[The following is a summary of the first half of tonight’s debate. I will provide a summary of the second half of the debate tomorrow.]
The only Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate scheduled before the upcoming November 5th presidential election was held tonight in the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the so-called City of BrotherlyLove due to the etymology of its name. The two candidates—former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris—had never met until at this debate.
This debate may be the most important event that will happen in helping voters to decide their vote only weeks away. It was advertised to be 90 minutes, but with its two, two-minute breaks it went just beyond 100 minutes. Two ABC moderators asked questions. The candidates’ microphones were turned off when they were not questioned. I counted 13 questions which I will now recount by titling each question just as the moderators did:
1. Economy. Moderator to Harris—”Are Americans better off with this economy?” Harris answered wrongly right off the bat by soon saying, “Unemployment during the Trump administration was the highest it has ever been since the Depression.” But she had already said, so affirming from her campaign, that she would cut taxes on childcare by establishing a tax exemption for families for $6,000 per child and that she would establish a tax exemption of $50,000 income for start-up small businesses.
Moderator to Trump—I didn’t get Trump’s response in my notes on this one.
2. Tariffs. Moderator to Trump—”the Wharton Business school says your proposed big tariffs on imports will explode the U.S. deficit.” Trump defended his proposal of tariffs and rightly said Biden continued his tariffs against China.
Harris then said she would be the president for all Americans, not just rich which Trump did while president by lowering taxes for them and will do again. She said “his tax cuts were only for the rich.” She alleged that Trump’s extreme tariffs are the same as high taxation on Americans, since prices historically go up per amounts of tariffs. She called Trump’s tariff plan “a national taxation plan.” She alleged it will cause more inflation and cost average American families $4,000 per year.\
Trump responded by alleging Harris “is a Marxist, and her father is a Marxist.” Her father has been a professor at Stanford for about forty years.
3. Abortion. Moderator to Trump asking about his parameters about abortion. He said he is proud to have gotten Roe v. Wade overturned. It has thrown the issue back to the states. The result is that about abortion is banned in 20 states. Trump alleged that Harris’ running mate Tim Walz says abortion should be okay in the 9th month of pregnancy, which I think is untrue.
Harris replied that Trump was against IVF (human artificial fertilization) and as president she would gladly sign a bill approving it. She said government has no right to interfere with a woman’s reproductive rights, including banning abortion. Trump has been inconsistent on this issue throughout his entire career.
4. Immigration and Border Security. Moderator to Harris, saying illegal immigration increased substantially during the Biden-Harris administration. Biden had given Harris the job of trying to improve this issue. She said rightly that she had gotten a bill before Congress to improve border security, which included adding 1,500 border agents, and she truthfully alleged that Trump had told Republicans legislators to not sign it, which they did and therefore it did not pass. It had been hailed as quite bipartisan legislation and alleged that Trump did that just so Democrats would not succeed on a border issue, which had always been a big issue upon which his political campaign had rested.
Moderator to Trump—why did oppose that bill? Trump went into his typical rants accusing Democrats of poor border security, thus not answering the question. He also harangued about the allegation of his running mate, J. D. Vance, that illegal immigrants are eating other people’s dog and cats, citing Springfield, Ohio, as an example yet without citing any source for proof. The moderator interrupted Trump, saying the Springfield city manager recently denied publicly that there is any proof for this allegation.
Harris interjected that Trump focuses on ridiculous things like this, thus avoiding what Americans care about, such as lowering the increases food prices and making available affordable housing.
Trump ranted about nations all over the world sending their criminals and drug addicts to illegally invade our country, causing crime to go up here. He said twice “immigrant crime.” The moderator then interrupted Trump by saying there is no evidence that is true and that crime is down in this country, which is correct.
5. Fracking. Moderator to Harris—”What is your position on fracking? Why has so many of your policy positions changed?” She was asked this because she previously had opposed fracking in Pennsylvania and as Vice President has softened her position on that. She has already said that she changed it because she gained more information about the subject. Harris’ answer eventually included the need of the U.S. to wean itself off fossil fuels with alternative energy, which the Biden-Harris administration is known for with its Inflation Reduction Act, which I think will probably go down as a most important legislation that Biden got passed. Harris also interjected here and elsewhere in this debate that Donald Trump proves himself unqualified to be president with all of his name calling and denigrating of others.
Harris also at this point said, “I have a lot throughout this world as Vice President, and I will tell you that world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump, calling him ‘a disgrace.'”
6. Peaceful Transfer of Power. Moderator to Trump—”Is there anything about the January 6th riot at the Capitol that you regret?” Trump clearly did not answer this question. Of course, he has been charged with crimes for helping to create it, an insurrection, by the Justice Department. Trump began his answer by ranting about how terribly those attackers of the Capitol have been treating by our Justice Department. Over 1,000 of them have now been charged crimes, and about half of those are in prison or have done time and are now out. Trump soon went into his usual defense, claiming he had called for 10,000 members of the National Guard but that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had denied his request, all of which has been strongly refuted by many authorities.
Harris answered, “I was there,” thus she experienced it. She added, “He called for a mob. He has been indicted and impeached for it.” She then mentioned Trump’s prevalence for White Supremacists, mentioning his remark about the Charlottesville rioters that “there are good people on both sides.”
7. Election of 2020. Moderator to Trump—”Do you acknowledge that you lost the 2020 election?” Trump never answered this question. However, his response was a denial that he had lost, just as he constantly has said all these years. He said that “election was fraudulent. We need two things: a wall and fair elections.”
Moderator to Trump—”60 court cases were brought about this [allegation of election fraud], and you lost all of them.”
Harris then said Trump says he “did not lose the election. He also says [as president] he will prosecute election cheaters.” Harris then said to Trump again, “world leaders say you are a disgrace. You don’t have the right temperament to be president. And you get confused about the facts,” suggesting that is why he constantly lies.
Trump then defended himself by citing Victor Orban, prime minister of Hungary who is a dictator. He says Orban says of Trump, “Everyone fears Trump,” meaning that that makes Trump an effective president regarding foreign policy.
[I will now end this recounting of the debate, half way through it, and resume this account of its second half tomorrow. Post-debate TV analysts are claiming that Harris won the debate. They say she repeatedly was successful in her assumed strategy as a court prosecutor in baiting Trump into talking constantly about himself and defending himself. Even some esteemed conservative analysts such as Brit Hume on Fox News are saying all this. He said, according to HuffPost, “Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night. We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie—a Republican, former Trump supporter, and previous preparer of Trump for debate—said of Harris, “She was exquisitely well-prepared, she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole. Whoever prepared Donald Trump should be fired. He was not good tonight at all.” Senator Lindsey Graham, a big supporter of Trump, said for Trump the debate was a “disaster” and that those who prepared him should be fired. And tonight, Trump did what my book title about him says, Bible Predicts Trump Fall.]
[To see my post, “Summary of Second Half of Trump-Harris Debate,” click here.]
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In