Fabien Deglise
Published at 12:59 a.m.
- United States
Barely had the presidential debate ended Tuesday night in Philadelphia when Donald Trump's allies quickly sought to excuse the former president's performance by blaming the evening's hosts, David Muir and Linsey Davis, of the ABC network, “who displayed deplorable behavior,” said businessman and close friend of the former president, Vivek Ramaswamy. According to him, the evening delivered an unfair debate, “three against one.”
The first televised debate between the two candidates for the presidency of the United States, which began with a handshake from Kamala Harris offered to her opponent with a determined step, which seemed to surprise the populist, ultimately avoided cacophony. It also allowed Donald Trump to once again bring to voters his many insults about his opponents, his dark messages on immigration, on crime and to present a fictionalized assessment of his first term.
Photo: Alex Brandon Associated Press Before the debate began, the two candidates shook hands, which seemed to surprise Donald Trump.
The vice president, for her part, managed to shake him several times by recalling his new status as a convicted felon, his attacks on democracy, his dubious friendships with dictators, and by questioning the rationality of several of his recent statements, including one about wind turbines causing cancer, according to him.
“She accomplished the mission,” Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright said on the other end of the line, contacted by Le Devoir from South Carolina. “She clearly showed who was presidential and who was not. It was a debate between an attorney general and a defendant that highlighted the threats that Donald Trump could pose to the country if he were to return to the White House. »
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For more than 90 minutes, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the two candidates delivered diametrically opposed visions on inflation, abortion rights, immigration, the United States' place in the world and the weakening of democracy. Donald Trump made claims that were exaggerated or factually incorrect, while Kamala Harris called for “turning the page” on the former president’s years of chaos.
“We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he has in the past, to overturn the will of the voters in free and fair elections,” she said, reminding her opponent that in 2020 81 million voters voted to remove him and denouncing his persistence, including in Tuesday night’s debate, in not acknowledging his defeat. “It leads us to think that we may have, in the candidate to my right, a temperament or a capacity to be confused with the facts. It is deeply troubling. And the American people deserve better.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Gaffe v. normalization
In 1976, Republican Gerald Ford lost his first debate against Jimmy Carter, and probably the election that year, by making a notable gaffe about the influence of the Soviet Union in several Eastern European countries, an influence he seemed not to understand very well.
Less than 50 years later, Donald Trump should not suffer too much from his assertion that immigrants, who arrived in the country because of the policies of the Democrats, “eat the pets” of the inhabitants of an Ohio town. “The people who came here eat the dogs, eat the cats… They eat the pets of the locals. That’s what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” said the Republican, thus repeating, in prime time, a self-serving sensationalism promoted by several American conservative media outlets in recent days.
Debate moderator David Muir, however, reminded the populist that ABC’s verification of the rumor with the city’s chief administrative officer had determined that there were no credible reports or complaints there “of domestic animals being harmed or mistreated by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Photo: Seth Herald Agence France-Presse The debate was followed across the country, including here in Nashville, Tennessee.
“There’s no doubt that Donald Trump won the debate on immigration and Kamala Harris won the debate on abortion,” Republican strategist Bryan Iverson notes in an on-the-spot interview from Oregon, where he hosts a podcast on local politics. “But I don’t think the Democrat has presented a strong enough impeachment to change voters’ minds,” he adds, while acknowledging that by the end of this meeting, it’s also becoming clear that “Donald Trump needs to move on from his past, too,” and present a vision of his policies that looks to the future.
“It ended up being a pretty boring meeting, and I think we’re going to need another one in October,” Iverson says.
This was also mentioned in the minutes following the end of the debate by Kamala Harris' campaign team, which, in a press release, indicated Tuesday evening that “Americans were able to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: move forward with Kamala Harris or move backward with Trump,” summarized the vice president's campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon. “That's what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for this second debate. Is Donald Trump ?,” she added.
In front of journalists, the former president gave a mixed and nebulous response, as usual, saying he was not sure he wanted to participate in another debate, after having delivered Tuesday evening, the “best debate of all time, I think.”
“It showed how weak they are, how pathetic they are, what they're doing to destroy our country, the border, foreign trade…,” he added of the Democrats.
After this first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it will be the turn of their running mates and aspiring vice-presidents, Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance, to cross swords on October 1st in New York.