Key Points From Trump-Harris Philadelphia Debate.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed in their first presidential debate on Tuesday in Philadelphia, less than two months before US presidential election. Heading into the debate, Harris appeared to have more to gain. The debate covered a wide range of issues and featured a series of intense exchanges between the two bitter rivals. Harris presented herself as a pragmatic problem-solver and diminished Trump as a wannabe dictator who can't keep his rally crowds engaged. Trump attacked Harris as a radical and frequently returned to his theme of criticizing migration, sometimes veering into conspiracy theories.

Harris leaned into her plan for an "opportunity economy," seeking to cut into trump’s advantage on the issue with swing voters by presenting herself as the candidate of the middle class while calling Trump a corporate tax-cutter and also criticizing Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot.

Trump, meanwhile, sought to portray Harris as a continuation of President Joe Biden on immigration and the economy as he blasted the Biden-Harris economy, saying, “I’ve never seen a worse period of time.” He also defended his tariff plans and called Harris “a Marxist” even as he accused her of copying his policies: “I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”. Trump and Harris also engaged in a lengthy clash on abortion, during which the former president declined twice to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if Congress passed one.

Harris came into the debate with the hope of rattling Trump, and she appeared to succeed at some moments. She attacked him on abortion rights, linked him to the right-wing policy blueprint Project 2025, highlighted his praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping around the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trump’s performance included a wide sprinkling of attacks on Biden, who dropped out after his disastrous June debate showing against Trump. He criticized Biden’s handling of classified documents, knocked him for opposing the Keystone XL pipeline and termed the Biden’s administration as the worst in the country’s history. “Where is our president? We don’t even know if he’s the president,” Trump said toward the end of the debate. “They threw him out of a campaign like a dog. We don’t even know. Is he our president? We have a president that doesn’t know he’s alive.”

With the elections just 2 months away, the race to the white house seems to be getting more heated in a time that would change the shape of the country and probably the entire world.