The two main US presidential candidates, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, have held their first 90-minute debate, widely seen as crucial to outcome of the November election.
The event, hosted by the ABC in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and moderated by the network’s anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, covered a wide range of topics, including the economy, migration, abortion, and foreign policy, particularly the Ukraine conflict.
Before Tuesday’s face-off, Trump led Harris by just 1% among likely voters (48% to 47%), with 5% being on the fence, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. The survey also found that 28% of respondents said they wanted to learn more about Harris, even though she has served almost four years as Joe Biden’s vice president.
Here are the key takeaways from the debate.
Blame game over the economy
Moments after the two candidates shook hands, they had a chance to lay out their visions for the future of the US economy. Harris, who took the floor first, touted her plan for what she called “an opportunity economy.” The Democrat said she planned to make housing more affordable, expand the child tax credit, and put in place tax deductions for start-up small businesses. She claimed that the Biden administration had been forced to “clean up Donald Trump’s mess” after the Republican left office.
However, Harris failed to directly answer the moderator’s question about whether she believed “Americans are better off than they were four years ago.”
Trump fired back, pinning America’s economic struggles on the current leadership. “We’ve had a terrible economy because inflation... It breaks up countries. We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before, probably the worst in our nation’s history.” The Republican also suggested that Harris had no plans to improve America’s welfare, adding that he would impose trade tariffs on countries such as China.
Dog-eating immigrants
Trump reiterated his long-time criticism of the Biden administration’s policies on immigration, claiming that immigrants are “taking over the towns… they’re going in violently.” The Republican also repeated internet rumors suggesting that some Haitian migrants are abusing and killing animals.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs; 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,” he said.
Numerous US media have reported, citing local officials, that there has been no evidence of pets being harmed by immigrants.
Faced with criticism over the Biden administration’s immigration policies, Harris remarked that she had supported a bill that would have enhanced border security. However, she alleged that it was blocked by Trump-friendly congressmen who sought to fuel the Republican’s campaign.
‘Millions’ of dead in Ukraine conflict
Reiterating his pledge to end hostilities between Moscow and Kiev even before being sworn into office, Trump dodged the question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win. According to the former president, he just wants “the war to stop” because “people are being killed by the millions.”
He claimed that he could have prevented the conflict altogether because he had good relations with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. Biden, however, failed to do so because he was not respected, Trump asserted.
“When I saw Putin building up soldiers on Ukraine’s border, I said: ‘Oh, he must be negotiating; it must be a strong point of negotiation.’ Well, it wasn’t. Because Biden had no idea how to talk to him… And it is only getting worse, and it could lead to World War III.”
Harris pushed back, accusing Trump of a penchant for caving in to “dictators,” claiming that if “Donald Trump were president, Putin would have been sitting in Kiev right now.” According to the vice president, the approach of the Biden administration, which spearheaded weapons deliveries to Ukraine, allowed the embattled country to remain independent.
Clash over abortion
The debate highlighted the two candidates’ stark differences on abortion, with Harris vowing to do her best to reinstate women’s rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, which was overturned by the US Supreme Court in June 2022.
“Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” the vice president said.
The former president, however, emphasized that the legal status of abortions should be an issue decided on the state level. “It’s bringing it back to the vote of the people, which is what everybody wanted, including the founders,” Trump said. “Everybody wanted it brought back.”
Immediate reactions
In the aftermath of the face-off, Trump said he had just had his “best debate” to date, suggesting though that the ABC moderators were “very unfair” to him.
Meanwhile, former US President Barack Obama argued that Harris had shown in the debate that she would be “a president for all Americans.” The vice president herself, however, was more cautious, telling her supporters that “we’re still the underdogs in this race.”
According to a CNN flash poll, 63% of US voters said they believed Harris had delivered a better performance than Trump at the debate, while 37% disagreed.