Trump's Debate With Harris

A series of presidential debates were held during the 2024 presidential election. Three debates in total were held during the election season. The first general election debate between the major candidates was sponsored by CNN and attended by then-presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and then-presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on June27, 2024. Biden was widely considered to have performed poorly during the first debate, with many commentators and Democrats calling for him to drop out of the race. He ultimately withdrew his bid for re-election on July21. A second debate, which was sponsored by ABC, was held on September10 between Trump and Kamala Harris. A vice presidential debate, which was sponsored by CBS, was held on October 1 between JD Vance and Tim Walz.

Four general election debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) were originally scheduled to be held between September16 and October9, 2024. Both Biden and Trump opposed the CPD's debate format and schedule. In May 2024, both campaigns agreed to bypass the CPD and hold the alternative debates, canceling the CPD debates.

Background

Commission on Presidential Debates

In April 2022, the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted unanimously to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD); committee chair Ronna McDaniel called the organization "biased" and stated that they would find "newer, better debate platforms" for future Republican nominees. This announcement came after years of tension between the organizations, including a threat made earlier in the year by the RNC to change its rules to prohibit nominees from participating in CPD debates. In response, the commission stated that " tsplans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues".

Former president Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, did not attend any primary debates, describing them as unnecessary to his campaign and claiming unfair treatment by organizers. The DNC did not support hosting any official primary debates, and Biden did not participate in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums unsanctioned by the DNC. Trump has previously accused the CPD of unfair treatment in the 2016 and 2020 debates. Despite this, Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier in a June 2023 interview that he was interested in debating incumbent president Joe Biden should he become the Democratic nominee. At that time, Biden had not committed to attending the debate either, as his campaign was also in conflict with the commission for failing to enforce its rules against Trump, though in April 2024 he confirmed he planned to debate Trump.

Biden and Trump became the presumptive nominees of their respective parties in March 2024, setting up the first presidential rematch since 1956. On April 14, 2024, a number of major news organizations signed an open letter to the presumptive nominees urging them to attend the debates, arguing for its "rich tradition in our American democracy" and that the "exceptionally high" stakes require debates to be held. Signatories include ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, and Fox News, among others.

If either major party nominee chooses not to attend a general election debate, it would be the second consecutive time its happened, the first being the 2020 debates, when President Trump refused to attend the second debate with Biden because it would have been virtual rather than in person following Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis. It previously occurred in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter refused to attend the first debate with Ronald Reagan due to the presence of independent candidate John B. Anderson.

Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, campaign managers for Trump, had pushed for more debates to be held by the CPD, in addition to holding them earlier than the planned September date, though the commission refused to accede. Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump confirmed his intention to cooperate with the CPD repeatedly and challenged Biden to debate "anywhere, anytime, anyplace".

The CPD announced the schedule for its four debates on November 20, 2023. All debates would have started at 9 p.m. ET and would have run for 90 minutes uninterrupted. In order to qualify for the CPD-sponsored debates, presidential candidates would have needed to meet the following criteria: (vice presidential candidates would have qualified by being the running mate of a qualifying presidential candidate)
* Be constitutionally eligible to hold the presidency.
* Appear on a sufficient number of ballots to have a mathematical possibility of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College.
* Have a level of support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five national public opinion polling organizations selected by the commission, using the average of those organizations' most recently reported results at the time of determination.

On June 24, 2024, the CPD announced that it was releasing the sites it had selected for its 2024 debates from their contracts, adding that "CPD stands ready to sponsor 2024 debates should circumstances change."

Biden–Trump alternative debates

On May 15, 2024, the Biden campaign announced that it would not participate in the CPD-hosted debates and instead invited Trump to participate in two alternative debates to take place in June and September, each hosted in a TV news studio without an audience. Jen O'Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign manager, laid out three reasons for sidelining the CPD, indicating that the debates were not completed until early voting started, that the debates had become "a spectacle" and that the CPD could not "enforce its own rules". Frank Fahrenkopf, the head of the CPD, pushed back against the claims in an interview with ''Politico'', indicating that the September 16 debate date was the best date, as the "key date" to secure ballot access for independents is September 6. Fahrenkopf also noted that the general election debates are "not like the primary debates" and that Trump himself had not followed the debate rules during the 2020 general election debate moderated by Chris Wallace. Biden and Trump accepted an offer from CNN to hold the first of these debates on June 27 and from ABC to hold the second on September 10.

