CNN – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off on facts, dueled on policy and traded barbs during the presidential debate hosted by ABC News on Tuesday, in which Trump also veered off on a tangent about immigrants eating pets.
Here are 27 quotes to understand what happened during their showdown in Philadelphia.
These quotes don’t cover some of the moments on both sides that included detailed factual claims, but CNN’s fact check does a good job of giving context for those.
First of all, it’s important to remind the former president: You’re not running against Joe Biden; you’re running against me. — Harris
This comes from the middle of the debate, but it is perhaps the most important line because this debate was, in every possible way, different than the one between Trump and President Joe Biden in June. That debate eventually ended Biden’s reelection campaign. This one gave Harris an opportunity to laugh at Trump, tell him he was weak and get under his skin in multiple ways.
In this debate tonight, you’re going to hear from the same old, tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling. — Harris
Harris on multiple occasions accused Trump of lying. He also said she lied about his positions, including on Project 2025, the conservative policy plan hatched by his allies but which he said he hasn’t read.
She doesn’t have a plan. She copied Biden’s plan, and it’s like four sentences like, ‘Run Spot, Run.’ — Trump
He’s talking here about Harris’ “opportunity economy” plan, but it is a line, replete with insult, that expresses Trump’s theme for the night – which was to tie Harris to Biden and also make her appear to be too willing to change her policy proposals.
She has no policy. Everything that she believed three years ago and four years ago is out the window. She’s going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat. — Trump
Another example came during a discussion about tariffs. The Biden administration kept some Trump tariffs imposed on China, but Harris opposes Trump’s plan to impose new tariffs on all foreign goods.
Later, during a heated exchange on abortion, Trump repeated the false claim that Democrats want to allow abortions to occur in the ninth month of pregnancy. The following was part of Harris’ response:
Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to the women of America. — Harris
Harris also made an argument about abortion rights and freedom:
One 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. — Harris
Trump tried to argue that by appointing “genius” Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, he united the country and gave voice back to the states – where voters, when given the opportunity, have largely supported abortion rights.
Ohio, the vote was somewhat liberal. Kansas, the vote was somewhat liberal, much more liberal than people would have thought. But each individual state is voting. It’s the vote of the people now. It’s not tied up in the federal government. I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it. — Trump
Of course, in many other states, abortion rights have been severely curtailed. The fact that the states have such different laws suggests the country is not united like he said.
In a separate exchange, Trump tried to make a point about an influx of undocumented migrants by repeating an apparently false story about migrants eating dogs and cats in a town in Ohio. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has admitted it probably wasn’t true. Responding, Harris said:
This is, I think, one of the reasons why in this election, I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formerly worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain, including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congress member Liz Cheney. — Harris
She added that many of Trump’s former aides and people who worked in his administration have also warned he should not return to the White House.
I fired most of those people. Not so graciously. They did bad things or a bad job. — Trump
Trump complained that many of the people who worked for him who now oppose him, like former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, have gone on to write books about their experiences.
Harris was asked if she took any responsibility for the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the death of 13 US service members at Abbey Gate outside the airport in Kabul. She instead defended the decision to withdraw:
I will tell you, I agreed with President Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan. Four presidents said they would, and Joe Biden did. — Harris
Trump acknowledged that his administration negotiated with the Taliban to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan. But he said he would have done things differently than Biden after Trump struck an agreement with the Taliban.
The agreement was, was terminated by us because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do. And these people did the worst withdrawal, and in my opinion, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. And by the way, that’s why Russia attacked Ukraine, because they saw how incompetent she and her boss are. — Trump
Harris mocked Trump’s foreign policy and repeatedly called him “weak.” After Trump argued that Harris hates both Israel and Palestinians, she said this:
He’s trying to, again, divide and distract from the reality, which is, it is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy. It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one, according to himself. — Harris
She added:
It is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they’re so clear, they can manipulate you with flattery and favors. — Harris
Trump then went on to heap praise on Viktor Orban, the autocrat who leads Hungary and who Trump has hosted at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Look, Viktor Orban said it. He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. — Trump
The fear he inspired in world leaders, Trump said, made the world a safer place during his presidency.
In another exchange, Harris invited people to attend a Trump rally, in a clear attempt to get under his skin:
What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your, your desires. And I’ll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. — Harris
Trump strongly disagreed:
People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. — Trump
Trump also repeatedly said Harris would end fracking in Pennsylvania and take away people’s guns. She repeatedly said that no, she would not end fracking, and argued the US can both have fracking and fight climate change, something sure to anger environmentalists.
And on guns, she interrupted her own answer about Obamacare to say this:
This business about taking everyone’s guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. — Harris
The issue that Trump kept returning to was immigration, and his theory, for which there is no evidence, that Democrats are bringing migrants to the US on purpose.
They allowed criminals. Many, many millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in, drug dealers, to come into our country … And I think they probably did it because they think they’re going to get votes. But it’s not worth it. Because they’re destroying the fabric of our country by what they’ve done. — Trump
Trump said migrants are behind a spike in crime. When one of the debate moderators pointed out FBI data that shows overall violent crime is falling, Trump said the data is false. Moments later, Harris answered this way:
I think this is so rich. Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault, and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing. — Harris
Trump’s legal problems do not suggest a respect for the rule of law, she said. Trump argued the justice system has been weaponized against him.
I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy; (they say) I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy, with the fake Russia, Russia, Russia investigation that went nowhere. — Trump
That was a nod to the Russia investigation from Trump’s White House term, which seems like so long ago.
Harris argued several times it’s time to “turn the page” to a new generation and a president who builds people up rather than insults and tears them down. But she was not above slipping an insult into a point about home ownership:
I grew up a middle-class kid raised by a hard-working mother who worked and saved and was able to buy our first home when I was a teenager. The values I bring to the importance of homeownership, knowing not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times, is a value that I bring to my work. — Harris
Trump is also proud of his background:
First of all, I wasn’t given $400 million. I wish I was. My father was a Brooklyn builder – Brooklyn, Queens – and a great father, and I learned a lot from him. But I was given a fraction of that, a tiny fraction, and I built it into many, many billions of dollars. Many, many billions. And when people see it, they are even surprised. — Trump
Separately, Trump said he still does not accept his 2020 election loss and, despite all the evidence and all of his failures in court litigating the results, he still thinks there is evidence of voter fraud. While he doesn’t understand why people who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have been targeted by prosecutors, he also doesn’t feel like he has anything to do with the insurrection:
I had nothing to do with that, other than they asked me to make a speech. — Trump
Trump was also asked about his recent comments that Harris “happened to turn Black” a few years ago. One of the debate moderators asked if Trump thinks it’s appropriate to comment on the racial identity of his opponent.
I don’t. And I don’t care. I don’t care what she is. I don’t care. You make a big deal out of something. I couldn’t care less. — Trump
Harris, on the other hand, said Trump has a history of trying to divide the country around race. She pointed out he argued the Central Park Five – Black and Latino boys falsely accused of rape in the late 1980s – should be executed and that he questioned former President Barack Obama’s citizenship.
We all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those, not in hate and division. — Harris
Trump is adamant there is election fraud even though there is no evidence of any widespread conspiracy. He repeatedly points out he got the vote of nearly 75 million people in 2020, suggesting it’s not possible he could have lost.
We need two things. We need walls. We need – and we have to have it. We have to have borders. And we have to have good elections. Our elections are bad. — Trump
Harris returned to the 2020 election later and said the votes for Trump were not enough.
Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So, let’s be clear about that. And clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that. — Harris
Source: CNN
