In an aggressive TV duel, Democratic US presidential candidate Kamala Harris pushed her Republican opponent Donald Trump onto the defensive. Harris repeatedly elicited angry responses from the former president during Tuesday night’s 90-minute debate on topics ranging from abortion to foreign policy. Shortly after the TV debate, there was an unexpected coup: superstar Taylor Swift declared her support for Harris.
Right at the start of the duel in Philadelphia, Harris took the initiative and surprised Trump by approaching the Republican and extending her hand in greeting. Even after that, according to an initial survey, she still had the upper hand: According to a flash poll by CNN after the debate, Harris performed better with 63 percent of registered voters surveyed than Trump, whom only 37 percent saw as the winner.
In the debate, Harris tried to spread a hopeful message of a reunited country. Trump, on the other hand, painted the picture of the decline of the USA and a “failed state”. Once again he called the Democratic Vice President “a Marxist” and raised his voice to accuse her and the government of US President Joe Biden of serious failings in economic policy and on the issue of migration. He also repeatedly accused his democratic opponent of lying.
Harris, who responded to Trump’s statements partly confidently and partly with an amused expression, countered, among other things, that Trump had left the USA with “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression” during his term in office (2017-2021). The Republican is also responsible for “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
Both directed sharp attacks at each other on the issue of abortion: Harris accused Trump of spreading “a lot of lies.” On foreign policy, she accused the former president of currying favor with rulers like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who would “eat you for lunch.” Dictators and autocrats would like to see Trump in the White House because they realize that they can manipulate the real estate billionaire “with flattery and favors.”
Trump, in turn, accused Harris of being weak in view of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the radical Islamic Hamas. Israel would be “gone” within two weeks if the Democrat became president, he said.
As the duel progressed, Trump once again refused to acknowledge his 2020 election defeat. He also repeated the claim made by US Republicans in recent days that immigrants from Haiti were eating cats and other pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio. When the moderators of the debate broadcast on ABC told him that the city authorities had already refuted this allegation, Trump replied that “people on television” had said so.
It was the first TV duel between Trump and Harris. Immediately after the debate ended, the Harris team asked the 78-year-old Republican to face a second debate. So far, both camps have not been able to agree on further dates.
Trump himself tried to reinforce his view of the debate with an unexpected visit to the press room at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia just a few minutes after the end of the TV duel. It was his “best performance,” he said, emphasizing once again that the country is in decline. On his online platform Truth Social, he also accused the two ABC presenters of being biased. “It was three against one,” Trump wrote.
Shortly after the debate, megastar Taylor Swift scored a coup: The pop singer declared on Instagram that she would vote for Harris in the election on November 5th. She is “convinced that we can achieve much more in this country if we are guided by calm and not chaos.”
