On September 10, the national news agencies CNN and NBC published news articles that when read together capture all the major takeaways of the Presidential Debate between Vice President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Following are both edited articles:
CNN NEWS HEADLINE: “Takeaways from the ABC presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris” by CNN staff reporters 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 on Tuesday night – 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.
Here are some quick takeaways from the first portion of the debate:
Harris used the first question to lean into her plan for an “opportunity economy,” seeking to cut into Trump’s advantage on the issue with swing voters by presenting herself as the candidate of the middle class while calling Trump a corporate tax-cutter.
“I was raised as a middle-class kid, and I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America,” Harris said. “We know that we have a shortage of homes and housing, and the cost of housing is too expensive for far too many people. We know that young families need support to raise their children, and I intend on extending a tax cut for those families of $6,000, which is the largest child tax credit that we have given in a long time, so that those young families can afford to buy a crib, buy a car seat, buy clothes for their children.”
Trump blasted the Biden-Harris economy, saying, “I’ve never seen a worse period of time.” He also defended his tariff plans and called Harris “a Marxist,” even as he accused her of copying his policies: “I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”
A TURNING POINT WHEN HARRIS JABS TRUMP OVER THE SIZE OF THE CROWDS AT HIS RALLIES
Harris came onstage with a clear plan: Throw Trump off his game.
It was, by any measure, a dramatic success. When the vice president mentioned Trump’s criminal conviction and outstanding legal issues, he bit. When she called him out for sinking a bipartisan immigration bill, he bit harder. And when Harris suggested Trump’s rallies were boring, he nearly choked on the bait.
Rather than engage on the issues raised by the moderators, including a few that Trump considers some of his political strengths, the former president went on at length about the entertainment value of his rallies, claims the Biden administration was legally targeting him and, in a long, bizarre spell, insisted – against all available evidence, that migrants were eating Americans’ pets.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said, after Harris criticized him for tanking the immigration bill.
Harris looked on as though she was puzzled, but rarely returned to the claims, apparently content to allow Trump go off.
Trump seemed especially aggrieved by the vice president’s aside about his campaign events. Even after Muir sought to redirect the debate to immigration – again, one of Trump’s preferred topics – the former president refused to let it go.
“First, let me respond as to the rallies,” Trump said, mocking Harris’ crowds before returning to his own. “People don’t leave my rallies, we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
The first hour of the debate then ended much like it began – with Trump off on a long, narrowcast tangent about the 2020 election, which he claimed, falsely once again, was stolen from him.
“In Springfield,” Trump said, after Harris criticized him for tanking the immigration bill, “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”
Harris looked on as though she was puzzled, but rarely returned to the claims, apparently content to allow Trump go off.
Trump seemed especially aggrieved by the vice president’s aside about his campaign events. Even after Muir sought to redirect the debate to immigration – again, one of Trump’s preferred topics – the former president refused to let it go.
“First, let me respond as to the rallies,” Trump said, first mocking Harris’s crowds, then turning back to his own. “People don’t leave my rallies, we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
The first hour of the debate then ended much like it began – with Trump off on a long, narrowcast tangent about the 2020 election, which he claimed, falsely once again, was stolen from him.
HARRIS SETS THE TONE
“When Harris and Trump walked onto stage in Philadelphia, it was the first time they’d met in person. Trump, after all, skipped Biden’s inauguration.
Harris set the tone by walking across the six feet separating her podium from Trump’s and reaching out for a handshake. She introduced herself and said, “Let’s have a good debate.”
“Nice to see you,” Trump responded.
It was the first handshake in a presidential debate since Trump and Hillary Clinton squared off in 2016. Trump famously loomed uncomfortably close to Clinton during their town hall-style debate.
Trump generally looked forward as Harris spoke, while the vice president communicated through facial expressions. She laughed at some Trump comments, smirked at others, shook her head at some and at times appeared bemused.
When Trump repeated a debunked myth about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, Harris laughed mockingly while shrugging and pointing at Trump.”
TRUMP INDULGES IN CONSPIRACY THEORIES
“Despite signals from even his running mate, Trump did not refrain from repeating the conspiracy theory du jour during the debate.
The former president brought up the unfounded conspiracy theory that migrants from Haiti living in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s cats and dogs. He said at one point “in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of people who live there.”
