He debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris It was everything that was expected: an intense exchange, in which the ideological polarization of the United States and in which a former Republican president was seen uncomfortable with having to deal with the calm and firm style of the vice president democrat.
It didn’t even come close to resembling the debate that Trump maintained with the president Joe Bidenwho looked sleepy and lost. Harris It was a rival hard to crack for the Republican candidate.
Harris and Trump exchanged political attacks and personal as they presented their contrasting visions for the country during their first, and perhaps only, debate before the presidential elections in November.
The confrontation gave them Americans the most detailed look yet at a Campaign which has changed dramatically since the last debateheld in June between Trump and Biden.
Right away, Harris presented the Democratic arguments in a better way than the president did. Joe Bidenlashing out at the proposed tax cuts and tariffs Trumpand linking it to the conservative Project 2025 plan for a Republican government, as well as the Republican Party’s efforts to restrict access to abortion. Trumpinstead, tried to relate to Harris with Biden, asking why he had not taken action on her proposals while serving as vice president.
Harris He firmly attacked Trump by the state of the economy and the democracy after leaving the presidency, while the pandemic COVID-19 besieged the country and after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “What we’ve done is clean up the mess he left behind Donald Trump“, he declared HarrisHe began his response by saying he expects voters to hear “a lot of lies, complaints and name-calling” from his rival during his debate of 90 minutes.
Trumpmeanwhile, was quick to attack Harris for leaving aside some of his liberal positions and stressed: “Now it goes with my philosophy. In fact, I was going to send him a cap. MAGA“, referring to the acronym for his slogan “Make America Great Again.” Harris He smiled and laughed out loud at what was said.
The Republican candidate said he was “probably” the target of an attempted assassination. murder in July due to attacks from his opponents. “I probably got a bullet in the head because of the things they say about me. They talk about democracyI am a threat to the democracyThey are the threat to the democracy“, he insisted Trump.
Harris accused Trump of being an international laughing stock, easily manipulated by some of the world’s worst leaders.
“I have traveled the world as Vice President of the United States and the world leaders they laugh at Donald Trump“, said.
Trump refused to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 election during the debate. “There’s plenty of evidence. All you have to do is look at it (…) I got almost 75 million votes, the most votes any sitting president has ever gotten.
“They told me that if I got 63, which is what I got in 2016, they couldn’t win the election,” he said. Trump repeated the lie that migrants eat “dogs and cats” in a town in Ohio (northeast).
“In Springfield, they eat the dogs – the people who came in – they eat the cats, they eat the pets of the people who live there. And this is what is happening in our country,” Trump said, repeating a theory touted by Republicans and denied by authorities regarding Haitian migrants.
Migration and abortion
The Republican tried to steer the discussion back to the issue of migration management, which has become one of the priorities of the Americans facing the elections.
Trump and his Republican allies have tried to associate Harris directly with President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, wrongly calling her the “border officer.”
The former president repeated this claim on several occasions, while insisting on xenophobic narratives, accusing migrants of “destroying” the country and pointing the finger at the government. democrat as the culprit.
Harrisfor his part, evaded questions on the subject and limited himself to giving his support to a bill that seeks to make permanent the asylum restrictions that his government has imposed at the border.
He abortion It was another of the issues that provoked a confrontation between the candidates, with Harris promising to protect the abortion with a federal law and Trump ensuring that he believes in exceptions to the restrictions on abortion in cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life.
“I’m going to be a president who is going to protect fundamental rights and a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and not have the government tell her what to do,” Harris said.
The war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza and the elections of 2020 were also issues that faced the candidates in the debatewhere both presented themselves as the most sensible option for the country.
The Republican accused Harris of “hating” Israel“, to which the democrat He replied by saying that he has spent his “career and his entire life supporting Israel “and the Israelis.”
Polls paint a close picture elections in November, with Harris surpassing Trump by just 2.7 percentage points in the national vote, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
