Harris sets the tone, puts Trump on the defensive during debate

People react during a presidential debate on Tuesday.

By James RaineyStaff Writer

Sept. 11, 2024 Updated 11:32 AM PT

Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly put former President Trump on the defensive during their debate Tuesday, depicting the Republican nominee for president as a divisive and distracted leader who would take the country backward.

Harris, who set the tone for much of the discussion, depicted herself as the leader of a “new generation,” optimistic about the future, while Trump described a country in decline, threatened by crime, illegal immigration and inflation at home and unraveling events overseas.

Though Harris is a leader in a sitting administration and Trump out of office for nearly four years, it was the former president who was more often forced to defend his record. Harris sometimes skirted the questions asked by moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News, sticking to her themes, such as her plan to build an “opportunity economy.”

Harris’ team seemed effusive after the debate, while at least some of Trump’s backers acknowledged he had not had a strong night. Trump quickly took to his Truth Social platform to contend that he had been treated unfairly. “I thought that was my best Debate, EVER,” he wrote, “especially since it was THREE ON ONE!”

Squinting and grimacing at times as Harris castigated him, Trump appeared intent on answering even the slightest provocations. He got sidetracked on issues such as the size of crowds at his rallies and a bizarre — and debunked — claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are killing and eating household pets.

“Tonight you heard two very different visions for the future of our country, one that is focused on the future and the other that is focused on the past and an attempt to take us backward,” Harris said in her closing remarks. “But we’re not going back. ... We can chart a new way forward, and a vision of that includes having a plan, understanding the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes, the ambition of the American people.”

Trump said Harris, as vice president, had her chance in the White House and had shown she wasn’t up to leading the country.

“She just started by saying she’s going to do this, she’s going to do that. She’s going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it?” the former president said at the end of the 90-minute debate. “She’s been there for 3½ years. They’ve had 3½ years to fix the border. They’ve had 3½ years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it?”

The high stakes of the nationally televised confrontation could not have been overstated, given what came before and what might not come after: On June 27, President Biden’s stumbling debate performance drove him from the race. And, looking forward, there is no other presidential debate yet on the schedule.

Polls both nationally and in the six or seven swing states likely to determine the outcome of the election show the race close to deadlocked. Harris got an apparent boost when pop megastar Taylor Swift announced Tuesday night that she plans to vote for Harris, calling the Democrat a “steady-handed, gifted leader.”

In an Instagram post minutes after the debate ended, Swift said she was voting for Harris because “she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”

Harris took the initiative early in the debate, forcing Trump to defend his economic policies and tariffs, a surprise given that polls have shown that voters tend to prefer the Republican’s handling of the economy.

The vice president mostly ignored a question from Muir about whether Americans were better off financially than they were four years ago. Instead, she focused on what she would do going forward and not on the record of the Biden administration.

Harris said she would propose a $6,000 child tax credit, a $50,000 tax deduction for small businesses and $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first-time home buyers.

She contrasted this with Trump’s proposals, including a tax cut that she said would benefit billionaires at the expense of ordinary Americans. She said that Trump’s plans would add $5 trillion to the national deficit and that his tariffs on foreign goods coming into the U.S. would raise prices on products so that middle-class families would pay a “tax” of $4,000 more a year.

Harris said she was framing her policies as someone who “was raised as a middle-class kid,” adding: “I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America.”

Trump responded that Harris and Biden had “been a disaster for people, for the middle class, but for every class,” with prices of some items having increased by as much as 80%. He also rejected Harris’ remarks about the tariffs, claiming that the burden of those levies had been borne by foreign countries, particularly China.

The former president quickly shifted the discussion to another of his favorite topics: immigration. He reiterated an unfounded charge he has repeated many times: that other nations have emptied jails and mental institutions and sent the inmates to the U.S.

Referring to Haitian immigrants who have come to Springfield, Ohio, and other migrants in Aurora, Colo., Trump charged that “they are taking over the towns; they’re taking over buildings; they’re going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden led into our country, and they’re destroying our country.”

VIDEO | 00:32

Trump falsely states immigrants are eating pets

The debate began awkwardly when Harris crossed the stage and introduced herself to Trump, extending her hand; he appeared intent to remain behind his lectern, before finally shaking. “Have fun,” Trump told the vice president.

On many topics, and particularly when the discussion turned to abortion, the vice president turned and spoke directly to Trump, sometimes gesturing forcefully with her index finger. Trump remained largely stone-faced, though he raised his eyebrows in surprise when she brought up a point of pride for the former president: his rallies.

She contended that many of his followers ended up leaving his rallies out of “exhaustion and boredom.” He counterpunched by claiming that “people don’t go to her rallies” adding: “There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there.”

The subject of abortion produced another fierce exchange. The Republican falsely contended that Democrats support killing babies after birth, and Harris said Trump can’t be trusted because of the dizzying array of statements he has offered on the matter.

“It’s an execution,” Trump said, claiming that Harris, running mate Tim Walz and their party support allowing babies to be killed in the final months of pregnancy or after they are born.

VIDEO | 00:54

Trump falsely claims Harris’ VP pick “is OK with” babies being killed after birth

Harris, looking skeptically at Trump, responded, “Well, as I said, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies.”

Killing newborns is not legal in any state. Late-term pregnancies — after 21 weeks — account for fewer than 1% of abortions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They largely occur because the baby’s health is severely compromised and not viable.

Trump repeated his claim that his choices for the U.S. Supreme Court had helped push the issue of abortion back to the states, an outcome he insisted is popular with Americans. Polls have repeatedly shown, however, that voters did not support the overturning of the Roe vs. Wade decision that made abortions in the first two trimesters legal in every state.

Trump repeated claims that crime is “through the roof,” and that much of it is being caused by immigrants.

Asked about his proposal for “the largest deportation operation” in the nation’s history, to remove millions of undocumented immigrants, Trump said the number of people in the U.S. illegally is greater than 11 million because Harris and the Biden administration “allowed criminals, many, many millions of criminals, they allowed terrorists, they allowed common street criminals, they allowed people to come in, drug dealers, to come into our country.”

Data suggest both claims are incorrect and, as with several other responses during the debate, Muir corrected the former president. The ABC anchor noted that statistics actually show violent crime has declined.

When Muir pointed out that FBI says crime is down, Trump called that a “fraud.”

His repeated attack on immigrants reached a peak when he discussed Haitian refugees who have legally taken up residence in Ohio.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in,” Trump said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, 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.”

Muir again quietly offered a corrective, saying that ABC had reached out to the city manager in Springfield, who told the outlet that there had been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

Undeterred, Trump said he had heard about it on TV. Harris’ response: “Talk about extreme!”

Times staff writers Seema Mehta, Kevin Rector, Laura J. Nelson, Hailey Branson-Potts, Faith Pinho, Daniel Miller and Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.

On a night of fierce exchanges, Harris sets the tone

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