It started with a handshake.
While former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden didn’t shake hands during their first and only face-off in June, Vice President Kamala Harris walked onto the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, crossed in front of the podiums and extended her hand to the Republican nominee.
“Kamala Harris,” she said, underscoring that the two had never met in person. “Let’s have a good debate.”
“Nice to see you,” Trump replied. “Have fun.”
From there, the candidates spent the better part of Tuesday’s primetime debate hammering one another on a range of issues — from abortion and immigration to foreign policy and the economy — with Harris attempting to bait Trump on topics like his criminal convictions, the size of the crowds at his rallies and the former officials in his administration who oppose his second White House term.
And it appeared at times the Republican ex-president took that bait, lashing out at Harris by calling her a “Marxist” and at one point even referencing a false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating peoples’ pets in Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs! The people that came in, they’re eating the cats!” Trump said.
Personal attacks and needling aside, the face-to-face debate gave both candidates an opportunity to present their starkly different visions for the future of America.
For Harris, it was a vow that “we’re not going back” — particularly on issues like abortion rights — and the statement that November’s election gives Americans the opportunity to “chart a new way forward.”
Trump, however, made the case that Harris had “three-and-a-half years” to do just that before making his oft-repeated charge that the United States is a “failing nation” and “in serious decline,” and the country is headed towards a third world war under the leadership of Biden and Harris, who he blames for wars in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine.
“What these people have done to our country … the worst president, the worst vice president in the history of our country,” he asserted.
Here are takeaways from the first debate between Trump and Harris.
Both Harris and Trump stuck to familiar themes during a back-and-forth on reproductive health and abortion – a topic Harris has sought to put a spotlight on in her campaign against the former president.
Trump quickly accused Democrats of supporting late-term abortions, saying they “execute the baby” and calling the party “radical on the issue.”
Harris asserted that “nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion.”
“That is not happening,” she added. “It’s insulting to the women of America.”
According to CDC data, in 2021, less than 1% of abortions were at 21 weeks or later; more than 96% were before 16 weeks.
Trump – who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who sided in the majority overturning Roe – repeated his often-cited argument that the issue belongs in the states and that he did a “great service” in playing a role in returning it there.
“For 52 years, they’ve been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states and through the genius and heart and strength of six Supreme Court justices, we were able to do that,” he said.
The former president also said that the overturning of Roe was what “everybody wanted." Polls show a majority of Americans disapprove of the decision from the high court.
The exchange ended with Trump asking Harris why she won’t answer his questions about whether she would allow abortions in the seventh, eighth or ninth month of pregnancy, and Harris asking Trump why he won’t answer whether he would veto a national abortion ban.
Tuesday's debate began with a lengthy back-and-forth about each candidate's plans for the economy.
Harris said she would prioritize “lifting up the middle class and working people of America.” She promised to address the housing shortage to lower rents and mortgages, resurrect a $6,000 child tax credit and give a $50,000 tax deduction to new small businesses, which she called “the backbone of America’s economy.”
The vice president said Trump, however, would seek tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. She said his plan to implement at least a 10% tariff on all imports and at least 60% on Chinese goods would worsen inflation, citing analyses by economists and organizations who have argued American consumers would pay for the tariffs in the form of higher prices.
“Donald Trump actually has no plan for you because he is more interested in defending himself than he is in looking out for you,” Harris said.
Trump insisted other counties, not Americans, would pay for the tariffs. He argued that he implemented tariffs on China as president and that they did not result in elevated inflation.
He blamed the policies of the Biden-Harris administration for fueling inflation and quickly turned the conversation to immigration, arguing undocumented migrants are taking jobs “that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions.”
“She doesn't have a plan,” he said. “She copied Biden's plan, and it's like four sentences, like, ‘run, Spot, run.” Four sentences that are just, ‘Oh, we'll try and lower taxes.’ She doesn't have a plan.”
Despite being pressed by moderator David Muir multiple times, former President Donald Trump refused to say he had any regrets about his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters attempting to keep him in power after his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Trump also walked back his statement on a podcast last week that he “lost by a whisker,” returning to his long-held stance that the election was stolen from him, a false claim rejected by judges and election officials across the country, including many Republicans. Trump said he was being sarcastic when saying he lost.
“I had nothing to do with that other than they asked me to make a speech. I showed up for a speech,” Trump said, before insisting he instructed the crowd to march on the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” and said “nobody on the other side was killed,” but that one of his supporters, Ashli Babbitt, was “shot by an out of control police officer that should have never, ever shot her.” Babbitt was shot and killed by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she attempted to climb through a barricaded door into the Speaker’s Lobby.
The former president also came to the defense of the hundreds of his supporters imprisoned for crimes committed that day, saying they’ve “been treated so badly.” Around 900 people have pleaded guilty to crimes connected to that day, including 146 who pleaded guilty to felony federal charges of assaulting law enforcement officers, according to the Justice Department. More than 180 people have been found guilty at trial, including key members and leaders of a pro-Trump militia and street gang, some of whom have received decades in prison.
Harris responded by recounting being at the Capitol that day as a violent mob attacked, noting around 140 law enforcement officers were assaulted and some died in the aftermath.
