The Making of the President 2024: The September 10th Debate
Donald Trump, the former President and Republican candidate to win the job in 2024, faced off against Vice-President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, in the first debate between the two. The debate was held on Tuesday September 10, 2024 and was hosted by ABC News. Just over a month earlier it looked as if the debate might never take place. On August 2, Trump announced that he was withdrawing from the debate, as he had only agreed to debate Joe Biden, not Kamala Harris. However, on August 8, ABC reported that both candidates agreed to the debate as originally scheduled. At first Trump had made his participation in the ABC debate contingent on Harris participating in a September 4 debate on Fox News, but on August 27, Trump withdrew this demand and recommitted to the ABC debate.
The debate was held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The moderators were ABC's David Muir and Linsey Davis and it lasted for two hours, minus time for commercial break, so the actual debate took place for approximately 105 minutes. Each candidate's microphone was turned on when it was a candidate's turn to talk and otherwise muted. As the result of a coin flip, Harris spoke first and Trump second for both the opening statements as well as the candidates' final summation.
It appeared that Harris's strategy was to bait her opponent in order to put him on the defensive and make him respond to her own criticisms rather than allow him to set the tone. Among those who analyzed the debate in the aftermath, many were of the opinion that this strategy worked. Peter Baker, writing in the New York Times, described the differing styles of the candidates in these terms:
"Donald J. Trump’s America is a grim place, a nation awash in marauding immigrants stealing American jobs and eating American cats and dogs, a country devastated economically, humiliated internationally and perched on the cliff’s edge of an apocalyptic World War III.
"Kamala Harris’s America is a weary but hopeful place, a nation fed up with the chaos of the Trump years and sick of all the drama and divisiveness, a country embarrassed by a crooked stuck-in-the-past former president facing prison time and eager for a new generation of leadership."
Former President Donald J. Trump had tried several times during the debate to tie his opponent to incumbent President Joe Biden and his policies, she decided to try to make something abundantly clear. She told her opponent, “You’re not running against Joe Biden, you're running against me.”
Following are some of the more memorable moments and lines from the debate:
1. Harris, a Democrat, boasted about having support from a number of members of her opponent's party, stating that she had "the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congress member Liz Cheney.”
2. Trump was asked about his plan to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, better known as Obamacare. When asked to give specifics of a plan, he replied, “I have concepts of a plan.”
3. When Harris stated that her opponent's economic plan had been criticized by a number of leading economics, including those from the Wharton School of Economics, the former President replied, “Look, I went to the Wharton School of finance and many of those professors - the top professors - think my plan is a brilliant plan.”
4. Harris criticized the former President for his close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. She asked her opponent to “tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania” how he would address Putin's European territorial ambitions.
5. In response to an allegation from President Trump that his opponent would take away Americans' guns, Harris responded “Tim Walz and I are both gun owners.”
6. Harris accused Trump of being a laughing stock to foreign leaders, and not having their respect. In response, Trump said that he had the support of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who he called “one of the most respected men.”
7. Trump launched a personal attack on his opponent's father, saying: “Her father’s a Marxist professor in economics. And he taught her well.”
8. Trump made a reference to the 2020 Vice-Presidential debate when Harris had used this line on her then-opponent Mike Pence, after being interrupted. When Harris tried to interrupt Trump at one time, Trump quipped: “Wait a minute. I’m talking now, if you don’t mind, please. Does that sound familiar?”
9. Both candidates at times attempted to dodge questions by pivoting to another subject. For example, when Harris, was asked about her changes of opinion on a number of police issues, she began by talking about her position on fracking, but quickly shifted to talking about her middle-class upbringing, Mr. Trump’s bankruptcies and her track record of “protecting seniors from scams.”
10. At one point, Linsey Davis, one of the moderators from ABC, responded to one of Trump’s answers on abortion in which he talked about the supposed “execution” of newborn babies. She responded, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
11. In a back-and-forth over the economy, Trump said that his opponent did not have an economic plan, stating, “She copied Biden’s plan. And it’s like four sentences - like, ‘Run, Spot, Run’ - four sentences that are just, ‘Oh, we’ll try and lower taxes.’”
12. In elaborating on the threats posed by immigrants, Trump referred to a social media rumor that immigrants were eating pets in an Ohio town. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating - they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
13. When asked about the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said: “I had nothing to do with that other than they asked me to make a speech.”
14. Harris attempted to irritate Trump over his fixation with the sizes of crowds at his rallies. She said, “What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
15. Trump accused his opponent of wanting "to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.” He was referring to CNN report from 2019 that showed that Harris told the American Civil Liberties Union that she supported providing gender transition surgery to detained migrants.
16. Trump could not resist taking a swipe at his former opponent President Biden. He said that he was worried that Biden “spends all his time on the beach,” and later he asked Harris to “get him out of bed.”
17. Moderator David Muir told Trump, “I didn’t detect the sarcasm,” in response to Mr. Trump’s answer that he had been merely speaking “sarcastically” when he admitted to losing the 2020 election. Trump reiterated that he had actually won that election.
18. In response to a claim that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Trump said “My father was a Brooklyn builder. Brooklyn. Queens. And a great father. And I learned a lot from him.”
19. Harris said, “I’m going to actually do something really unusual. I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies. Because it’s a really interesting thing to watch.” She listed some common Trump digressions, like windmills and the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter, before stating, "And what you will also notice, is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. The one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.”
Trump responded by talking about himself. “First, let me respond as to the rallies,: as Harris responded by placing her right hand under her chin, grinning and looking attentive. Trump went on to say, “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.” He added, “People don’t go to her rallies - there’s no reason to go - and the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there.” Hen then launched into his claim of Haitian immigrants in Ohio abducting and feasting on their neighbors’ pets.
Following the debate, breaking with precedent, Trump said he would spin the reporters himself and went into the "spin room." Even though his campaign had dispatched advisers and spokespersons, close congressional allies and even his running mate, Trump walked into the room full of reporters less than an hour after the end of his debate. He insisted that he’d delivered a winning performance. He said, “It was the best debate I’ve ever had.” The move sucked the air out of the room and he was immediately swarmed by cameras and phones, taking attention away from the Democrats there.
The consensus among those analyzing the debate was that Harris had a better night at the debate. Even Brit Hume of Fox News said, "make no mistake, Trump had a bad night." His colleagues did not dispute this, but instead blamed ABC News, accusing the network and its debate moderators of skewing their questions to Vice President Kamala Harris’s advantage.
Martha MacCallum, who co-anchored Fox’s post-debate coverage on Tuesday night, opened by declaring that Ms. Harris had been given a free pass by the ABC moderators and “was really never held to the fire." Sean Hannity called ABC News “the biggest loser in the debate.” Laura Ingraham said, “ABC’s goal tonight was to help Kamala Harris, and ABC did help Kamala Harris.” She added, “Did Donald Trump miss a few opportunities? Absolutely.”