Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump confronted off Tuesday evening for his or her first — and probably solely — presidential debate earlier than the November election.
The showdown in Philadelphia was fiery, with each candidates making an attempt to enchantment to voters in an in depth race.
Listed below are six important moments from the occasion:
Harris had Trump shake her hand throughout their first-ever assembly.
The ABC Information presidential debate Tuesday was the primary time Harris and Trump had ever met in individual or appeared in the identical room collectively. Although Trump has largely eschewed a handshake or greeting in previous debates, Harris shortly walked as much as him, caught her hand out and launched herself.
Trump has repeatedly mispronounced her title on the marketing campaign path — and has taken to insulting her as Kamabla.
Harris successfully baited the previous president on crowd sizes and his 2020 election loss.
Regardless of a comparatively tempered begin, Harris shortly bought beneath Trump’s pores and skin after saying his supporters typically get bored at his rallies and even depart early “out of exhaustion.”
The quip prompted a fierce retort from the previous president, who claimed — as he typically does — that he has the “biggest” and “most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
“People don’t leave my rallies,” he mentioned. “People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. The people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there and showing them in a different light.”
Throughout one other fiery second, Harris mentioned Trump was “fired by 81 million people” over the last election and mentioned world leaders had been laughing at him. Trump went on to tout his cozy relationships with strongman leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Harris used these remarks later to level to Trump’s pledge to be a dictator solely on day one of a future presidency.
SAUL LOEB/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Trump went on wild tangents targeted on false claims.
The wildest declare of the evening got here when Trump repeated weird, racist lies that Haitian immigrants have been consuming Individuals’ cats and canines.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump mentioned Tuesday evening. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
These claims grew from a debunked web story about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which has seen a rise in Haitian refugees in recent times.
There’s nothing to bacok up these claims, which have been refuted by Springfield metropolis officers. However Trump repeated them a number of instances on the controversy stage.
The moderators fact-checked a few of Trump’s wildest claims.
Trump’s look featured a slate of rapid-fire lies and mistruths, however the moderators did deal with a few of his extra outlandish claims in actual time.
At one level, Trump repeated his fully false assertion that some girls had been getting abortions “up until the moment of birth” — together with killing infants after they had been born. Moderator Linsey Davis stepped in to refute these remarks.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” she mentioned.
Harris routinely attacked Trump’s function in undoing the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court docket determination and pointed to the slate of “Trump abortion bans” which have since been handed in almost two dozen states.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump, certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” the vice chairman mentioned.
Conservative pundits weren’t proud of Trump’s efficiency.
“Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night,” Fox Information host Brit Hume declared after the controversy ended. “We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) praised Harris’ efficiency as “exquisitely well-prepared” earlier than calling on whoever aided Trump in his debate preparations to be “fired.”
“He was not good tonight at all,” Christie mentioned.
Harris desires a second debate. Trump hasn’t dedicated.
The Harris marketing campaign instantly known as for an additional matchup earlier than the November election, suggesting the 2 candidates meet once more in October.
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“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris or going backwards with Trump,” Harris’ marketing campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, mentioned in an announcement.
Trump, for his half, wouldn’t commit to 1.
“She wants a second debate because she lost,” he mentioned within the media “spin room” after the controversy.
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