Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris had their first and only debate on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. According to CNN, Trump spoke for about 42 minutes and 52 seconds, while Harris spoke for 37 minutes and 36 seconds—almost five minutes less than Trump. The former president spoke 39 times to the vice president’s 23 times.
The debate began with Harris’ walking over to Trump’s podium for a handshake. “Kamala Harris,” she introduced herself—it was the two politicians’ first time ever meeting in person. “Let’s have a good debate.”
Here’s what each candidate said on some of the issues feminists care about—including access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare, the Affordable Care Act, childcare, immigration, racial unity and the economy.
Economy and Cost of Living
Harris pitched her economic plan:
I am actually the only person on this stage who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America … a plan to build what I call an opportunity economy. …
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 a car seat, buy clothes for their children … $6,000 for young families for the first year of your child’s life, a critical stage of your child’s development.
My plan is to give a $50,000 tax deduction to start up small businesses, knowing they are part of the backbone of America’s economy.
Trump explained his vision for tariffs:
We’re doing tariffs on other countries, other countries are going to, finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world.
Various economists have warned Trump’s plan for blanket tariffs would risk a global trade war and that Americans would take on the bulk of these costs.
Harris on the early work of the Biden-Harris administration:
Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression … the worst public health epidemic in a century … the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. And what we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment during the Trump administration peaked in April 2020 at 14.7 percent—the highest recorded rate since the BLS began tracking in 1948—mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump on presiding over a pandemic economy:
We got hit with a pandemic, and the pandemic was not since 1917 where 100 million people died, has there been anything like it. … We made ventilators for the entire world. We got gowns, we got masks. We did things that nobody thought possible. … They give me credit for a lot of things, but not enough credit for the great job we did with the pandemic.
Harris on Trump’s economic vision:
Donald Trump has no plan for you, and when you look at his economic plan, it’s all about tax breaks for the richest people.
Trump clapped back:
She copied Biden’s plan, and it’s like four sentences, like, ‘Run, Spot, run.’ Four sentences, that are just, ‘Oh, we’ll try and lower taxes.’
Harris’ plan includes raising taxes for corporations and the highest incomes and giving tax breaks to small businesses. Read the full plan here.
ABC News anchor David Muir challenged Trump on his plan:
Your proposal calls for tariffs, as you pointed out here, on foreign imports across the board. You recently said that you might double your plan, imposing tariffs up to 20 percent on goods coming into this country. As you know, many economists say that with tariffs at that level, costs are then passed on to the consumer.
Harris described the impact of Trump’s tariff policy, in practice:
The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America. He invited trade wars.
In 2018, the Trump administration oversaw the largest trade deficit of its 243-year history. Harris described the impact of this policy on the U.S.’ standing among peer countries and foreign relations:
You want to talk about his deal with China. What he ended up doing is … selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military. … A policy about China should be making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century, which means focusing on the details of what that requires, focusing on relationships with our allies, focusing on investing in American-based technology so that we win the race on AI, on quantum computing.
Harris contrasted herself with Trump on housing affordability:
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. We are going to work with the private sector and home builders to increase by 3 million homes by the end of my first term. …
I have a plan that is about allowing people to be able to pursue what has been fleeting in terms of the American dream, by offering a help with down payment of $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.
Abortion
Harris connected the dots between abortion access and affordability:
What is happening in our country, working people, working women who are working one or two jobs, who can barely afford childcare, as it is, have to travel to another state to get on a plane, sitting next to strangers, to go and get the healthcare she needs. Barely can afford to do it, and what you are putting her through is unconscionable.
At-home abortions via medication abortion are legal, safe and available in all 50 states. The organization Plan C has a comprehensive guide to finding abortion pills on their website, which is continually updated and has all the latest information on where to find abortion pills from anywhere in the U.S.
Trump sounded the (false) alarm of post-birth abortions:
They have abortion, the ninth month, they even have. And you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia … he said, ‘The baby will be born, and we will decide what to do with the baby.’ In other words, we’ll execute the baby.
ABC News anchor Linsey Davis corrected Trump:
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
Trump defended the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs:
What I did is something, for 52 years, they’ve been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states, and through the genius and heart and strength of six Supreme Court justices, we were able to do that. … I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it, and the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it, and I give tremendous credit to those six justices.
The fall of Roe changed the U.S. abortion landscape dramatically. As of July, 14 states have total abortion bans and another eight ban abortion at or before 18 weeks’ gestation. Harris explained how we got here.
Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did exactly as he intended. And now in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans, which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide healthcare. In one state, it provides prison. …
This is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the healthcare providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that, a 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. They don’t want that. …
When Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.
The abortion rights established in Roe v. Wade said a person may have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable—which usually happens six months (24 and 28 weeks) after conception—while allowing states to prohibit abortion in the third trimester—the seventh, eighth and ninth months of pregnancy.
Harris invited religious voters into her coalition:
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.
