Kamala Harris delivered a series of blows to Donald Trump on issues from abortion to his fitness for office, putting her Republican rival for the White House on the back foot in a fierce clash on Tuesday that could define the US election.
The vice-president struggled early in her first — and possibly only — debate against Trump before November’s election as the candidates sparred over high inflation and international trade.
But over the rest of the 90-minute face-off, Harris cast Trump as an extremist unworthy of the American presidency and baited the former Republican president. He occasionally struggled to contain his anger and stay on message.
“I have travelled the world as vice-president of the United States and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump,” Harris said in one of her sharpest barbs. “I have talked with military leaders, some of whom were with you, and they say you’re a disgrace.”
National and swing state polls in recent days have shown the race for the White House on a knife edge, making Tuesday’s debate one of the most anticipated in US political history.
In a flash poll of debate viewers conducted for CNN, 63 per cent of respondents said Harris performed better, compared with 37 per cent for Trump.
Traders predicting the winner of the presidential election on PredictIt, a political betting platform, are now pricing the vice-president at 56 cents, ahead of Trump on 47 cents. The candidates were neck and neck ahead of the debate.
Their first meeting came nearly two months after President Joe Biden’s dismal performance in a debate with Trump forced him to end his re-election bid in July and back Harris for the presidency.
Harris’s first big attack on Trump on Tuesday came on abortion, when she accused the former president of being “immoral” and responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who in 2022 overturned the constitutional right to end a pregnancy.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” she said.
Harris appeared nervous and struggled for fluency in early exchanges on the economy. But her confidence grew, as she defused some of Trump’s attacks and mounted her own, including mocking Trump for being egotistical and bizarre.
“He talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter, he will talk about windmills causing cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” Harris said. “The one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.”
Trump repeatedly assailed the Biden administration’s record on immigration and blamed Harris for the surge in migrants across the US-Mexico border.
“They allowed criminals, many, many millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists,” Trump said. “They’ve destroyed the fabric of our country.”
Trump criticised Harris for changing her mind on issues such as fracking, important to many voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania. But he often lost his stride, as she goaded him on the size and enthusiasm of his campaign rallies.
At one point he recycled internet conspiracy theories, including a debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio city had been abducting pets to eat them. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in . . . They’re eating the cats.”
Harris took aim at Trump for denying he lost the 2020 election to Biden, and for fuelling the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
“Donald Trump was fired by 81mn people . . . and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that,” she said.
Trump offered a familiar defence that he is a victim of political persecution, citing his near assassination in Pennsylvania in July.
“I probably took a bullet to the head, because of the things they say about me,” Trump said. “They’re the threat to democracy.”
He scored with early punches on the economy. “They had the highest inflation, perhaps in the history of our country,” Trump said. “People can’t go out and buy cereal or bacon or eggs or anything else. The people of our country are absolutely dying with what they’ve done.”
Harris responded by saying the US economy was in tatters when Trump left office, forcing Democrats to clean up the former president’s “mess”.
She also at times sought to distance herself from her predecessor. “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden. And I’m certainly not Donald Trump,” she said after Trump attacked the Biden administration’s record on inflation. “And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, said the former president had “missed opportunities”. He added: “I think a couple of times he got rattled, she got rattled once.”
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After the event, Harris’s team immediately challenged Trump to a second debate in October. Trump said he would “think about” taking part. The vice-president’s campaign was also boosted by an endorsement from Taylor Swift, the world’s most popular music star.
In an unusual step after the debate, Trump visited the “spin room” where supporters seek to convince the media that their candidate won.
Since Harris burst into the race for the White House, she has benefited from a surge in enthusiasm among Democratic voters, helping her leapfrog Trump in the polls.
But Harris’s momentum has plateaued, with her lead over Trump in national polling now just 2.2 percentage points, according to the Financial Times’ polling average. The former president also has an advantage in four of the seven battleground states that will decide the election.
After memorial ceremonies for the September 11 terrorist attacks 23 years ago on Wednesday, Harris will campaign in North Carolina and return to Pennsylvania, while Trump will head to Arizona and California.
The debate, hosted by ABC News, was held at the National Constitution Center in downtown Philadelphia, in a small and intimate setting with no live audience and the podiums set relatively close to each other.
