(OSV News) — Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris met Sept. 10 for their first — and possibly only — debate of the 2024 presidential cycle.
The nearly two-hour debate, in which both candidates had their microphones muted when it was not their turn to speak, began with a handshake as Harris and Trump met in person for the first time.
Harris cast a second Trump term as “the same old, tired rhetoric,” and going back instead of moving forward. Trump cast Harris as part of a Biden administration he called a failure.
Personal attacks did feature in the debate. Harris mocked Trump’s rallies as “boring,” leading Trump to defend them. Trump accused Harris of shifting policy views, quipping, “I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”
The debate also included topics of concern to Catholic voters, including abortion, family policy, immigration and climate change.
Asked about his apparent shift on abortion, Trump appeared to reference former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s controversial remarks about abortion, but misidentified him as “the previous governor of West Virginia.” Trump later said Virginia.
“This is an issue that’s torn our country apart for 52 years, every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote, and that’s what happened,” Trump said.
Harris, who has made expanding access to abortion a key part of her campaign, said she would sign legislation to “put back in place the protections of Roe v Wade,” and argued Trump would instead sign an abortion ban.
Trump called that argument “a lie,” and accused Harris of supporting abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
“I’m not signing a ban, and there’s no reason to sign a ban, because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted — Democrats, Republicans and everybody else — and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states, and the states are voting,” Trump said.
Trump has previously stated he would not sign a federal abortion ban, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has said Trump would veto such a bill if it reached his desk.
Asked to confirm that statement, Trump said, “Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD, you know, fairness. JD, and I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I think you’re speaking for me.”
The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, opposing direct abortion as an act of violence that takes the life of the unborn child.
The pair also sparred over in vitro fertilization. Trump recently pledged his administration would implement a mandate requiring the government or insurance companies to pay for IVF treatments, a form of artificial reproduction opposed by the Catholic Church on the grounds that it typically involves the destruction of human embryos in the process of achieving a live birth, among other concerns.
“I have been a leader on IVF, which is fertilization,” Trump said.
Trump also repeated his call for mass deportations, arguing those without legal status “destroyed the fabric of our country.”
Trump’s call for mass deportations runs contrary to the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes” condemning “deportation” among other actions, such as abortion, that “poison human society,” a teaching St. John Paul II affirmed in two encyclicals on moral truth and the life issues.
Trump also repeated viral, unverified claims — refuted by local authorities — about Haitian migrants, a largely Catholic population, living in the city of Springfield, Ohio, that accuses them of abducting pets and eating them.
“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. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” Trump said.
ABC News’ David Muir, one of the debate moderators, pushed back, noting the Springfield city manager’s office issued a statement that “there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Trump pivoted back to illegal border crossings when asked if he regretted any of his statements or actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when about 2,000 supporters of then-President Trump attempted to block Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, asking when those without legal status would be prosecuted instead.
“Those people are killing many people, unlike J6,” Trump said.
Trump also repeated his unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. But Harris replied that Trump “was fired by 81 million people,” a reference to Biden’s higher vote count in 2020.
“We cannot afford to have a President of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election,” Harris said.
Harris also touted her plans to create what she called “an opportunity economy,” including giving startup businesses a $50,000 tax deduction and granting a $6,000 child tax credit to parents of newborns.
“We know that young families need support to raise their children, and I intend on extending a tax cut for those families of $6,000 which is the largest child tax credit that we have given in a long time, so that those young families can afford to buy a crib, buy car seats for their children,” she said.
In response, Trump said, “I have concepts of a plan” and then alleged Harris also had a plan to confiscate guns, which she disputed as false.
Harris also hit Trump for previous comments claiming that climate change is a hoax.
“What we know is that it is very real,” she said, arguing one could ask “anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences, who now is either being denied home insurance or (their rate is) is being jacked up.”
Trump, in turn, claimed Harris would ban fracking. Harris denied that repeatedly, pointing to her “tie breaking vote” in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act, “which opened new leases for fracking.”
A vice presidential debate between Vance and Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is scheduled for Oct 1.
Election day is Nov. 5.
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) @kgscanlon.
