So let's now welcome the candidates to the stage. Kamala Harris. Donald Trump has been in numerous presidential debates, but this is the first presidential debate that Kamala Harris has been in. And I think millions of Americans were watching to see how she would perform without a teleprompter, without notes, without aides by her side. Donald Trump was fired by 80 million people. So let's be clear about that, and clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that. Early on in the debate, Vice President Harris set a trap for Donald Trump when she brought up out of thin air this idea that people were leaving his rallies early because they were so bored with the things he was saying. You will see during the course of his rallies, 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. This wasn't in response to a question.

It was just something that she kind of planted there because she knows that Donald Trump cannot take any allegation about his crowd sizes and move on. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. He was a little bit more all over the place, and it prevented him from attacking her on a range of issues where he might have had the forehand, from, you know, immigration to the economy. Donald Trump probably had his most effective attack lines of the night when he was talking about the positions that Harris has changed over the course of her political career. Fracking. She's been against it for 12 years. Defund the police. She's been against that forever. She gave all that stuff up very wrongly, very horribly, and everybody's laughing at it. The fracking issue is a huge one in Pennsyl, where this debate was held, because big parts of Western Pennsylvania, this accounts for a lot of jobs.

And so he was pretty effective in going right at her and saying that these are positions she's changed in the past and how do we know that she's not going to change her position again? During the course of the debate. Conservatives were screaming that the moderators from ABC were unfair to former President Trump on a number of occasions, but not too many occasions, but quite notably several, the moderators corrected him, fact-checked him in real time. 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. And this is what's happening in our country. I just want to clarify here. You bring up Springfield, Ohio and ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. Uh He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigration community. These were statements that Trump has made repeatedly that have been

fact-checked many times as not being true. So, they didn't kind of wade into something that was maybe more, you know, a gray area, but still, it was notable how it happened, and many conservatives, even some lawmakers, were alarmed. One other key point in the night was when both candidates were asked about what they would do to resolve the conflict in the Middle East. We must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination, and the dignity they so rightly deserve. I will get that settled and fast, and I'll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended. If I'm president-elect, I'll get it done before even becoming president. This is not an easy issue, obviously, but neither of them would lay forth a plan about what they would do to have this behind them. Harris talked about how she wanted to help families. She kept talking about this opportunity economy, which is, you know,

kind of a buzz phrase that Democrats are using, but there weren't a lot of specific new policies. There was one point when former President Trump was pressed on his approach to replacing the Affordable Care Act. I'm not President right now. But if we come up with something, I would only change it if we come up with something that's better and less expensive. And there are concepts and options. We, we have to do that and you'll be hearing about it in the not too distant future. Former President Trump brought forward a lot of the ideas that he's had in the past. He wants to raise tariffs. He wants to shut down the border between the US and Mexico. They are popular ideas with his base and the fact that he's going to stick to these ideas and continue to push for them and drive them home, that is the kind of consistent message that a lot of Republicans and conservatives and independents want to hear. The debate at the end of June between Biden and Trump was a disaster for Biden and knocked him

out of the race. Harris cannot afford to have a bad debate. So many Americans do not know her, do not really understand what her policies are. And if she kind of fumbled her way through the evening, it could have been the end of her candidacy as well. So we learned that she can hold her own, that she can go toe to toe with former president Trump for 90 minutes, whether she did enough to win over independent voters, whether she did enough to kind of uh assure people in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, that she's the one that will take the country where it needs to go in the future. It's unclear.

Trump vs. Harris, Analyzed: Fiery Debate Puts Former President on Defense | WSJ

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