When ABC moderator David Muir pointed out that city officials denied any evidence that migrants in Springfield were actually eating pets, Trump doubled down saying “the people on television” were saying it. When pressed, Trump just said, “We’ll find out.”
When the debate moved to crime, Trump claimed that crime was up in the United States contrary to the rest of the world. There too Muir pointed out that, according to FBI data, crime had actually declined in the past few years.
Trump, again, deferred to a different conspiracy theory that the FBI is deeply corrupt and issuing “defrauding statements.” He argued “it was a fraud.”
Later in the debate, Trump argued that US elections are “a mess” and claimed that Democrats are trying to get undocumented immigrants to vote in elections.”
FIERCE ARGUMENT OVER ABORTION, A KEY ISSUE FOR BOTH CANDIDATES
“Few moments highlighted the difference between Biden’s June debate performance and Harris’ on Tuesday as much as the abortion debate.
The vice president, who has long been one the administration’s strongest surrogates on reproductive rights, was able to respond to the former president’s defense of his abortion policy in a way Biden was not.
The former president, who appointed three of the Supreme Court judges who overturned federal abortion protections, has sought to moderate his stance on the issue by criticizing six-week abortion bans and reiterating his support for exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. But he has also defended the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“Now it’s not tied up in the federal government,” Trump said. “I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it.”
Trump repeated several of the arguments he made about abortion during his June debate with Biden. He argued that “everyone” wanted the issue returned to the states, despite widespread resistance from Democrats and some independents. He argued inaccurately that a former governor of Virginia said that babies should be executed – a reference to comments former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a doctor, made about care for births after nonviable pregnancies.
And Trump repeated the false claim that some states allow abortions to be performed after a baby has been born, which drew a fact check from ABC News’ Linsey Davis.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” Davis said.
Harris responded by highlighting cases where women have been unable to get abortions after being victims of rape or struggled to get miscarriage care.
“You want to talk about this is what people wanted?” Harris said. “Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot – she didn’t want that.”
VICE PRESIDENT CASTS TRUMP AS OUT FOR HIMSELF
Seeking to introduce herself to voters, Harris set the tone early, drawing contrast with Trump by framing herself as an advocate for middle-class Americans – and framing her opponent as self-absorbed.
“Donald Trump has no plan for you,” Harris said in response to a question on the economy, looking into the camera in a direct appeal to voters.
Leaning into her personal biography as she cast herself as a “middle class kid,” Harris outlined an economic vision including tax cuts for families and tax deductions for small businesses, while Trump, she said, will “do what he has done before, which is to provide a tax cut for billionaires and big corporations.”
Trump, Harris continued, “actually has no plan for you, because he is more interested in defending himself than he is in looking out for you.”
Her campaign has argued in its ads and talking points that Trump is a candidate looking out for himself, and Harris took that message to the debate stage Tuesday.
“I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. And I’ll tell you: I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first,” she said.
TRUMP’S COMMENTS ABOUT HARRIS’ RACE, PAST CONTROVERSIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
When Trump was asked about his comment last month falsely claiming Harris only recently started to identify as Black, the former president defended his remarks as something he’d read somewhere.
“I couldn’t care less,” Trump said. “Whatever she wants to be is OK with me.”
In the weeks since those comments, the vice president has avoided engaging in that personal attack beyond calling it the “same old tired playbook.”
At the Philadelphia event, however, Harris responded to Trump’s attacks on her identity a meaningful way. But instead of defending her indisputable racial identity, the vice president laid out the former president’s history of past racial discrimination and racist behavior.
That history includes investigations of housing discrimination, calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five – young teenagers of color falsely accused and convicted of raping and assaulting a woman in the New York park – and fueling the false birther allegation that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United states.
“And I think the American people want better than that. Want better than this,” Harris said. “We see in each other a friend. We see in each other a neighbor. We don’t want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other.”
Trump pushed back, arguing that others, such as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also supported the case against the Central Park Five. He called the Biden-Harris administration divisive and argued that the vice president’s examples were outdated.
“This is a person that has to stretch back years – 40, 50 years ago – because there’s nothing now,” he said.
TRUMP AND HARRIS DIG THEIR HEELS IN ON MAJOR GLOBAL FLASHPOINTS
If anyone on stage Tuesday has a clear, point-by-point plan for ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, they did not share it with the viewers at home.
