Italian
The vice president provokes the Republican candidate in an event that shows how the dynamics of the race have changed since Biden’s withdrawal.
USA – Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a strong and incisive accusation against Republican candidate Donald Trump during yesterday’s free debate, criticizing the former president’s character and his obsession with himself, while pressing him on issues such as abortion, democracy, and foreign policy.
Trump used the event to attack Harris, calling her a “Marxist” pretending to be moderate, and repeatedly shifted the conversation to the southern border of the United States, an issue on which polls show voters trust him more than Harris, often straying from facts to embrace debunked conspiracy theories about immigration and the 2020 election.
Both arrived at their first debate, hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, ready for a clash after weeks of mutual attacks throughout the campaign trail. Harris launched precise attacks, while Trump often strayed from the message in response to her attempts to provoke him on sensitive topics such as the size of his rallies, his 2020 election loss, and his admiration for authoritarian leaders.
“In tonight’s debate, you will hear the same old tired script, a series of lies, grievances, and insults,” Harris said at the beginning of the debate, one of several moments where she preferred to address the audience rather than her opponent. A few minutes later, she added, “Donald Trump actually doesn’t have a plan for you because he’s more interested in defending himself than in taking care of you.”
Trump dismissed the statement as a mere “slogan” and continued to accuse Harris of misleading the public about his positions. “Everything she believed three years ago is gone—now she’s following my philosophy,” Trump said. “In fact, I was about to send her a MAGA hat.”
Harris managed to make the Democratic case against Trump—who is self-centered, unfit, and consumed by his own interests—in a way that President Joe Biden struggled to do in the last debate. Her performance, and Trump’s often frustrated reaction, highlighted how the dynamics of the race have changed since Biden’s withdrawal.
Trump accused the Biden administration of being responsible for inflation, rising crime, and illegal immigration.
In one of the most heated exchanges of the evening, Harris and Trump clashed over abortion, each portraying the other as holding extreme positions. Harris accused Trump of being responsible for the worst consequences of abortion bans stemming from the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, blaming him for women who “bleed to death” in parking lots.
Roe v. Wade was a landmark Supreme Court ruling issued on January 22, 1973, that legalized abortion nationwide. The Court held, in a 7-2 decision, that the right to privacy, established by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, includes a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. This ruling struck down many state laws that banned or severely restricted abortion.
Trump argued that “it took courage” to overturn Roe v. Wade and claimed that “every legal scholar” wanted abortion policy to be left to individual states.
Harris spoke passionately about the need for the government to stay out of decisions regarding women’s bodies. However, she did not directly answer whether she supported restrictions on abortion, instead stating that she supports restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade.
