Millions of viewers in the US watched Kamala Harris and Donald Trump duel for the first time, during a 90-minute debate broadcast live on ABC News on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others are waking up to the aftermath of the presidential showdown. In case you missed the televised spectacle, here are the some of the highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they walked out, Harris strode across the stage to Trump as he approached his podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Kamala Harris,” she said, offering a handshake as the pair met for the first time ever. \u201cLet\u2019s have a good debate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNice to see you. Have fun,\u201d the former Republican president said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the first handshake in a presidential debate in eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harris spent the majority of the debate looking directly at her opponent, often smirking, laughing out loud, or shaking her head incredulously while he answered questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The split screen showed Trump staring mostly straight ahead as she spoke, while occasionally shaking his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vice-President Harris, a Democrat, went on the offensive from the outset, goading her Republican rival and assailing him over his criminal trials and his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also accused her opponent of consistently using the issue of race to “divide the American people”. The barb followed a question from the moderators about one recent attack in which he said Harris had “become a black person”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump turned the subject repeatedly back to inflation and immigration, political vulnerabilities for Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He argued that the Biden-Harris administration had \u201cdestroyed\u201d the country, and labelled her a “Marxist”, nodding to her father, a professor of economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harris poked fun at crowd sizes at his rallies. “People start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump hit back: \u201cPeople don\u2019t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one stage, when Harris interrupted Trump, he said: “I’m talking now. Does that sound familiar?” He was referring to a similar riposte she made in a 2020 vice-presidential debate against Mike Pence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, as Harris spoke over him, Trump said: \u201cQuiet please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump also blamed heated Democratic rhetoric for the assassination attempt against him in July by a gunman whose motives are unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they said about me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the hours before the debate, social media was filled with reports of unsubstantiated claims – repeated by JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been stealing pets and eating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite city officials telling the BBC there are no credible reports to support these claims, Trump brought up the matter in the debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. This is a shame,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Talk about extreme,” Harris said of her rival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of Harris\u2019s most aggressive attacks on Trump came as they clashed on abortion, one of the biggest issues for Democrats since the US Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to the procedure in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government – and Donald Trump, certainly – should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said Trump would “sign an abortion ban” if re-elected and cited conservative states that prohibit the procedure while allowing limited exceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, for whom the issue is a political liability, countered: “What she says is an absolute lie. I am not in favour of an abortion ban.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump reiterated that he supports exceptions for cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point Trump claimed that some babies were being subjected to \u201cexecutions\u201d after birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the ABC moderators interceded to fact-check him, saying: \u201cThere is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it\u2019s born.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump said Harris had no policies, accusing her of copying some of his own ideas on the campaign trial and that he was “going to send her a Maga hat”, while also arguing she would be no different from President Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe has no policy,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRemember this, she is Biden,\u201d he said at another point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harris countered: \u201cClearly, I am not Joe Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, who while president tried to overturn to Obamacare, was asked what would be his plan now to replace the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he had “concepts of a plan” that would be “something that’s better”, if elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the economy, an issue that opinion polls show favours Trump, Harris repeatedly stated: “I have a plan.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the exchange that followed Harris’s insistence that she had a plan for the economy, Trump sought to depict his rival as a radical liberal who was also opposed to gun ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: “She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everyone’s guns. She has a plan to ban fracking in Pennsylvania and everywhere else.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harris denied all this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“[Running mate] Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” she said. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She has spoken of her gun ownership in the past – but is a supporter of tougher laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Editor:msserwanga@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Millions of viewers in the US watched Kamala Harris and Donald Trump duel for the first time, during a 90-minute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/a20c8830-6fec-11ef-b634-1dba200320b8.jpg.webp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12752,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/fact-checking-kamala-harriss-first-campaign-interview\/","url_meta":{"origin":12810,"position":0},"title":"Fact-checking Kamala Harris\u2019s first campaign interview","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"September 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has given her first interview since entering the race - a joint conversation alongside running mate Tim Walz. 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