Asked how she would secure peace in Gaza, Harris first recalled the horrors of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks inside Israel. She offered some mild criticism of Israel’s response, an ongoing bombardment that’s killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, before pivoting to her support for a two-state solution, Israel’s right to defend itself and a commitment to rebuilding Gaza.
“We need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out,” Harris declared. Biden and others recently conceded such an agreement is a long way off.
Trump offered even fewer details.
“She hates Israel,” he said of Harris, adding that she also hates “Arabs.”
Trump has occasionally sought to inflame anger among Arab Americans over Biden’s handling of the conflict. But on Tuesday he quickly abandoned the tactic, instead chiding Harris for slighting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a recent visit to Capitol Hill – she did, in fact, meet with him; she did not attend his speech to Congress – and declaring again that none of it “would have never happened” if he were still in the White House.
Ditto for the Russian war in Ukraine, per the former president, who – after stopping to note that he “know(s) Putin very well – said “Russia would have never ever … have gone into Ukraine” on his watch.
“I’ll get it done before even becoming president,” Trump added, claiming his election would reset the geopolitical state of play and, almost by definition, herald a deal.
Harris, for her part, used the Russia-Ukraine talk to attack Trump over his well-documented fondness for international strongmen and despots.
“It is well-known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again,” Harris said, “because it is so clear they can manipulate you with flatter and favors.”
Trump fought back there, recalling his push to get NATO member nations to pay more into the alliance and slamming Harris for Biden’s refusal to do the same, before saying the vice president “does not have the courage to ask.”
Harris replied that she believed Trump might, in fact, put a quick end to the war – by capitulating to Putin. And in so doing, she added, endangering Poland on Ukraine’s western border. (Pennsylvania has a large Polish-American population, Harris noted.)
After more back-and-forth on additional flashpoints, like the US’ disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump – having been accused repeatedly of going starry-eyed for strongmen – quoted the one running Hungary, Prime Minister Victor Orban.
“Orban said it, he said, ‘The most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president,’” Trump said.
The link to read the unedited news item with photos and captions is here:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/politics/debate-takeaways-trump-harris/index.html
NBC NEWS HEADLINE: Six Takeaways From The First Harris-Trump Presidential Debate
By Sahil Kapur, NBC Saff Reporter
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed in their first presidential debate Tuesday in Philadelphia, less than two months before Election Day.
Heading into the debate, Harris appeared to have more to gain — and more to lose. A New York Times/Siena College poll found that 28% said they “need to learn more about Kamala Harris,” compared with just 9% who said the same about Trump. Overall, Trump led Harris by 1 point among likely voters, with 5% unsure or not backing either.
The debate covered a wide range of issues and featured a series of intense exchanges between the two bitter rivals. Harris presented herself as a pragmatic problem-solver and diminished Trump as a wannabe dictator who can’t keep his rally crowds engaged. Trump attacked Harris as a radical and frequently returned to his theme of criticizing migration, sometimes veering into conspiracy theories.
Here are six key takeaways from the debate.
- HARRIS LEANS IN QUICKLY ON LOWERING COSTS
Harris used the first question to lean into her plan for an “opportunity economy,” seeking to cut into Trump’s advantage on the issue with swing voters by presenting herself as the candidate of the middle class while calling Trump a corporate tax-cutter.
“I was raised as a middle-class kid, and I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America,” Harris said. “We know that we have a shortage of homes and housing, and the cost of housing is too expensive for far too many people. We know that young families need support to raise their children, and I intend on extending a tax cut for those families of $6,000, which is the largest child tax credit that we have given in a long time, so that those young families can afford to buy a crib, buy a car seat, buy clothes for their children.”
Trump blasted the Biden-Harris economy, saying, “I’ve never seen a worse period of time.” He also defended his tariff plans and called Harris “a Marxist,” even as he accused her of copying his policies: “I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”
- BOTH CANDIDATES SEEK THE MANTLE OF CHANGE
In the opening minutes, both rivals sought to claim the mantle of change in a country full of voters who are hungry for it.
“In this debate tonight, you’re going to hear from the same old, tired playbook: a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling,” Harris said of Trump. “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected.”
