Kamala Harris savaged Donald Trump as "extreme"
and the friend of dictators, while the Republican branded her a
"Marxist" in a bitter televised debate Tuesday that poured fuel on an
already explosive US presidential election.
On hot-button issues ranging from abortion and race to the
fate of US democracy, the two held their first -- and possibly only -- debate
ahead of the November 5 election, with each hoping for a breakthrough in an
agonizingly close race.
Trump, who only a few weeks ago had believed himself to be
cruising to victory, reacted to pressure from Harris by raising his voice and
resorting to the kinds of colorful invective and often meandering insults that
he uses at his rallies.
Harris, 59, responded by looking on in amusement, then
clearly got under his skin, declaring that she represents a fresh start after
the "mess" of the Trump presidency -- and saying: "We're not
going back."
The ABC News debate began when the Democratic vice president
unexpectedly approached the Republican former president to shake his hand,
before they took to their lecterns in the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia.
Then the niceties ended.
Within minutes, 78-year-old Trump called her a
"Marxist" and also falsely claimed that she and President Joe Biden
had allowed "millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and
jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums."
Harris pointed out that Trump is a convicted felon, called
him "extreme" and said it is "a tragedy" that throughout
his career he had used "race to divide the American people."
One of their most jarring exchanges was on Trump's
unprecedented refusal to accept losing to Biden in the 2020 election, before
trying to overturn the result.
In front of the audience expected to run into the tens of
millions of voters, Trump doubled down, insisting there is "so much
proof" that he really won.
Harris turned to Trump and said that his own former security
officials in the White House have called him a "disgrace."
"World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump," she
said.
Trump would "give up" Ukraine to Russian leader
Vladimir Putin, "a dictator who would eat you for lunch," she
charged. "Dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president
again."
Another intense exchange was on abortion.
Trump insisted that while having pushed for the end of the
federal right to abortion, he wanted individual states to make their own
policy.
Harris said he was telling a "bunch of lies" and
called his policies "insulting to the women of America."
- Harris mocks Trump rallies -
The last presidential debate in June doomed Biden's
reelection campaign, after he delivered a catastrophic performance against
Trump. Harris took over as nominee amid Democratic fears that Biden was too old
and infirm to defeat the scandal-plagued Republican.
Harris has earned a reputation in past debates and while
serving as a US senator for ice-cold put-downs and tough questions.
Her five days of intensive preparation appeared to pay off
against Trump, perhaps the most brutal public speaker in American politics.
Trump has long defied political gravity by seeming
invulnerable to usual attacks.
He has been convicted of falsifying business records to
cover up an affair with an adult film star, found liable for sexual abuse, and
faces trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
But Harris clearly needled him on one of his favorite, if
less serious topics -- his trademark rallies.
Attendees, she said, prompting an angry retort, were leaving
early out of "exhaustion and boredom."
At another moment where Trump appeared to be losing his
cool, he talked at length about a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian
immigrants have been eating local people's pets in Ohio.
"They're eating the dogs, the people that came in,
they're eating the cats," he said before being corrected by the ABC News
moderator that the authorities in the town of Springfield have said this did
not happen.
With only 56 days left before the election, the intense
spotlight was a rare opportunity for both candidates to shift the balance in
what polls show is an almost evenly split contest.
And the debate was a key chance for Harris to introduce
herself to more voters after only jumping into the race less than eight weeks
ago, when 81-year-old Biden abruptly quit.
