Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris debate on Tuesday.
Kamala Harris on Tuesday night baited Donald Trump for nearly all of the 1 hour and 45 minutes of their first and potentially only debate — and the former president took every bit of it.
The vice president had prepared extensively for their debate, and peppered nearly every answer with a comment designed to enrage the former president. Trump was often out of control. He loudly and repeatedly insisted that a whole host of falsehoods were true. The former president repeated lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. He parroted a conspiracy theory about immigrants eating pets, and lied about Democrats supporting abortions after babies are born – which is murder, and illegal everywhere.
Here are some takeaways from the debate:
A turning point when Harris jabs Trump over the size of his rally crowds: Harris came onstage with a clear plan: Throw Trump off his game. It was, by any measure, a dramatic success. When the vice president mentioned Trump’s criminal conviction and outstanding legal issues, he bit. When she called him out for sinking a bipartisan immigration bill, he bit harder. And when Harris suggested Trump’s rallies were boring, he nearly choked on the bait.
Rather than engage on the issues raised by the moderators, including a few that Trump considers some of his political strengths, the former president went on at length about the entertainment value of his rallies, claims the Biden administration was legally targeting him and, in a long, bizarre spell, insisted – against all available evidence, that migrants were eating Americans’ pets.
Trump indulges in conspiracy theories: Despite signals from even his running mate, Trump did not refrain from repeating the conspiracy theory du jour during the debate. The former president brought up the unfounded conspiracy theory that migrants from Haiti living in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s cats and dogs. He said at one point that “in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of people who live there.”
When ABC moderator David Muir pointed out that city officials have denied any evidence that migrants in Springfield were eating pets, Trump doubled down, saying that “the people on television” were saying it. When pressed, Trump just said, “We’ll find out.” When the debate moved to crime, Trump claimed that crime was up in the United States contrary to the rest of the world. There too Muir pointed out that, according to FBI data, crime had declined in the past few years.
Fierce argument over abortion, a key issue for both candidates: The vice president, who has long been one the administration’s strongest surrogates on reproductive rights, was able to respond to the former president’s defense of his abortion policy in a way Joe Biden was not.
The former president, who appointed three of the Supreme Court judges who voted to overturn federal abortion protections, has sought to moderate his stance on the issue by criticizing six-week abortion bans and reiterating his support for exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. But he has also defended the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Read more takeaways from Harris and Trump’s first debate.
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