PHILADELPHIA, PA – Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris faced off in a heated debate Tuesday night, sparring about abortion, immigration, Israel, the economy and a range of other issues—but Trump also battled the ABC News moderators, who were quick to challenge and “fact check” the 45th president, while leaving Harris’ numerous distortions untouched.
Trump and Harris engaged in their first, and possibly only debate of the 2024 general election cycle at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pa. Tuesday night—a highly-anticipated ninety-minute showdown as they traded jabs, and repeatedly, accused each other of lying.
The two met for the first time Tuesday night on the debate stage, with the vice president introducing herself as “Kamala Harris” to the former president as they shook hands–before making it a top priority to attempt to get under his skin and bait him throughout the debate.
The debate got underway with questions from ABC News’ David Muir and Linsey Davis, who challenged Trump throughout the debate.
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Shortly after it concluded, Trump told Fox News Digital that he thought it was his “best debate ever, especially because it was three on one.”
Moderators began with the economy—first questioning the vice president on whether Americans “are better off than they were four years ago?”
Harris did not directly respond to the question. The Biden-Harris administration has seen rising inflation.
Instead, Harris incorrectly claimed Trump wanted to introduce a “sales tax” on everyday goods, but Trump dismissed that claim as an “incorrect statement.”
Moderators chimed in, suggesting Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on other countries would pass on higher costs to consumers.
But Trump countered, pointing to the high inflation of the Biden-Harris administration, calling it the “worst in our nation’s history,” while touting the record-economy under his administration.
Trump went on to hit Harris on her lack of clear policies, saying her past record and “everything that she believed three years ago and four years ago is out the window.”
“She’s going to my philosophy now,” he said. “In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”
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Trump accused Harris of being a “Marxist,” and said if she is elected, her policies will “change” and “it will be the end of our country.”
Trump accused Harris of not having a plan for the economy—specifically to combat rising inflation.
“She copied Biden’s plan. And it’s like four sentences like ‘Run, Spot, Run’ for sentences that are just, oh, we’ll try and lower taxes,” Trump said. “She doesn’t have a plan.”
Harris fired back, saying Trump “has no plan for you,” and instead offered Americans an “opportunity economy.”
Trump pivoted to the issue of border security and illegal migration into the United States, saying policies of the Biden-Harris administration have been a “disaster” for the country with record-high illegal migration.
Trump suggested those policies have “destroyed our country,” and said they have policy “that you say ‘they have to hate our country.’”
Trump also blasted Harris for her role in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. He blamed Harris and President Biden for the “13 people who were just viciously and violently killed.” Trump said he “got to know the parents and the family.”
Trump said the withdrawal, under Biden and Harris’ watch, “was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen.”
Harris later jumped to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, claiming that Trump “intends on implementing” what she referred to as the “detailed and dangerous plan.”
Trump has repeatedly denied being involved in that plan, and maintained Tuesday that he has “nothing to do with Project 2025.”
Trump, though, shifted back to illegal immigration, fueling viral claims that migrants are eating pets in a town in Ohio.
“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,” Trump said, and was met with pushback from moderators, who seemingly attempted to give the former president a live fact-check throughout the debate.
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But Trump stood by his remarks when challenged by the moderators, saying “people on television say ‘my dog was taken and used for food.’”
Meanwhile, as for abortion, Harris claimed Trump would install a national abortion ban that would allow for no exceptions—despite Trump saying moments before that he believes in exceptions for abortion including rape, incest, and life of the mother.
Trump has repeatedly said he would not sign a national abortion ban and praised the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, bringing the issue back to the states.
Trump added in his rebuttal that he does not support a national abortion ban and that Harris’ comments were an “absolute lie.”
“As far as the abortion ban, no, I’m not in favor of an abortion ban, but it doesn’t matter, because this issue has now been taken over by the states,” Trump said.
Despite saying he would not support a national abortion ban, ABC moderators pressed Trump on whether he would veto a bill to do so.
And Harris, when questioned, refused to say if she supports any abortion restrictions up to birth.
Harris later claimed there would be a national abortion ban if Trump is elected, and falsely said there would be a “monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.”
Harris baited Trump throughout the debate Tuesday night–from claiming people left his massive rallies before they ended; to calling out his legal challenges; mentioning the late-Sen. John McCain; Jan. 6; and more.
As for Jan. 6, Harris accused Trump of inciting “a violent mob.”
Trump, though, stressed that he urged protesters to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically,” and accused then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser of ignoring his offer for 10,000 National Guard soldiers. Trump said Pelosi “was responsible” for Jan. 6.
Following the debate, Harris surrogate California Gov. Gavin Newsom, speaking with Fox News Digital, argued that this night was a bad night. He [Trump] knows it. He was so easily manipulated because is easy to manipulate. He had one of the weakest performance I’ve seen of any presidential candidate in my lifetime.”
Trump surrogate Sen. Tom Cotton emphasized that “I believe that a lot of voters are going to be reminded tonight that things were good under Donald Trump and they haven’t been good under Kamala Harris, and that they want to go back to the good times we had when President Trump was in office and they want to turn the page on and frankly forget the four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ administration.”
Cotton also claimed that the moderators were biased in favor of Harris.
“The moderators were asking skewed and slanted questions and in particular they were engaging in their so-called fact checking, but where was the fact checking of Kamala Harris and all the lies she told,” he charged.
Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump instantly fueled questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House – and spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the 81-year-old president to end his bid for a second term. Facing increased pressure from fellow Democrats, Biden, in a blockbuster announcement on July 21, ended his re-election campaign and endorsed his vice president.
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The Democratic Party quickly coalesced around Harris, who enjoyed a wave of momentum -including a rise in the polls and skyrocketing fundraising – from late July through August. But Republicans argue that Americans’ honeymoon with Harris is waning.
Harris spent five straight days from Thursday through Monday hunkered down in a downtown Pittsburgh hotel, taking part in an intensive “debate camp,” which included numerous mock debate sessions. She arrived in Philadelphia on the eve of the debate.
Trump spent much of last weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, taking part in less formal ‘policy sessions’ with aides and allies. But Trump also traveled to swing state Wisconsin on Saturday to headline a campaign rally.
Trump huddled with advisers at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, before flying to Philadelphia just a couple of hours before the start of the debate.
“Trump is prepared for every style because that’s what he’s been doing on the campaign trail; has been doing unscripted pressers, pull-asides, interviews,” Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller told reporters on the eve of the debate.
The former president and his allies for weeks have repeatedly criticized Harris for sitting for only one major interview, and holding no news conferences, since taking over for Biden as the Democrats’ standard-bearer. And on the eve of the debate, the Trump campaign announced that the former president will hold another news conference Friday in Los Angeles.
With the debate now over, Harris will get right back on the campaign trail, with stops in some of the crucial battlegrounds, starting with two rallies Thursday in North Carolina.
“It is certainly an important moment in the campaign, but it is one moment,” longtime Democratic strategist and presidential campaign veteran Maria Cardona told Fox News Digital ahead of the debate. “It was a margin of error race going into the debate, and it will be that afterward.”
Trump also quickly gets back on the trail, with a stop Thursday in swing state Arizona.
