WASHINGTON – US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris did something rarely seen Tuesday night when she faced off against her Republican challenger, repeatedly putting former President Donald Trump on the defensive during their closely-watched presidential debate.
Throughout the contentious one hour and forty-five-minute showdown, Harris attempted to cast herself as Trump's diametric opposite: cool, calm and collected under pressure, fending off repeated attacks from the ex-president and launching salvos of her own as the duo addressed America's hot-button issues, including immigration, abortion and the economy.
Harris repeatedly sought to get under Trump's skin and bait him, saying world and military leaders view him as a "disgrace" and seeking to cast doubt about his oft-touted business acumen in a sharp attack meant to play on the former president's pride.
"World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump," she said in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
"I grew up a middle-class kid raised by a hard-working mother who worked and saved and was able to buy our first home when I was a teenager. The values I bring to the importance of homeownership, knowing not everybody got handed USD400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times," Harris added, in reference to Trump.
The former president quickly denied being given USD400 million, saying he was "given a fraction of that" and went on to build it "into many, many billions of dollars."
He much earlier in the debate castigated Harris and her father as "Marxists," saying the vice president and President Joe Biden "hate our country."
"We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before, probably the worst in our nation's history," Trump said.
"This has been a disaster for people, for the middle class, but for every class. On top of that, we have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums, and they're coming in, and they're taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions," he said.
Harris dismissed the allegations as "the same old, tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances and name calling."
"I believe very strongly that the American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together, knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. And I pledge to you to be a president for all Americans," she said.
Trump walked back earlier comments in which he acknowledged his 2020 electoral defeat, saying he made the remarks sarcastically, a claim challenged by moderator David Muir.
"You know that we said, Oh, we lost by a whisker. That was said sarcastically. Look, there's so much proof. All you have to do is look at it, and they should have sent it back to the legislatures for approval," he said.
Harris quickly pounced, calling her challenger delusional and maintaining the "American people deserve better."
"Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let's be clear about that, and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that, but we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election," she said.
"When you then talk in this way in a presidential debate and deny what over and over again are court cases you have lost, because you did, in fact, lose that election, it leads one to believe that perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament or the ability to not be confused about fact. That's deeply troubling, and the American people deserve better," Harris said.
Apparently feeling confident after the debate wrapped up, the Harris campaign issued a challenge to Trump for a second face-to-face.
"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," chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
"Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?"
Trump on national abortion ban
Trump repeatedly took credit for the rollback of federal abortion rights, saying that the justices he nominated to the Supreme Court were instrumental in the overthrow of Roe V. Wade, the legal case that enshrined protections nationwide for 50 years.
"We were able to get it, and now states are voting on it, and for the first time, you're going to see, look, this is an issue that's torn our country apart for 52 years," he said.
But when he was twice pressed on whether he would veto a national ban on the medical procedure, Trump said.
"I won't have to," he said, pointing to the close divides in the US Congress that would make passing such legislation a difficult task.
Harris again seized the moment to launch a broadside against Trump, saying that women in states that have curtailed access to abortion are living under "Donald Trump's abortion bans" and that couples are facing unnecessary legal hurdles to having a child via in vitro fertilization, more commonly referred to as IVF.
"What is happening in our country? Working people, working women, who are working one or two jobs, who can barely afford childcare as it is, have to travel to another state to get on a plane, sitting next to strangers, to go and get the health care she needs," Harris said.
"What you are putting her through is unconscionable, and the majority of Americans believe in a woman's right to make decisions about her own body, and that is why in every state where this issue has been on the ballot, in red and blue states both, the people of America have voted for freedom," she said.
Putin 'would eat you for lunch’; ‘Harris hates Israel’
In a relatively short portion of the debate devoted to foreign policy, the candidates turned to Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip, with Trump alleging that Harris "hates Israel" and saying that if she were elected president, Israel would cease to exist within two years.
"She hates Israel. If she's president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, and I've been pretty good at predictions, and I hope I'm wrong about that one. She hates Israel. At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population," Trump said.
Harris denied holding any contempt for Israel, saying the allegation is "absolutely not true."
"I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people. He knows that he's trying to again divide and distract from the reality, which is, it is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy. It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one, according to himself," she said.
Harris said if Trump were still in office, Russian President Vladimir Putin "would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland."
"And why don't you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch," she said.
Trump was twice pressed by moderators on whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, failing to definitively answer both times.
"I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being useless, people being killed by the millions. It's the millions. It's so much worse than the numbers that you're getting, which are fake numbers," he said.
Trump repeats unproven claims of migrants eating cats and dogs
In one of the debate's more surreal moments, Trump reiterated debunked claims running rampant in Republican circles that Haitian migrants are hunting and eating pets in a small Ohio town.
"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.
"She's destroying this country, and if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success, not only success will end up being Venezuela on steroids," he said.
Trump was fact-checked in real-time by Muir but insisted that "people on television" are making the claims.
"Talk about extreme," Harris said. "This is, I think, one of the reasons why in this election, I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans." (Anadolu)
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