Trump indicated the same day that he had accepted a Fox News debate to be hosted on October 2, 2024, though the Biden campaign dismissed the prospect of a third debate. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused the two candidates of colluding to exclude him from televised debates "because they are afraid I would win"; both CNN and ABC had decided on eligibility criteria that were similar to those that had been used by the CPD, with Kennedy not appearing on a sufficient number of state ballots at that time. The Biden campaign had unsuccessfully proposed that third-party candidates be excluded from the debates. A May poll taken by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies/Harris indicated that 71% of the people surveyed were in favor of allowing a third-party candidate to debate. Kennedy's campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, maintaining that neither Biden nor Trump meet the ballot access threshold as they have not been nominated by their parties.

Trump announced on May 17 that he would be willing to hold another debate with Biden that would be hosted by NBC News and Telemundo.

On July 9, Trump challenged Biden to a debate with no moderators that would be done that week, as well as an 18-hole golf match.

Debate list

June 27: First presidential debate (CNN, Atlanta)

The first presidential debate of the 2024 general election was held on Thursday, June 27, 2024, when Joe Biden debated Donald Trump.

American writer and political consultant Tim Miller called Biden's performance the "worst performance in the history of televised presidential debates", a sentiment also shared by Jeff Greenfield of ''Politico'' and NewsNation chief political analyst Chris Stirewalt. Journalist Jake Sherman reported that several congressional Democrats thought that Biden "didn't even clear the lowest bar", and that Biden was not even able to articulate what his policies are even if they agreed on them. Some Democrats were unsure whether he should continue his campaign and be the Democratic nominee. CNN's chief national correspondent John King reported that there was "a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic" in the Democratic Party that started a few minutes into the debate. During the debate, unnamed elected officials, party strategists, and fundraisers were reported to have discussed replacing Biden as the party's candidate due to fears about him potentially hurting other Democrats' public perceptions, and deciding if prominent Democrats should make a public statement about asking Biden to step down.

Democratic Party response

President Biden stated to reporters at a Waffle House after the debate: "I think we did well" and said he did not have any concerns about his performance or calls for him to drop out of the presidential race, stating that it was difficult to debate "a liar." Biden was congratulated by his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, on his performance at a post-debate gathering. She told him on stage that he did "such a great job. You answered every question." Biden's running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, claimed that while Biden "started off slow", he still managed to have a strong finish. Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon praised Biden's debate performance, saying that he presented a "positive and winning vision" for the future.

Calls for President Biden to drop out

On December 23, 2023, Democratic U.S. Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota argued while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president that Biden should "thoughtfully exit" the 2024 presidential race. Democrats such as Julian Castro and Phillips had hurt their careers for publicly saying that Biden was too old before the debate, but immediately following the debate, some in the party began calling for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Democratic strategist James Carville and former 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate Andrew Yang were the first notable Democrats to make those calls. On July 2, 2024, U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to publicly call for Biden to step aside as the party's nominee after the debate. He was joined by various Congressmembers in the following days. On July 7, four more House Democrats called for Biden to exit the race during a private call, including Adam Smith, Jerry Nadler, Mark Takano, and Joe Morelle. Smith went on the record the following day and called for Biden to withdraw.

Biden stated in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos on July 5 that he would not end his candidacy. The president again refused to drop out on July 8. That day Biden appeared on ''Morning Joe'' on MSNBC by telephone, advising the "elites in the party" against his nomination to "run against me. Announce for president. Challenge me at the convention". He sent a letter to Congressional Democrats before ''Morning Joe'' explaining his decision, stating that "The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it's time for it to end". In an attempt to show voters and Democratic politicians that he was capable of facing Donald Trump in the 2024 election, he held a solo press conference on July 11, 2024, following the NATO 2024 Washington summit.

