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Donald Trump repeated false claims about abortion, expanded conspiracy theories and became frustrated and defensive about the discussion about the size of the rally in many responses to the first presidential debate, and potentially the last one with Kamala Harris.
The former president repeated his discredited claims about immigrants who steal and eat animals, falsely claimed that abortion patients killed their children after birth, and dismissed Harris’ accusation that supporters left the rally “tired and bored.”
The first face-to-face meeting between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday night presented a starkly different vision of America’s future, with Harris giving voters a chance to leave Trump behind and instead “build on the aspirations and hopes of the American people.”
“Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left behind,” Harris said, noting the “worst unemployment since the Great Depression,” “the worst public health epidemic in a century,” and “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” in its wake. a Trump-driven mob effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“What we’ve done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess,” he said.
The appearance of the debate is drawn from “the same old playbook — lots of lies, complaints and name-calling,” Harris said.
Trump, meanwhile, was angry at the inflation that he characterized as “the worst in the history of our nation” while baselessly insisting that millions of immigrants “come in” and “come in and take jobs that are now occupied by African Americans” and union workers.
He said the immigrants “took over the building … by violence.”
“We have to get out, and we have to get out fast,” he said.
The presidential candidates were friendly as they shook hands on stage in Philadelphia ahead of the highly anticipated and potentially final debate, coming less than two months before Election Day, and just seven weeks after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed the vice president as the Democratic nominee.
ABC News moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir have been tasked with directing what could be a chaotic 90-minute showdown between the two candidates, who both agreed to the same guidelines from the June debate between Trump and Biden.
There is no audience, written notes are not allowed, candidates’ microphones are muted when it is not their turn to speak, and they cannot ask questions.
Trump, the first former president to be convicted of a crime, is running for a third term on the “Make America Great Again” agenda, with a retribution-driven campaign portraying an apocalyptic vision of a country overwhelmed by illegal immigration and violent crime and gripped by a flailing economy under the Biden administration. Trump has now blamed all of the above on the vice president.
Harris has adopted the slogan “we are not going back”, opting for optimism and the promise of an “opportunity economy” that will build on the Biden platform.
After Biden dropped out of the race, Harris quickly rallied party officials and delegates about the new campaign, and formally accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention on August 22, marking an extraordinary event that turned what would normally be a months-long election cycle into few months are important. Tuesday’s debate began the sprint to Election Day.
The candidate is neck and neck in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center poll, the latest New York Times/ Siena College survey put Trump one percentage point ahead of his Democratic rival, in a poll which is three point margin of error. Harris, however, has a slight lead in the most swing states, where the presidential race is likely to win.
Harris’ campaign launched a statewide voter drive in battleground Pennsylvania ahead of the debate, while Trump heads to Phoenix on Thursday, followed by a press conference in Los Angeles and a rally in Las Vegas on Friday.
Voters are still hungry for more information about the vice president, but 40 percent of American adults believe the debate between the candidates is rarely based on facts, according to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research for USAFacts. Only 29 percent of adults said the same in 2020.
This is a developing story
