Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presented starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration and American democracy on Tuesday as they met for the primary time for what could also be their only debate before November’s presidential election.
The Democratic vice chairman tried to get on the nerves of the previous Republican president by upsetting him with reminders of the 2020 election loss he still denies and making derisive remarks about his other false claims. Harris’ jibes prompted Trump to interrupt into the sort of casual personal attacks and ramblings that his advisers and supporters have tried to dissuade him from.
The two outlined starkly different visions of where the country stands and where they hope to take it if elected. Harris promised tax cuts for the center class and said she would work to revive a federally guaranteed right to abortion that was struck down by the Supreme Court two years ago. Trump said his proposed tariffs would help the U.S. stop being cheated by its allies on trade and he would work to bring a fast end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, even when it meant Ukraine couldn’t win on the battlefield.
The debate, Trump’s seventh as a third-term presidential candidate and Harris’ first, was perhaps Harris’s best opportunity to present herself to voters on her own terms. Her debate ended hours before the primary ballots are mailed out in Alabama on Wednesday. Election Day is Nov. 5, lower than two months away.
Harris’ performance seemed in almost every way the other of President Joe Biden’s in June: Her sharp, focused answers were aimed toward making her points and aggravating Trump, while Biden was at times confused, halting and at times incoherent. Harris used her body language and facial expressions to confront Trump and express that she found his answers ridiculous or amusing – or each – while Biden sometimes had a blank expression while Trump attacked him.
Harris then turned to Trump, saying that as vice chairman she had spoken to foreign leaders: “And they say you are a disgrace.”
Trump, in turn, tried to link Harris to Biden by asking her why she didn’t put her ideas into motion during her tenure as vice chairman. “Why didn’t she do it?” he asked. Trump also focused his attacks on Harris because Biden had tasked her with tackling the basis causes of illegal migration.
He repeatedly dismissed her and Biden as weak and pointed to praise for nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to point out that he’s respected by world leaders, calling him the “most feared person.”
Trump again denied his defeat to Biden 4 years ago, when his efforts to overturn the consequence inspired the riot on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people,” Harris said. “Let’s get that clear. And obviously he’s having a very hard time processing that.”
Saying it was “time to close the chapter,” Harris made an appeal to Republicans and independents who’ve been repelled by Trump’s style and his efforts 4 years ago to overturn the 2020 presidential election. She said there was room in her campaign for her “to stand up for the country, to stand up for our democracy, to stand up for the rule of law and to put an end to the chaos.”
Trump twice declined to say it was within the U.S.’s best interest for Ukraine to win its war against Russia. Harris said it was an example of why America’s NATO allies were grateful he was not in office, as she and Biden had sent tens of billions of dollars to assist Kyiv repel the Russian invasion.
While the previous president made a series of false claims about migrants, Harris appeared to smile as he said migrants would “take jobs currently held by African Americans and Hispanics.”
“That’s really extreme,” Harris responded when Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that immigrants in Ohio were eating their neighbors’ dogs and cats.
The candidates met in a small, blue-lit amphitheater that had been converted right into a television studio. There was no live audience, so there was no loud applause, cheering or booing. The intimate atmosphere—the candidates’ lecterns were lower than ten feet apart—didn’t suggest that the talk that followed could be controversial.
When Harris tried to interrupt during one in every of his answers, Trump replied, “I’m speaking now, does that sound familiar?”, recalling the moment when Harris fended off an interruption by then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Harris sharply criticized Trump for the state of the economy and democracy when he left office because the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country and after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an try and overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“We cleaned up the mess that Donald Trump made,” Harris said. She began her answer by saying that she expected voters to listen to “a lot of lies, complaints and name-calling” from her Republican opponent through the 90-minute debate.
Trump, meanwhile, was quick to attack Harris for abandoning a few of her previous liberal positions, saying, “She follows my philosophy now. I was actually going to send her a MAGA hat.” Harris smiled broadly and laughed.
Harris has tried to justify her move away from liberal causes and a more moderate stance on issues corresponding to fracking, expanding Medicare for All and mandatory gun buyback programs – and even her shifting away from her position on banning plastic straws – with pragmatism, insisting that her “values remain the same.”
When the talk began, Harris stepped as much as Trump’s lectern to introduce herself. It was the primary time the 2 had ever met. “Kamala Harris,” she said, extending her hand to Trump, who accepted it with a handshake – the primary handshake at a presidential debate because the 2016 election campaign.
Harris focused on one in every of Trump’s biggest electoral weaknesses, accusing him of eliminating federal abortion rights, which was answerable for his role in appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, creating what she called “Trump abortion bans” in greater than 20 states.
Harris gave one in every of her most passionate answers when she described how women were being denied abortions and other emergency care and said Trump would impose a national ban on abortion if he won the election.
Trump called it a “lie” and said, “I’m not signing a ban and there’s no reason to sign a ban.”
The Republican has said he wants to depart the matter to the states.
When asked about her plans to stimulate the economy, Harris responded by saying she wants to increase tax breaks for families with children and tax breaks for small businesses, while attacking Trump’s plans to impose comprehensive tariffs as a sort of “sales tax” on goods that may ultimately be paid for by the American people.
Trump frowned at her response, but then replied, “I don’t have sales tax. That’s a false statement. She knows that.”
Trump, who’s attempting to portray the vice chairman as an unworldly liberal while winning over voters skeptical of Harris’ return to the White House, continued to call Harris a “Marxist” and said, “Everyone knows she’s a Marxist.”
Trump, 78, has struggled to regulate to Harris, 59, who’s the primary woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to function vice chairman. The former Republican president has at times resorted to racial and gender stereotypes, frustrating allies who want Trump to focus as a substitute on policy differences with Harris.
“I read that she’s not black,” Trump said when asked about comments questioning Harris’ race, adding a minute later, “And then I read that she’s black.” He looked as if it would imply that her race was a alternative, saying twice, “That’s her choice.”
“I think it’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president but has, over and over again, tried to divide the American people over race,” Harris replied.
Harris said Trump has an extended history of racial segregation, dating back to a long time ago when his family’s business was investigated for refusing to rent to black people. She also mentioned that he has called for the death penalty for the “Central Park Five,” who were falsely accused of rape, and has spread false “birther” theories about President Barack Obama.
“I think the American people want something better, want something better than this,” she said, nodding toward Trump.
Harris criticized Trump for one in every of his best sources of pride, his casual campaign rallies. Harris noted that at these events, as Trump meanders through the topics, he sometimes muses about “fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter” and whether “windmills cause cancer,” after which said that for those who watch his events, “you’ll also notice that people are starting to leave his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
“The only thing he doesn’t talk about is you. Your needs, your dreams and your desires.”
With his next query, Trump tried to reply by accusing Harris of nobody coming to her rallies except the people he claimed – without evidence – she had bused in and paid for to be there.
“She can’t talk about that. People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” he said.
Shortly after the talk between Trump and Biden on June 27, the incumbent withdrew from the race after his disastrous performance, Trump survived an assassination attempt, and either side selected their running mates.
The debate presented a rare moment of sustained questioning for Harris, who had given just one formal interview up to now six weeks.
Trump launched an attack on Biden at one point, questioning his mental acuity, claiming that Biden “doesn’t even know he’s alive.”
Harris quickly tried to show the tables and make Trump appear less astute.
“First of all, I think it’s important to remind the former president: He’s not running against Joe Biden. He’s running against me,” she said.
Price and Miller reported from Washington. AP Poll Writers Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington and Thomas Beaumont in Las Vegas and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
