The first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was held on September 10th in Pennsylvania. In this debate, the mics were off when candidates were not speaking. Donald Trump won the coin toss and decided he wanted to finish the debate, so Vice President Kamala Harris started.
The first question was what the candidates’ plans to help fix the economy would be if they were elected. Harris talked about how she grew up in the middle class and wants to help the American people. She said that she plans on giving families a $6,000 tax credit for the first year of a child’s life to help families get what they need for their child. She also promised a $50,000 tax deduction for startup businesses in order to help get them off the ground. Trump claims that under his presidency he had one of the greatest economies in American History and that he dealt with the pandemic very well. When asked about his actual plans for the economy, if he is elected for a second term, he promised to increase tariffs on foreign goods to up to 20% in order to encourage American-made products. These incredibly high tariffs could cause increased prices on those goods when the people making them increase prices to make up for the tariffs. When asked about the price increases that these tariffs may cause, Trump denied that tariffs would increase prices for the consumer.
The next topic was abortion. Trump went first when answering this question. He claimed that he did not support a nationwide abortion ban and simply wanted to allow each state to make its own decision. He said that a former governor of West Virginia supported post-birth abortions. This was called out as a lie by the debate moderators and Harris in the debate. What that governor was actually talking about is called failure to thrive. If a baby is born and will not survive and keeping them alive would only hurt them, the doctors will essentially euthanize the baby as a mercy killing. His running mate J.D. Vance has been quoted multiple times saying that he would support a nationwide abortion ban and Trump said that he “doesn’t really talk to J.D.” and that he did not outright say whether he agreed or not. When asked the same question Harris said that she plans to put abortion protections back into place and leave it up to the individual instead of the state.
After abortion, the candidates were asked about Healthcare. Trump answered first, saying that he wants to replace Obama care with something “better and cheaper” but when asked if he had an actual plan on how to do this, he said no, instead he has a “concept of a plan”. Harris said that she planned to strengthen the existing Care Act to help more people.
Immigration was a highly awaited topic, especially by Trump. Harris went first, she talked about a bill that she had supported when she was a Senator that would have put more agents that could have stopped fentanyl from coming through at the border. She also said that Trump shot down this bill. At the end of her segment, she did something incredibly strange and invited viewers to attend Trump’s rallies saying that they were sparsely populated, and that people leave halfway through. This was a masterstroke on Harris’s part because during his turn to speak Trump wasted a lot of time defending his rallies. Then he switched to saying that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets in Ohio (once again, never proven and called out as a lie by the moderators). Trump said that he plans to deport at least 11 million illegal immigrants, but did not say how. He also insisted that the F.B.I. saying that crime was at an all-time low was a lie, and that it was actually rigged.
The 2020 election of course came up, and Trump claimed that he won and that all 80 judges who denied that he had won were biased liars. He also outright denies his statement that he had “lost the election by a hair”, despite being quoted as saying such.
The Israel/Palestine conflict was another given in this debate. This is a very delicate topic as Israel is an ally of the United States. Harris said that we need a ceasefire and to get all of the hostages on both sides out. She said that we need a 2 state solution where Palestine gets the respect and rights that it deserves and that Israel should have the right to defend itself. Trump claimed that the war would have never started if he was president. He claimed that if Harris is elected all of the Jews and Arabs would die. Neither candidate said how they would end this war.
After Israel and Palestine were discussed, naturally Ukraine and Russia came next. Trump, similarly to his response to Israel and Palestine, says that he could have prevented this war and promised to stop it as soon as he was president-elect (not even in office). He says that when Harris negotiated with Putin and Zelenskyy, leaders of Russia and Ukraine respectively she started the war with her poor negotiating skills. Harris said that she has never even met with Putin. Harris said that she wholeheartedly supported Ukraine and has met with Zelenskyy multiple times.
The Biden administration’s disastrous pulling out of Afghanistan was discussed at length. When asked if she agreed with how it was done, Harris said that she agreed that it was inevitable, and needed to be done as it was costing an exorbitant amount in American taxpayer dollars. She did not comment on whether she felt responsible in any way for how it played out and the lives lost but did discuss Trump’s negotiation with the Taliban that led to 5000 Taliban members being released. Trump said that he only negotiated with the Taliban to prevent them from killing more people and that he brought the war to an 18-month standstill with his negotiations saying quote “I told Abdul don’t do it anymore, you do it anymore you’re going to have problems. And he said why do you send me a picture of my house? I said you’re going to have to figure that out, Abdul.”
When asked about her climate policies and her previous statements against fracking Harris said that she supports and plans to continue what the Biden administration has done. In her last campaign she said that she wanted to ban fracking (fracking is a method of attaining oil that fractures the bedrock in the ground, often destroying the environment where it’s done), she has now retracted that statement and said that she wants to diversify our energy investments instead of focusing solely on fracking and foreign oil. Trump did not discuss his plan for climate change once during his allotted time, instead focusing on the alleged lost manufacturing jobs under the Biden administration.
Trump was, of course, asked about his recent statements where he said that Kamala was “suddenly black”, implying that she was choosing to be black when it was convenient for her. He denied ever saying that, despite him being recorded saying it multiple times. Harris responded that she thought it was “sad that he is trying to use race to divide our country further” and that America deserves better.
For their closing statements, Harris went first. Her statement said that Trump wants to drag America back into the past and that she wants to lead us into the future. She talked about how she understands the average American and that she wants to help people by creating what she calls an “opportunity economy”, and protecting individual rights such as abortions. She also said that she is a prosecutor who fights for the people. In his closing statement, Trump asked why, if Kamala promises so much, she has not actually done those things. He said that we are a failing nation, that is the laughing stock of the world under Biden and Harris. He stated that he had “built the greatest military”, however Trump did not recap what his policies would be if he were to win.