Biden suspended his re-election campaign on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

On August 3, the ''Minnesota Star Tribune'' reported that 2024 Democratic presidential primary challenger Representative Dean Phillips said, “If people write anything, I just hope that they might write if idenhad debated me then and he had been on one stage, unscripted, with a national audience, and he demonstrated that decline then, this would have been very different circumstances.” He continued, “And that’s what I was trying to do.”

September 10: Second presidential debate (ABC, Philadelphia)

The second presidential debate was held on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. EDT at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Prelude

The Biden and Trump campaigns had agreed to a September 10 debate hosted by ABC, but after Biden suspended his re-election campaign, it became unclear whether Trump would debate a new rival candidate. In late July, after Harris secured enough support to become the presumptive nominee, Trump said he would debate her repeatedly, though he said he preferred not to do so on ABC.
Fox News extended invitations to Harris and Trump for a proposed debate to place on September 17 in Pennsylvania. Harris indicated on July 25 she was willing to debate Trump on ABC. Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, remarked the same day that the Trump campaign would not commit to any debate until the Democratic Party formally nominated its candidate. On August 2, Trump stated that the planned September 10 debate (hosted by ABC News) would be "terminated" since Biden would no longer be a participant and instead he had "agreed with Fox News" to a September 4 debate with a live audience, which Harris never accepted. In an August 8 press conference, Trump announced he would rejoin the September 10 debate, though he made it contingent on Harris agreeing to two other proposed debates, stating that if Harris only agrees to the ABC debate, "I don't know how that's gonna work out. We'd like to do three debates."

Harris and Trump verbally sparred over attending the debates. On August 15, the Harris campaign said a second debate would be contingent on Trump "actually showing up" to the September 10 debate. On August 27, Trump recommitted to the September 10 debate.

Qualifications

In order to qualify for the September 10 ABC debate, presidential candidates needed to meet the following criteria:
* Be constitutionally eligible to hold the presidency
* File with the Federal Election Commission
* Appear on a sufficient number of ballots to have a mathematical possibility of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College
* Agree to the rules of the debate
* Have a level of support of at least 15% in four national public polls of registered or likely voters selected by ABC, with such polls dating between August 1 and September 3, 2024.

Harris and Trump were invited to the debate in early August.

Five polls met ABC's criteria for inclusion, with Harris and Trump meeting the 15% threshold in every poll. Kennedy peaked at 6% in a Fox News poll. West, Stein, and Oliver all peaked at 1% support, and no other candidate was tested.

Preparations

Harris prepared for the debate in Pittsburgh. Karen Dunn and Rohini Kosoglu were in charge of the preparations and Philippe Reines played Trump.

Trump prepared for the debate with a small team of advisers, including Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard.

Format

The debate was hosted on ABC, ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu, and was simulcast on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC News and other networks.

The debate rules remained the same as the one prior, with no audience being present and muted microphones.

Debate

At the start of the debate, Trump moved behind his lectern, but Harris approached him and extended her hand. It was the first presidential debate to begin with a handshake in eight years.

In the hours leading up to the debate, social media was flooded with reports of baseless allegations—echoed by JD Vance, Trump's running mate, and Trump himself—that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating cats and dogs. Despite city officials stating there were no credible reports to substantiate these claims, Trump raised the issue during the debate. He said: "In Springfield, 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." He cited nothing but claimed he heard it on television. Harris laughed as Trump made those statements.

Harris accused Trump of repeatedly exploiting the issue of race to "divide the American people". The remark came after a question from the moderators about a July remark in which he said Harris "became a Black person".

Trump argued that the Biden administration had "destroyed" the country, and falsely labelled Harris a Marxist and tried to portray Harris as a "radical liberal". He claimed: "She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everyone's guns." Harris responded, stating: "Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away." Trump remarked, "Remember this, she is Biden." Harris responded: "Clearly, I am not Joe Biden."

Trump attacked Harris on inflation during his statement on the economy and said "Look, we've had a terrible economy because inflation has -- which is really known as a country buster. It breaks up countries. We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation's history. We were at 21%. But that's being generous because many things are 50, 60, 70, and 80% higher than they were just a few years ago." Trump also attacked Harris on immigration saying "we have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums. And they're coming in and they're taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions."