Davis asked Trump if he would veto a national abortion ban. Trump dodged:
I won’t have to. She said she’ll go back to Congress. She’ll never get the vote. It’s impossible for her to get the vote, especially now with the 50/50 essentially, 50/50 in both Senate and the House.
Davis said Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance said Trump would veto a national ban. Trump corrected her:
I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness. … Look we don’t have to discuss it, because she’d never be able to get it.
Trump goaded Harris to nail down her position on later abortions:
Will she allow abortion in the eighth month? Ninth month, seventh month, come on, okay, would you do that? Why don’t you ask the question?
Under 1 percent of all abortions take place after the 20th week of pregnancy, according to the CDC.
Project 2025
Harris’ quick pivot to Project 2025 right after introductory statements put Trump on the defensive.
I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.
Project 2025—80 percent of its authors served in the first Trump administration—calls for a takeover of the U.S. system of checks and balances in order to “dismantle the administrative state.”
Harris explained how a second Trump term to change U.S. democracy as we know it.
This is someone who has openly said he would terminate, I’m quoting, ‘terminate‘ the Constitution of the United States that he would weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, someone who has openly expressed disdain for members of our military. Understand what it would mean if Donald Trump were back in the White House with no guards, because certainly we know now the Court won’t stop him. We know JD Vance is not going to stop him. It’s up to the American people to stop him.
Jan. 6 and the Peaceful Transfer of Power
Trump attempted to distance himself from Jan. 6:
I had nothing to do with that, other than they asked me to make a speech. … It would have never happened if Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington did their jobs. I wasn’t responsible for security. Nancy Pelosi was responsible. She didn’t do her job.
The National Guard can only be activated by the president or a governor. The House select committee on the Capitol attack said it found “no evidence” for Trump’s claim that Pelosi turned down his request for 10,000 National Guard troops.
Trump doubled down on claims that Biden did not win the presidency legitimately:
There’s so much proof. All you have to do is look at it, and they should have sent it back to the legislatures for approval. … If you look at the facts, and I’d love to have you do a special on it. I’ll show you, and I’ll show you Wisconsin, and I’ll show you Pennsylvania, and I’ll show you we have so many facts and statistics.
Healthcare and the Affordable Care Act
Trump responded to a question about what his administration would do about Obamacare.
Obamacare was lousy healthcare. …
We’re working on things, we’re going to do it and we’re going to replace it. … If we can come up with a plan that’s going to cost our people, our population less money and be better healthcare than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it, but until then, I’d run it as good as it can be run.
I have concepts of a plan. … You’ll be hearing about it in the not too distant future.
Harris defended the Affordable Care Act and the Biden-Harris administration’s record on lowering healthcare costs:
What we need to do is maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act. … What the Affordable Care Act has done is eliminate the ability of insurance companies to deny people with preexisting conditions. I don’t have to tell the people watching tonight. You remember what that was like? Remember when an insurance company could deny if a child had asthma, if someone was a breast cancer survivor, if a grandparent had diabetes? …
We have allowed, for the first time, Medicare to negotiate drug prices—on behalf of you, the American people. Donald Trump said he was going to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. He never did. We did, and now we have capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. … We have capped the cost of prescription medication for seniors at $2,000 a year.
Immigration
Trump on the danger of immigrants:
You look at Springfield, Ohio, you look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They are taking over buildings. They going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden led into our country, and they are destroying our country. They are dangerous. They are at the highest level of criminality. And we have to get them out. We have to get them out fast. …
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. …
I believe 21 million people, not the 15 that people say, and I think it’s a lot higher than the 21 that’s bigger than New York State pouring in, and just look at what they’re doing to our country. They’re criminals.
Harris defended her immigration credentials:
The United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill, which I supported. And that bill would have put 1500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now over time, trying to do their job. …
That bill would give more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings. But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress and said, ‘Kill the bill.’ And you know why? Because he’d prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.
Trump delivered the internet-breaking line of the night, as he described a baseless claim about immigrants eating dogs and cats:
What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country and look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don’t want to talk, it’s not going to be Aurora, Springfield. A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it.
In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people came in, they’re eating the cats. … 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 delivered another meme-worthy line characterizing Harris as too soft on immigration:
She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.
Diversity in America
Harris on the importance of racial unity:
The American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together, knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. … I travel our country. We see in each other, a friend. We see in each other, a neighbor. We don’t want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other.
Legacy and Where the U.S. Is Headed
Harris said her experience as a prosecutor and elected official can help unite the country:
I started my career as a prosecutor. I was a DA, I was an attorney general, United States senator, and now vice president. I had one client: the people. And I’ll tell you, as a prosecutor, I never asked a victim, are you a Republican or Democrat? The only thing I ever asked them, are you okay?
Trump declined to end on an optimistic note, calling Harris “the worst vice president in the history of our country.”
Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) will participate in this year’s only vice presidential debate on Tuesday, Oct. 1, on CBS.
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