Harris returned to that message later in the debate: “The American people are exhausted with the same old, tired playbook.” She went back to it later in criticizing Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot.
“Let’s turn the page on this. Let’s not go back,” she said.
Trump sought to portray Harris as a continuation of President Joe Biden on immigration and the economy.
On migrants coming into the U.S. illegally, he said: “These are the people that she and Biden led into our country, and they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous.”
And on the economy, he said: “She copied Biden’s plan. And it’s, like, four sentences. Run, Spot, run.”
- TRUMP ATTACKS AS HARRIS DEFENDS POLICY SHIFTS
A significant weakness for Harris in the campaign has been the left-wing positions she took as a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2020 that she has since abandoned or backtracked from — such as banning fracking, mandating buybacks of semiautomatic firearms and decriminalizing border crossings. She was asked about her evolution again.
I made that very clear in 2020, I will not ban fracking,” Harris said. “I have not banned fracking as vice president. In fact, I was the tiebreaking vote on the inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking,” an ecologically controversial way to extract oil and natural gas.
Harris added, “My values have not changed.”
Trump sought to capitalize.
“She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. This is a radical left liberal that would do this. She wants to confiscate your guns, and she will never allow fracking in Pennsylvania,” he said. “If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on Day One.”
- TRUMP DODGES ON VETOING FEDERAL ABORTION BAN
Trump and Harris engaged in a lengthy clash over abortion, during which Trump declined twice to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if Congress passed one.
“Well, I won’t have to,” Trump replied. He said he’s “not signing” such a ban because there’s “no reason to,” arguing that “everybody” is happy with the termination of Roe v. Wade.
When told that his vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, of Ohio, said he would veto such a ban, Trump contradicted Vance, who made his comments recently on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
“Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness. JD — and I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I don’t think he was speaking for me,” he said, arguing that Congress won’t pass any major abortion bill.
Harris said: “I pledge to you: When Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it in to law. But understand, if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign a national abortion ban.”
- HARRIS BAITS TRUMP INTO MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
Harris came into the debate with the hope of rattling Trump, and she appeared to succeed at some moments, baiting him into a defensive posture rather than highlighting his strongest issue: concerns about inflation and the cost of living.
She attacked him on abortion rights, linked him to the right-wing policy blueprint Project 2025 and highlighted his praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping around the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Both times, he jumped in to defend himself. She invited Americans to watch a Trump rally.
“He talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about ‘windmills cause cancer.’ And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” Harris said, looking into the camera.
That didn’t sit well with Trump, who said he has “the most incredible rallies in the history of politics” and went on a tangent by citing a debunked conspiracy theory about some migrants’ eating pets. “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” he said.
- TRUMP BASHES BIDEN, SPARKING PITHY HARRIS REPLY
Trump’s performance included a wide sprinkling of attacks on Biden, who dropped out after his disastrous late-June debate showing against Trump. He criticized Biden’s handling of classified documents, knocked him for opposing the Keystone XL pipeline and called the Biden’s administration “the most divisive presidency in the history of our country.”
“Where is our president? We don’t even know if he’s the president,” Trump said toward the end of the debate. “They threw him out of a campaign like a dog. We don’t even know. Is he our president? We have a president that doesn’t know he’s alive.”
Harris replied, “It is important to remind the former president: You’re not running against Joe Biden; you are running against me.”
When Trump said later, “She is Biden,” Harris responded: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden. And I am certainly not Donald Trump.”
The link to read the unedited news item with photos is here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/presidential-debate-takeaways-trump-harris-rcna169060
POLL: VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS WINS THE DEBATE
“Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s presidential debate broadly agree that Kamala Harris outperformed Donald Trump, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS. The vice president also outpaced both debate watchers’ expectations for her and Joe Biden’s onstage performance against the former president earlier this year, the poll found.
Debate watchers said, 63% to 37%, that Harris turned in a better performance onstage in Philadelphia. Prior to the debate, the same voters were evenly split on which candidate would perform more strongly, with 50% saying Harris would do so and 50% that Trump would. And afterward, 96% of Harris supporters who tuned in said that their chosen candidate had done a better job, while a smaller 69% majority of Trump’s supporters credited him with having a better night. … ”
The link to the quoted news source is here:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/11/politics/election-poll-trump-harris-debate/index.html