This election year is historic for a number of reasons, including a second shot at the first female President of the United States being elected. After President Joe Biden stepped out of the presidential race on July 21, following concerns about his mental acuity after his June 27 debate with former president Donald Trump, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him.
After a volatile series of events after this, including Trump refusing to debate Harris and continuously pushing back the date of their debate, they finally set a date: Sept. 10. Now, as this day quickly arrived, I sat myself in front of the television at 9 p.m. sharp, prepared myself for a series of interruptions, evasive language, and underdeveloped plans and promises, and, of course, the debate delivered.
Although stated from the beginning that the candidates’ microphones would be cut if they attempted to respond to one another or cut the other off, this proved to be false as Trump, on numerous occasions, cut off the debate moderators, addressed Harris directly, and even interrupted Harris at points to defend himself. From the beginning of the debate, it was clear that both sides had a set goal in mind for how the debate would go, and while Harris was well-spoken and prepared, it was made obvious that many of her responses and wordings were used to bait Trump into becoming angry and less rational in his thoughts.
Trump, on the other hand, made a series of claims that held no factual background or evidence, including stating that the Ukrainian and Russian war is because of Harris’s failed negotiation attempts three days before Russia invaded Ukraine, while also stating that if he had rightly won the 2020 election, that both the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Palestinian and Israeli conflict would never have begun. These bold claims with no concrete evidence to back them up made many of Trump’s overall arguments weaker, and although he spoke a lot, he didn’t mention many specific plans or direction for what he would do if he won beyond saying that all of the issues of the Biden administration would be solved.
Among these claims Trump made about Harris, some included that she hated Israel, Jewish people, and Arabs, a statement likely made to persuade many on-the-fence voters over Harris’s stance on the conflict in Gaza. Due to the voters that were looking for this response from her, many younger voters calling for a cease-fire, this response was one of the most important of the night for Harris and an answer that voters have been waiting to hear her speak on.
She handled the subject delicately while stating that although Hamas was the original perpetrator and a terrorist organization and Israel had a right to defend itself, they didn’t necessarily go about it in the correct manner. In this response, she highlighted the effects on civilians in both countries with a specific emphasis on women; she stated that the best outcome of the situation was a two-state agreement and that the Gaza Strip should belong definitively to one state. This statement will likely appeal to pro-Palestinian voters who want Palestine to remain intact, while also sympathizing with Israel as to their right to defend themselves; however, it is a hard line to walk in this conflict where she can’t simultaneously support both sides, and as it gets closer to the election, voters will likely want to see a more definitive response and course of action from her.
The other main issue of Harris’s campaign is Roe v. Wade and the national ban on abortion that is proposed as a part of Project 2025. Harris provided a poignant argument that was made more personal, mentioning assault and incest cases that resulted in pregnancy and how these victims shouldn’t be forced to carry the child to term while tying in her overarching point of how the government shouldn’t have the right to control women’s bodies. In response to this, Trump started talking about how abortion is equivalent to execution and whether it would be moral to kill a baby after it was born or to abort the fetus in the 7th, 8th, and even 9th month of pregnancy. These points were made to target Harris’s argument about the morality of abortion and to bring attention to whether or not her morality is outstretched to the fetus as well as the mother.
As this issue isn’t a primary concern for many Trump supporters and voters, he didn’t touch on the subject much and mostly steered the conversation toward Harris’s uncertain stance on it throughout past years. Some critical issues for him coming into the debate were illegal immigration and fracking. Illegal immigration and border control are, without a doubt, the crux of Trump’s campaign, and he uses this debate to mention Harris’s infraction in dealing with border control and convicting illegal immigrants in her time as a prosecutor and district attorney. In response, Harris brought up a bill that she signed previously that would have provided 1,500 more workers at the United States-Mexico border and a plan to deport illegal immigrants that Trump himself ultimately vetoed. He didn’t have much defense to this and instead turned the conversation to fracking, as the debate occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where it’s most prevalent.
Trump’s stance on fracking was that Harris would work to outlaw it and that she was directly against it, which he stated multiple times throughout the debate, often when it wasn’t relevant to the topic. Harris responded to this each time by simply saying that she had no plans to pass any bills outlawing it and that although her opinion on it hadn’t changed, she would not enforce any policies on it.
By far, the most concerning point for Trump in the debate was the comparison of him to a dictator. In the past months, it’s been a concern that Trump worked closely with Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, Kim Jong Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, and Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary. All of these leaders are similar or are dictators and harsh leaders in their respective countries, and the comparison of them to Trump has brought up many concerns about what Trump sees as the future of America and whether he is steering our society toward an autocratic government where he holds supreme power. This concern was only increased when, during the debate, Trump stated that Orbán, who he holds in high regard as intelligent and powerful, had backed him as a candidate and supposedly noted that Trump was the most powerful and feared man in America.
Trump is still backing the claim that the 2020 election was falsified while deflecting from blame about the Jan. 6 insurrection and switching between calling those present patriotic and unfairly convicted while also stating he knew nothing about the situation.
Despite this, both candidates evaded questions a multitude of times, using different tactics to do so. Overall, it is much more noticeable when Trump avoids a question, somewhat because people expect him to, but also because of his cadence of speech and how he speaks, which naturally sounds like circumventing questions. He also tends to go on unrelated tangents about things that aren’t related to the initial question, which makes it hard to follow his train of thought and overall point.
Harris, on the other hand, evaded questions multiple times throughout the debate but did it in a way that still made her answers come across as divisive and concise. For example, when asked if she had any regrets about what occurred when they pulled the military presence out of Afghanistan, she simply stated that she fully backed Biden’s decision and that despite four presidents saying that they would pull out of Afghanistan, Biden was the only one to follow through. She led this into a point about preventing conflicts in the future, keeping the focus on America itself, and solving external conflicts as president, and while all of these are well-educated and spoken points, none answer the main question about her regrets in the situation and if she feels she holds any responsibility for the loss of military equipment.
Both candidates delivered well-thought-out and conducted points and arguments with loosely made plans for the future. As the months leading up to the election continue to dwindle, the cruxes of both candidates’ platforms will become more critical. On Oct. 1, J.D. Vance and Tim Walz will debate, likely following a similar list of topics and plans as the presidential debate. Although not all plans have been explicitly stated yet, and there’s still plenty of time for the election to be changed, it is clear that this will be a close race.
