Just 56 days away from the November 5th election, the two presidential candidates met face-to-face in their first, and potentially only, debate of the 2024 campaign season. Virtually tied in the polls, both candidates sought to define their campaigns and policies while speaking directly to the American public. Vice President Harris and Former President Donald Trump took a range of questions on key issues like immigration, inflation, and abortion rights.
Trump made several claims about immigration while attacking Harris and Biden’s current immigration policies which Trump believes are destroying towns across the country. Specifically, Trump referenced a theory shared publicly by his Vice-Presidential nominee, JD Vance, that claimed Haitian migrants in Springfield Ohio were “eating the pets of the people that live there.” Local police have since debunked this theory.
Donald Trump also falsely claimed that migrants have raised crime rates across the country. However, according to research from Stanford University, immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than people born within the United States. These claims are the latest examples of Trump leaning into far-right, anti-immigrant rhetoric which have since incited threats of violence in Springfield, Ohio.
Vice President Harris repeatedly tried to bait Donald Trump insinuating he was out of touch by saying that people tend to leave his rallies early, “out of boredom and pure exhaustion.” She also painted him as a bad businessman for inheriting nearly $400 million and then filing for bankruptcy six times. Harris reiterated over and over that she had a plan for the country, whereas Donald Trump only had, “concepts of a plan,” when it comes to replacing the Affordable Care Act.
Later in the debate, Trump claimed that his administration saw “virtually no inflation,” and blamed Biden alone for the sharp price increases over the last three years. However, inflation was beginning to pick up towards the end of the Trump administration largely due to COVID-19-related disruptions that continued into 2021 under the Biden administration.
On the other hand, Vice President Harris said that Donald Trump had left us with the worst unemployment rate since the great depression. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate surged to 14.8% in April 2020, the highest level since 1948, according to the Congressional Research Service. By the time Biden took office, the unemployment rate had decreased to 6.3%, though it remained relatively high.
During the debate, Trump claimed, “You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month, and probably after birth.” ABC News anchor Linsey Davis quickly corrected Donald Trump that there was no state where it was legal to kill a baby after birth. According to the Pew Research Center, 93% of abortions take place during the first trimester. Currently, fourteen states have total abortion bans, nineteen states ban abortion after eighteen weeks, and eight states ban abortion before eighteen weeks. Abortion has become a key issue across the nation since the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe V. Wade in 2022.
At another point during the debate, the controversial Project 2025 was brought up by Vice President Kamala Harris. Project 2025 is a conservative manifesto that would abolish federal agencies, restrict healthcare programs like Medicaid, ban the shipment of abortion pills, and block climate change research. Although this document has been written and published by many of his former colleagues, Former President Trump claims that he has nothing to do with Project 2025.
Vice President Harris delivered a competent performance that made Donald Trump’s outlandish claims about winning the 2020 election, President Biden, and immigration, to name a few, glaringly clear. With 48 days until the election, both candidates will continue on the campaign trail seeking to define themselves amidst the sudden dropout of President Biden and an increasingly violent political scene. Voters in Georgia have less than four weeks to register to vote by the October 7th deadline and early voting begins on October 15th.
