When pressed by Muir a second time, Trump gave the same response.
Harris, too, avoided directly answering Davis’ question about whether she would support any restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, to which the vice president said she supports reinstating Roe v. Wade.
The war in Gaza
Harris largely stood by her previous comments that she believes Israel has a right to defend itself, but “how it does so matters.” She elaborated that her “two-state” solution involves a ceasefire deal wherein all hostages are removed and both Israelis and Palestinians benefit, though the details of how she would actualize this plan went unsaid.
Trump claimed Harris “hates Israel” and “hates the Arab population.” He asserted that if he were president, the war never would have started in the first place.
Closing statements
In her closing statement, Harris said she and Trump have distinct visions for the country — while hers focuses on the future, Trump’s focuses on the past. Harris said she intends to be a president “for all Americans,” and one who can unite the country via its commonalities rather than further polarize it.
Trump concluded by claiming that Harris “[believes] in things the American people don’t believe in,” and that if she truly had so many ambitious goals for the country’s future, she would have worked to achieve them in her three-and-a-half years in the White House.
