Philadelphia
CNN
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Kamala Harris taunted Donald Trump for nearly the entire 1 hour and 45 minutes of their first and possibly only debate on Tuesday night — and Trump took full advantage.

The vice president had prepared extensively for their debate, prefacing nearly every answer with a comment designed to infuriate the former president. She told Trump that world leaders were laughing at him and that military leaders were calling him a “disgrace.” She called Trump “weak” and “wrong.” She said that Trump had been dismissed by 81 million voters — the number who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.

“It’s clear he’s having a really hard time processing this,” she said.

Trump was often out of control. He loudly and repeatedly insisted that a lot of lies were true. The former president repeated lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. He parroted a conspiracy theory about immigrants eating pets and lied about Democrats supporting abortion after babies are born — which is murder and illegal everywhere.

He painted a bleak picture of the United States, reminiscent of the “American carnage” he warned about when he was inaugurated in 2017.

“We have a nation that is dying,” Trump said Tuesday night.

Here are some brief conclusions from the first part of the debate:

When Harris and Trump walked onstage in Philadelphia, it was the first time they had met in person. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration, after all.

Harris set the tone by walking across the six feet between her podium and Trump’s and asking for a handshake. She introduced herself and said, “Let’s have a good debate.”

“Good to see you,” Trump replied.

It was the first handshake in a presidential debate since Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in 2016. Trump stood uncomfortably close to Clinton during their town hall-style debate.

Trump generally looked ahead as Harris spoke, while the vice president communicated through facial expressions. She laughed at some of Trump’s comments, grinned at others, shook her head at some and sometimes appeared bewildered.

When Trump repeated a debunked myth about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, Harris laughed wryly, shrugging and pointing at Trump.

Despite signals from even his running mate, Trump continued to repeat the conspiracy theory of the moment throughout the debate.

The former president advanced the baseless conspiracy theory that immigrants from Haiti living in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s cats and dogs. He said at one point, “In Springfield, they eat the dogs. They eat the cats. They eat the pets of the people who live there.”

When ABC host David Muir pointed out that city officials denied any evidence that migrants in Springfield were actually eating pets, Trump reiterated his argument by saying that “the people on television” said it. When pressed, Trump said only, “We’ll find out.”

When the debate turned to crime, Trump claimed that crime in the United States was increasing, unlike the rest of the world. Again, Muir pointed out that, according to FBI data, crime had actually decreased in recent years.

Trump again referenced another conspiracy theory, that the FBI is deeply corrupt and issuing “fraudulent statements.” He claimed that “it was fraud.”

Later in the debate, Trump argued that the US elections are a “mess” and claimed that Democrats are trying to get illegal immigrants to vote.

“We have a nation that is dying,” he said.

Intense debate about abortion, an important issue for both candidates

Few moments highlight the difference between Biden’s performance at the June debate and Harris’ on Tuesday as clearly as the abortion debate.

The vice president, who has long been one of the administration’s leading advocates for reproductive rights, was able to respond to the former president’s defense of abortion policy in a way that Biden could not.

The former president, who appointed three Supreme Court justices who overturned federal abortion protections, has attempted to moderate his stance on the issue, criticizing six-week abortion bans and reiterating his support for exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. But he has also defended the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“Now it’s not tied to the federal government,” Trump said. “I did a great service. It took courage to do it.”

Trump repeated several arguments he made during his June debate with Biden on abortion. He argued that “everybody” wanted the issue to go back to the states, despite widespread opposition from Democrats and some independents. He falsely argued that a former Virginia governor had said babies should be executed — a reference to comments former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a physician, had made about the care of births after nonviable pregnancies.

And Trump repeated the false claim that some states allow abortions after a baby is born, prompting a fact-check by ABC News’ Linsey Davis.

“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it is born,” Davis said.

Harris responded by highlighting cases of women who were unable to obtain abortions after being victims of rape, or who struggled to get care after a miscarriage.

“You want to talk about this, is this what people wanted?” Harris said. “Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, who have had a miscarriage, who are denied care in the emergency room because the providers are afraid they’re going to jail, and she’s bleeding to death in a car in the parking lot — she didn’t want that.”

Trump falls for it – time and time again

Harris took the stage with a clear plan: throw Trump off his game.

By any measure, it was a dramatic success. When the vice president raised Trump’s conviction and outstanding legal issues, he bit. When she challenged him on sinking a bipartisan immigration bill, he bit even harder. And when Harris suggested that Trump’s rallies were boring, he nearly choked on the bait.

Rather than address the issues the moderators raised, including some that Trump sees as his political strengths, the former president waxed eloquent on the entertainment value of his rallies, claimed the Biden administration was targeting him legally and, for an extended, bizarre period, insisted — against all available evidence — that migrants eat Americans’ pets.

“In Springfield,” Trump said, after Harris criticized him for rejecting the immigration bill, “they eat the dogs, they eat the cats.”

Harris looked puzzled, but she rarely addressed the claims. She was apparently happy to let Trump have his way.

Trump seemed particularly stung by the vice president’s aside about his campaign events. Even after Muir tried to refocus the debate on immigration — another of Trump’s pet topics — the former president refused to let it go.

“Let me first respond to the rallies,” Trump said, first mocking Harris’ crowd, then turning back to his own crowd. “People are not leaving my rallies, we have the largest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”

The first hour of the debate ended as it began: with Trump taking a long, narrow digression about the 2020 election, which he again falsely claimed was stolen from him.

In an effort to introduce herself to voters, Harris set the tone early, contrasting herself with Trump by portraying herself as a champion of the American middle class, while painting her opponent as self-absorbed.

“Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan for you,” Harris said in response to a question about the economy, looking into the camera in a direct appeal to voters.

Harris based her personal biography on a portrait of herself as a “middle-class kid” and outlined an economic vision of tax cuts for families and tax deductions for small businesses, while Trump, she said, “will do what he’s done before, which is cut taxes for billionaires and big corporations.”

Trump, Harris continued, “really doesn’t have a plan for you because he’s more interested in defending himself than taking care of you.”

Her campaign has argued in ads and talking points that Trump is a candidate who only cares for himself. Harris delivered that message during Tuesday’s debate.

“I’ll tell you, the one thing you won’t hear him talk about is you. And I’ll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who really puts you first,” she said.

This is a current story and is being updated.