Harris invited people to attend a Trump rally and observe the crowd. "People start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom," she said. Trump responded by saying: "People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there."

Some of Harris's sharpest criticisms of Trump occurred during their clash over abortion rights, a key issue for Democrats since the US Supreme Court overturned ''Roe v. Wade'' in 2022 with ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization''. Harris said: "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." She said she would restore women's rights to what they were under ''Roe'', and Trump responded that she would not have the votes necessary in Congress. Trump supported the ''Dobbs'' decision to have each state decide whether to ban abortion, but did not answer whether he would veto a hypothetical bill to ban abortion nationwide.

Trump claimed that Harris supported "defunding the police", prompting Harris to interject with "That's not true" into her muted mic. In response to this perceived interruption, Trump lashed out at Harris with the line "I'm talking now (...) Does that sound familiar?", a reference to Harris's notable "I'm speaking" line from the 2020 vice presidential debate with Mike Pence.

Trump heavily criticized the Affordable Care Act, though he claimed to have "saved" it. When asked if he had a plan of how to replace the act, Trump claimed he had "concepts of a plan". "Concepts of a plan" ended up being one of the more frequently-quoted lines in the debate's aftermath.

When moderators questioned him about any regrets regarding the January 6 Capitol attack, he denied responsibility and redirected the conversation to Black Lives Matter protests. He blamed then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for not accepting his alleged offer of sending the National Guard, which the Speaker does not control. He initially used "we" when referring to the January 6 protestors and then pivoted, saying: "This group of people that has been treated so bad."

Trump was repeatedly asked if he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia and if it was in the best interests of the U.S. for Kyiv to achieve victory. He did not address the question directly, stating instead that he wants the war to end in order to save lives. Harris told Trump, "utinwould eat you for lunch" and claimed that if he had been president when Russia invaded Ukraine, "Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now." She alleged that Trump's claim that the war would be over in 24 hours was based on the idea that he would simply concede to Putin.

Fact-checking

The moderators were tasked with fact-checking the candidates during the debate, and multiple news outlets did so as well. CNN found that Trump made over 30 false claims during the debate, and Harris only made one, along with several statements "that were misleading or lacking in key context."

When Trump repeated the debunked allegation that immigrants in Springfield were eating pets, the moderator David Muir responded that there had been no credible reports of pets being harmed. Trump countered by claiming he had seen TV interviews where people said their dogs had been taken and eaten. Trump claimed that there was virtually no inflation during his presidency. However, the consumer price index rose 7.1% during his first 45 months in office. Trump claimed that some babies were being subjected to "executions" after birth. Davis intervened to fact-check him, stating: "There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born." Trump also said that "A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, emocratsare trying to get them to vote"; however, it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.

Harris also made misleading and false claims during the debate, including that Trump "exchanged love letters" with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump had only said the two leaders had fallen "in love". Harris also falsely stated that "there is not one member of the United States military who is an active duty in a combat zone," with the United States military's Central Command shortly thereafter issuing a statement that it had engaged various Houthi targets in Yemen within the past 24 hours. Harris also denied Trump's claim, that she is in support of spending taxpayers' money on gender affirmation surgeries on prison inmates, as one of his "lies." However, a video from her unsuccessful 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries surfaced of her pledging to provide gender affirming care to detained migrants.

Viewership

Nielsen Media Research reported that 67.1 million viewers across ABC and 16 other television networks watched the debate, up from the 51.3 million viewers who watched the June 27 presidential debate between Biden and Trump; an additional seven million viewed through Disney-owned streaming platforms.

Reception and aftermath

Harris was declared the winner of the debate by columnists from CNN, ''Politico'', ''The New York Times'', ''USA Today'', ''Business Insider'', '' Vox,'' ''The Guardian'', MSNBC, and the ''Los Angeles Times.''

According to a CNN flash poll, 63% of text message respondents believed Harris won the debate, while 37% felt Trump won. A poll from YouGov showed 43% of respondents saying that Harris won, 28% saying that Trump won, and 30% unsure. A poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed 53% of respondents saying that Harris won, as opposed to 24% saying that Trump won.

According to Amy Walter

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