She went on to say Trump’s defense of himself and others for their actions in the lead up to and during the attack on the Capitol “is not an isolated situation,” pointing to his description of white supremacists at the deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Va., rally as “fine people” and his overtures to the far-right Proud Boys street gang.
“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,” Harris said. “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.”
Former President Donald Trump said he would only change the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, if his team comes up with something “better and less expensive,” adding he is “looking at different plans” but declining to say what they were.
“I have concepts of a plan, I’m not president right now,” Trump said when pressed on whether or not he had a concrete alternative to the sweeping health care overhaul signed into law by former President Barack Obama in 2010.
Trump noted he “inherited” Obamacare when he took office and decided to make it “as good as it can be” rather than “let it rot."
For her part, Harris touted her and President Joe Biden’s efforts to strengthen the Affordable Care Act over their nearly four years in the White House as well as their work in enabling Medicare to to negotiate drug prices, capping insulin costs at $35 a month and out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 per year for Medicare patients. She vowed to expand those policies to all people if elected.
“Health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it and the plan has to be to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not get rid of it,” she said.
On the issue of immigration, one where polling gives Trump the edge over Harris, the vice president blamed the Republican former president for his role in killing a bipartisan border security deal one day before the U.S. Senate was to bring it to the floor for debate.
The bill, negotiated by a conservative Republican lawmaker, an independent senator from a border state and a Democrat, enjoyed bipartisan support, but Trump pushed GOP leaders to kill the bill.
"That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings," Harris said. "But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said 'kill the bill.' And you know why? Because he’d prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem."
Moderator David Muir followed up, asking Trump why he sought to kill the immigration bill. Trump appeared to take the rally bait — before echoing baseless accusations about Haitian immigrants echoing in far-right spheres of social media.
"What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country, and look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States ... in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs! The people that came in, 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 immediately checked Trump, noting that ABC spoke to the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, and was told that there were "no credible reports of specific claims" that immigrants had been harming, injuring or abusing pets.
After another detour, Trump was asked about his deportation proposal, in which he pledged to use the national guard, the US military and local law enforcement to deport 11 million undocumented migrants en masse.
Trump said that the number of undocumented migrants is "much higher because of them...do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down? You know why? Because they’ve taken their criminals off the street and given them to her to put into our country, and this will be one of the greatest mistakes in history for them to allow," adding that crime in the U.S. is "up and through the roof."
Muir then noted that the FBI statistics show that violent crime is falling in the U.S.
The FBI, Trump insisted "were defrauding statements...it was a fraud."
After Harris claimed at the debate that “world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump,” the former president offered up an example to the contrary: Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“They said, ‘Why is the whole world blowing up?’ three years ago,” Trump said. “ … He [Orban] said, ‘Because you need Trump back as president. They were afraid of him. China was afraid. … North Korea was afraid of him.’ … By the way, he said, ‘Russia was afraid of him.’
Trump praised Orban as “one of the most respected men,” “a tough person” and “smart.”
“And you know what? I'll give you a little secret: He hates her [Harris],” the former president said.
Trump’s comments came after Harris suggested that Trump continuing to dispute the 2020 presidential election hurts his standing on the world stage.
“I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say you're a disgrace," she said. "The American people deserve better."
Responding to a pointed question about how she would handle Israel’s war in Gaza, Harris replied plainly: “This war must end. It must end immediately."
“The way it will end is we need a cease-fire deal and we need the hostages out, so we will continue to work around the clock on that… understanding we must chart a course for a two-state solution.”
In response, Trump said the conflict would never have started if he was president. He also claimed that Harris "hates Israel" and accused her of skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress to attend a "sorority party." (Harris addressed a gathering of historically Black sorority Zeta Phi Beta. She held a separate meeting with Netanyahu in Washington the next day.)
“If she's president, I believe Israel will not exist two years from now,” Trump charged.
Similarly, regarding Russia's war with Ukraine, Trump said, “I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being killed by the millions.”
The former president said he knows Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskky and Russian President Vladimir Putin “very well. They respect me.”
Trump promised to settle the war before he becomes president if reelected.
“If I win, I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other. I’ll get them together. That war would have never happened. “
The war is “only getting worse and it could lead to World War III,” he said. “It’s in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and get it done. Negotiate a deal because we have to stop all these human lives from being destroyed.”
And when it comes to Afghanistan, the candidates pointed fingers at each other over the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago, which resulted in a terror attack that left 13 American service members dead.
Harris said she agreed with Biden’s decision to pull U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. But she blamed Trump for negotiating a deal with the Taliban on the United States’ withdrawal that handcuffed Biden.
“Donald Trump, when he was president, negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine,” the vice president said. “ … He bypassed the Afghan government. He negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban."
Trump said he made the deal because the Taliban were “killing our soldiers” and that it resulted in 18 months of no U.S. deaths.
“We did have an agreement, negotiated by [then Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo. Was a very good agreement,” Trump said. “The reason it was good was we were getting out. We would have been out faster than them, but we wouldn't have lost the soldiers. We wouldn't have left many Americans behind, we wouldn't have left $85 billion worth of brand new beautiful military equipment behind.” (The $85 billion figure is somewhat exaggerated.)