Kamala Harris and Donald Trump faced off for the first time in Philadelphia on the ABC News debate before millions of viewers, but without an audience, without notes.
The debate began with the two candidates exchanging handshakes, but it continued with several characterizations, with Kamala Harris often grimacing and laughing at her opponent’s remarks.
See the debate here:
Economy
The first question concerns the economy. Kamala Harris said the Biden administration needed to “clean up the mess left behind by Donald Trump” after his four years in the White House.
He accused Trump of leaving the US with “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression,” “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” and “the worst public health epidemic in a century.”
“What we have done, and what I intend to do, is to build on what we know are the expectations and hopes of the American people,” he said.
For his part, Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris of “copying Biden’s plan” for the economy.
“He has no plan. He copied Biden’s plan, and it’s about four sentences… four sentences that are just, “Oh, we’re going to try to cut taxes.” He has no plan,” said the Republican candidate.
In fact, he called her a “Marxist”, as he tried to connect the vice president with her professor father, a retired economist from Stanford University.
“If he’s ever elected, he’ll change that. And that will be the end of our country. She is a Marxist, everyone knows she is a Marxist. Her father is a Marxist economics professor and he taught her well,” Trump said during the presidential debate.
On abortion and reproductive rights
A second issue of debate on which the two candidates were pitted against each other is abortion and reproductive rights.
Vice President Kamala Harris criticized what she called “Trump’s abortion bans.”
“One doesn’t have to give up one’s faith or one’s deeply held beliefs to agree with the government, and Donald Trump certainly shouldn’t be telling a woman what to do with her body,” she said, accusing Donald Trump of ” lies something that does not impress anyone”.
He also said Trump’s abortion policy “insults American women.”
For his part, former President Donald Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban.
Trump, reacting to Kamala Harris’ claim, said he would not promote a national abortion ban.
“Here again, it’s a lie. I won’t sign a ban and there’s no reason to sign a ban because we got what everybody wanted” — referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court.
On immigration policy
The third issue in which Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are at odds is immigration policy.
Trump repeated disparaging and slanderous claims about immigrants harming animals during the debate, supporting a fake news story that they “eat cats,” that new arrivals from Haiti in the US state of Ohio are “eating cats” of residents.
“In Springfield, they eat the dogs – the people who came – they eat the cats, they eat the pets of the people who live there. And that’s what’s happening in our country,” Trump said, refuting the Springfield city councilman, who said such accusations have no basis.
The US vice president called the Republican candidate’s comment “extreme”.
Its moderators, Lynsey Davies and David Muir, check the words of the two candidates, intervening whenever necessary.
Trump blames Democrats for assassination attempt on him
Former President Donald Trump has blamed Democrats for an assassination attempt on him, saying he “probably took a bullet in the head” because of the rhetoric leveled against him by Vice President Kamala Harris and others. Trump hit back at Harris’ claim that the former president would use the Justice Department as a weapon against his political enemies if re-elected.
“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they say about me. They talk about democracy – ‘I am a threat to democracy’. They are the threat to democracy,” he said.
Also, Donald Trump did not acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 election, claiming that he was being sarcastic when he recently acknowledged that he did indeed lose the 2020 election.
“Did I say that?” Trump said when presented with his comment from a recent interview with Lex Friedman that he lost “by force.”
“That was said sarcastically,” he says. “I don’t recognize that at all,” he emphasized.
“There is so much evidence, all you have to do is take a look,” he argued, repeating his baseless claim of fraud. “I received 75 million votes, more than any outgoing president. I was told that if I received 63 million, which I received in 2016, I could not lose,” he added.
For the Israel-Hamas war and in Ukraine
The next thematic section is the Israel-Hamas war, Ukraine, and foreign policy.
The former US president claimed he could “fix” Russia’s war in Ukraine within 24 hours if re-elected. Asked by moderator David Muir how he would end the war and if Ukraine wants to win the war, Trump replied:
“I want the war to stop … people are being killed by the millions,” adding that he believes the Biden administration has not asked NATO to invest more in the war.
“Biden and you (referring to Vice President Kamala Harris) don’t have the guts to ask Europe like I did with NATO,” Trump said.
“With these facts, I want the war settled,” he said. Trump went on to say that he has good relations with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’ll settle it even before I’m president,” he said.
During a standoff over the war in Ukraine, former President Donald Trump said Vice President Kamala Harris failed to secure peace after she was sent to negotiate with the leaders of Ukraine and Russia.
Kamala Harris accused her Republican rival Donald Trump of being a “shaming” of foreign leaders, stressing that he is being “manipulated” by “dictators”.
“I’ve been around the world as vice president of the United States and the leaders of the whole world are laughing at Donald Trump,” Ms. Harris assured, insisting that it is “notorious” that “dictators and authoritarian leaders want him to be president again because they know very well that they can to manipulate you by flattering you and doing you favors.”
The US vice president said that the former US leader would “give up” in the face of pressure from Vladimir Putin, who would “eat you for lunch”.
“Putin would be sitting in Kiev with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland,” Harris said, noting “how quickly you would give up for the sake of favoring what you think is a friendship with a dictator who is known to he would eat you for lunch,” he replied.
Harris: “We’re not going back”
Closing in on her final statement, Kamala Harris said a catchphrase she uses against: “We’re not going back.”
He said America on Tuesday night heard “two very different visions for our country: One that focuses on the future and one that focuses on the past — an attempt to take us backwards.” “But we’re not going back,” he added.
“And I believe the American people know that we have much more in common than divides us — and that we can forge a new path forward,” he added.
Donald Trump in his final statement closed by addressing a question to Kamala Harris: “Why didn’t she do it?”, as he tried to connect the vice president with the Biden administration.
“He was there for 3.5 years. They had 3.5 years to build the border. They had 3.5 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t he done them?”, he asked.
“He should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get them all together and do the things that you want to do, but you haven’t done — and you won’t.” he said.
Source: ertnews.gr
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