Kamala Harris's and Donald Trump's greatest and worst debate moments

Vice President Harris had a powerful night time in her large conflict with former President Trump on Tuesday in Philadelphia.

A poised and centered Harris appeared to get the higher of Trump in quite a few exchanges on the debate, which was hosted by ABC Information. At instances, she baited him into an irritated or peevish tone. Regularly, he was pushed onto the defensive.

ABC’s moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, had been way more aggressive in fact-checking Trump than their counterparts, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, had been within the now-infamous debate between Trump and President Biden in June.

Trump’s dangerous night time obtained worse simply moments after the talk ended, when music megastar Taylor Swift endorsed Harris. 

“I feel she is a steady-handed, gifted chief and I imagine we will accomplish a lot extra on this nation if we’re led by calm and never chaos,” Swift wrote in an Instagram publish.

However even in a debate that seemed like a lop-sided victory for Harris, every candidate had their good and dangerous moments. Listed below are a number of the largest ones.

Kamala Harris’s Greatest Moments

Reproductive rights

Abortion may very well be the one greatest political problem for Harris and her social gathering. Because the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the GOP has struggled on the subject as voters have recoiled from hardline bans.

Harris pressed the purpose house in an prolonged change on the topic, the place Trump meandered, his which means typically opaque.

“Now in over 20 states, there are Trump abortion bans,” Harris asserted, tying Trump to the sort of restrictive insurance policies he desires to distance himself from.

“The federal government, and Donald Trump definitely, shouldn’t be telling a lady what to do along with her physique,” she added.

January 6

The Capitol riot is one other apparent centerpiece of Harris’s election marketing campaign. Trump was impeached, and later criminally charged, over a darkish day that left greater than 100 regulation enforcement officers injured.

However Harris was notably deft in talking about these occasions in a means that characterised Trump as, concurrently, authoritarian and deeply insecure.

“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million individuals. So let’s be clear about that — and clearly he’s having a really troublesome time processing that,” Harris stated, referring to the approximate variety of votes forged for President Biden.

The phrasing, with its implication of psychological weak point, appeared calculated to get beneath Trump’s pores and skin.

Harris adopted up by arguing that Trump’s makes an attempt to rationalize his position urged he didn’t have “the temperament or the power to not be confused about truth. That’s deeply troubling and the American individuals deserve higher.”

Casting Trump as egocentric

Harris typically interwove solutions on particular matters along with her larger marketing campaign argument — specifically, that Trump is simply out for himself.

Early on, she instructed the viewers that Trump would take refuge in “the identical, outdated, drained playbook — a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling.”

On the economic system, she stated Trump “is extra focused on defending himself than he’s in searching for you.”

Concerning worldwide affairs, she instructed him that different leaders can “manipulate you with flattery and favors.”

Each such second bolstered her central critique of the previous president.

Kamala Harris’s worst moments

Fracking and her modifications of place

Harris has been bedeviled for years by questions over her authenticity.

These questions have resurfaced once more now that she has deserted her earlier help for a ban on fracking, and has eased off help for Medicare for All and for decriminalizing unlawful border crossings.

Pressed by Davis on how her values may have remained unchanged whereas her insurance policies had shifted, Harris didn’t have any notably compelling reply.

As an alternative, she appeared evasive and desirous to get off the topic — regardless that she will need to have identified the query was coming.

Gaza

Harris is making an attempt to string a needle on Gaza — maybe the one most divisive problem inside the Democratic Get together.

The hazard in that method is that it may possibly find yourself pleasing no-one.

On Tuesday, she repeated her place that “Israel has a proper to defend itself” however that “far too many harmless Palestinians have been killed.”

She did say that Palestinians ought to have “an equal measure” of safety as Israelis in addition to “self-determination.”

However a giant question-mark nonetheless hangs over the query of whether or not Harris would truly do something completely different from Biden on coverage if she is elected in November.

Donald Trump’s greatest moments

Inflation and the economic system

The economic system routinely tops voters’ lists of issues in opinion polls. 

Neither Biden nor Harris have absolutely healed the political wound they suffered when inflation peaked at its highest ranges in a era in 2022.

Trump exaggerated the speed of inflation, suggesting falsely that it had reached “21 %.” It peaked at 9.1 % on an annualized foundation.

However Trump did faucet into standard discontent arguing the problem, contending, “I’ve by no means seen a worse time period” and that individuals had been struggling to “exit and purchase cereal or bacon or eggs or anything.”

Extra broadly, Trump argued that he had a powerful economic system as president, solely to be undone by the COVID-19 pandemic — a declare that has some substance to it, regardless of his critics’ scoffing.

Ukraine

One of many matters on which there’s the deepest chasm between Trump and Harris — and between Trump and a few Republicans — is the conflict in Ukraine.

However American assist to Kyiv is a divisive problem in American society at massive. A Gallup ballot earlier this 12 months discovered 36 % of People believing the U.S. was doing an excessive amount of to assist Ukraine.

Trump’s argument that he merely desires “the conflict to cease” may have some enchantment to hard-pressed People who really feel the cash directed towards Ukraine may very well be higher spent at house.

“Look, we’re in for 250 billion [dollars] or extra as a result of they don’t ask Europe, which is a a lot larger beneficiary to getting this factor completed than we’re,” Trump added.

Donald Trump’s worst moments

“They’re consuming the cats”

A nation that has change into accustomed to Trump making wild claims can nonetheless be startled by a few of his flights of fancy — as on Tuesday when he repeated unfounded rumors about immigrants consuming home animals.

“In Springfield they’re consuming the canine, the those who got here in. They’re consuming the cats. They’re consuming the pets of the those who stay there,” he insisted.

Muir famous that ABC Information had reached out to town supervisor of Springfield, Ohio, and “he instructed us there had been no credible reviews of particular claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by people inside the immigrant group.”

Trump dug himself deeper along with his riposte.

“I’ve seen individuals on tv,” he stated. “Folks on tv say my canine was taken and used for meals.”

Harris and race

Trump has been unable to place to relaxation an ill-advised remark he made in late July throughout an look earlier than the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists.

On that event, he urged, falsely, that Harris had solely adopted a Black identification lately.

Requested on Tuesday why he thought it was applicable to weigh in on the subject, Trump replied, “I don’t. And I don’t care what she is.”

However pressed additional he added, “All I can say is I learn the place she was not Black — that she put out — and I’ll say that. After which I learn that she was Black, and that’s okay.”

The controversy appears the uncommon one for Trump that gained’t go away.

A “idea of a plan”

Maybe essentially the most substantively damaging second for Trump got here comparatively late within the debate, on the subject of healthcare.

Davis challenged Trump on his failure to supply a plan that might change the Reasonably priced Care Act, often known as ObamaCare, regardless of pledging to repeal that regulation for 9 years.

Trump failed to offer any specifics. However the extra damaging soundbite got here when Davis pressed additional.

“So, only a sure or no, you continue to don’t have a plan?” she requested the previous president.

“I’ve ideas of a plan,” he replied.

The phrase appears virtually tailored for Democratic assault adverts on a subject that’s of searing private curiosity to thousands and thousands of People.