The first US Presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was held today. Here’s is a snapshot, direct from the sources, of some of the reaction from news outlets in the United States.
CNN
By Eric Bradner, Arit John, Daniel Strauss, Betsy Klein and Gregory Krieg
Kamala Harris baited Donald Trump for nearly all of the 1 hour and 45 minutes of their first and potentially only debate – and Trump took every bit of it.
The vice president had prepared extensively for their debate, and peppered nearly every answer with a comment designed to enrage the former president. She told Trump that world leaders were laughing at him, and military leaders called him a “disgrace.”
She called Trump “weak” and “wrong.” She said Trump was fired by 81 million voters – the number that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
“Clearly, he’s having a very difficult time processing that,” she said.
Trump was often out of control. He loudly and repeatedly insisted that a whole host of falsehoods were true. The former president repeated lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
He parroted a conspiracy theory about immigrants eating pets, and lied about Democrats supporting abortions after babies are born – which is murder, and illegal everywhere.
He painted a dire picture of the United States, reminiscent of the “American carnage” he’d warned of when he was inaugurated in 2017.
“We have a nation that is dying,” Trump said Tuesday night.
As the debate ended, Harris got another boost: Musician and pop culture icon Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she was backing the Democratic ticket.
She signed her post “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady” — a reference to controversial comments by Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, that have alienated many women.
Washington Post
By Aaron Blake
Harris successfully made it all about Trump — and he struggled:
If Democrats were concerned about anything amounting to a repeat of Biden’s shoddy debate performance in late June, which led to his dropping out, it was quickly erased. Harris returned to the form that made her the runaway winner of the early 2020 Democratic primary debates.
More than that, though, with a premium on Trump defining the lesser-known Harris, she made sure the debate was overwhelmingly about Trump and his less-appealing traits.
Trump’s fire hose of falsehoods:
Trump’s debate performance was, from the start, a fire hose of misinformation.
He falsely claimed or suggested:
- Democrats support executing babies after birth. (ABC News’s Linsey Davis, the other moderator, correctly noted, “There is no state in this country where it’s legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”)
- “Every legal scholar” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.
- That we recently had the “highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country.”
- That “crime is down all over the world except here.” (Muir noted that the FBI has reported violent crime has been falling.)
- That the Justice Department has been involved in every case against him.
- That Democrats are trying to get illegal immigrants to vote for them.
- That undocumented immigrants are “taking over the towns, they’re taking over buildings” in Aurora, Colo. (Police say this hasn’t happened.)
But perhaps on no issue was Trump’s reliance on bogus information as pronounced as it was when he referred to ridiculous and dehumanizing rumors that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio — claims that have taken off among right-wing social media users. Trump broached the subject early and then returned to it later.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump claimed. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
AP News
By Michelle L. Price, Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin and Josh Boak
Kamala Harris pressed a forceful case against Donald Trump in their first and perhaps only debate before the presidential election, repeatedly goading him in an event that showcased their starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration and American democracy.
The Democratic vice president provoked Trump with reminders about the 2020 election loss that he still denies, delivered derisive asides at his false claims and sought to underscore the Republican former president’s role in the Supreme Court’s overturning of a national right to abortion two years ago.
Trump tore into Harris as too liberal and a continuation of Biden’s unpopular administration, as he launched into the sort of freewheeling personal attacks and digressions from which his advisers and supporters have tried to steer him away.
Less than two months from Election Day and hours before the first early ballots will begin to be mailed Wednesday in Alabama, the debate offered the clearest look yet at a presidential race that has been repeatedly upended.
Harris’ performance by nearly every measure seemed to be the opposite of President Joe Biden’s in June, with sharp, focused answers designed to showcase the contrast between her and Trump, whereas Biden at times was muddled, halting and at times incoherent.
Harris used her body language and facial expressions to confront Trump and express that she found his answers ridiculous, amusing or both — a pronounced change from Biden’s slack-jawed expression when Trump attacked him.
Harris appeared intent on casting herself as a relief for voters seeking a break from Trump’s acerbic politics — a contrast highlighted as Trump appeared to be set on his back foot by her needling.
USA TODAY
By Zac Anderson
Donald Trump knocked Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race in the last debate, but the Republican found himself repeatedly knocked on his heels when squaring off against his new Democratic opponent: Kamala Harris.
Inside the debate hall in Philadelphia, Trump was on the defensive over his legal problems, election denialism, opposition from former allies and incitement of an attack on the U.S. Capitol. Even his beloved rallies become debate fodder, with Harris mocking them as full of odd digressions and so boring his supporters often leave early.
Harris came in trying to rattle and bait Trump, and often succeeded, leading to defensive, angry and rambling responses as the vice president had the upper hand throughout much of the contest.
Trump repeatedly turned to immigration, his signature issue, but struggled to sustain a consistent line of attack and often leaned on familiar and false claims that drew corrections from the moderators.
