Who won the Harris-Trump US presidential election debate? | Inside Story

frequent clashes in a fiery US presidential election debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both camps say they won after 90 minutes of sharp exchanges so what impact will it have on undecided voters and on November's election this is Inside Story [Music] hello welcome to the program I am Hashim televised debates have rarely been so important in US presidential election as now the last had to head ended Joe Biden's campaign after a spectacular implosion against Donald Trump in June before shaking hands on the studio stage on Tuesday Trump and Camila Harris had never met before judging from the tone of the debate that followed it's unlikely either would be rushing to meet each other again if it wasn't for the matter of who should be US president for vice president Harris it was her first presidential debate unlike Trump who's fighting his Third campaign no catastrophic collapse for the Democrats this time her team says she won Just As Trump side say the man came out on top so how did they do and what key topics emerged and will this debate have any influence on the final out out come in November those are the questions we'll put our guests shortly but first this report from Laura Khan come Harris have a good toate these US presidential candidates are almost neck to neck in opinion polls hoping that going head-to-head in a televised debate will seal their bid for the White House and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing she doesn't have a plan she CED Biden's plan vice president kamla Harris and former US president Donald Trump challenged one another on domestic and foreign policy with Israel's war on Gaza part of that debate far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed children mothers what we know is that this war must end Trump saw this as an opportunity to attack Harris she hates Israel at the same time in her own way she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up and both candidates traded barbs at each other on issues including the right to abortion and the state of the economy where Kamala says she will support emerging small businesses Trump retorted she had no track record of doing this Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression Trump pushed his usual St against immigration further claiming Haitians in Springfield Ohio were consuming pets they're eating the dogs the people that came in they're eating the cats in a departure from previous debates fact Checkers were on hand checking or clarifying Trump's claims a few times there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed injured or abused by individuals analysts are debating whether there was a clear winner but what's not clear is whether this debate will convince undecided voters to take a side in the US presidential election in November Laura Khan for Inside Story Al jazer let's bring in our guest they're all joining us from the United States in Philadelphia Eric ham us political analyst and former Congressional stuffer in Washington DC Jennifer Victor associate professor of political science at George Mason University is Sean School in Minneapolis Amy Coke a Republican strategist who was the first female majority leader in Minnesota State Legislature welcome to the program Eric because the debate is essentially about allowing people decide who's going to be the choice for the presidential election what did voters learn from the debate that they didn't know before well clearly going into the debate uh the latest New York Times Santa po showed that nearly 30% of Voters who were PED in that poll clear clearly did not know much about KLA Harris and so KLA Harris needed to be able to tell her story while also shaping a vision for the future and that what was so important last night and also While most of debates really do not actually shape elections it's the Optics that matter the most and clearly what people are looking for is someone who they believe can be presidential and who and who can pass the commanderin-chief test and that was what voters were looking for last tonight okay Jennifer first presidential debate for CA Harris shall I say a sigh of relief for her and for the Democrats as well probably you know as as in science we like it when there's uh one variable that varies and everything else stays the same so as a social scientist we got to see something last night that was really unusual we don't usually get to see in a presidential uh Campaign which is a second debate where one candidate stayed the same and the other one changed and the contrast couldn't have been clear uh one of the things that I took away from last night was uh if in the first debate it was very clear not so much that Trump won but that Biden very much lost uh that one variable difference between then and now showed that uh in in this debate it seemed very clear that uh kamla Harris was the dominant figure Amy you know the way media characterizes the outcome of a debate so basically the it's been widely seen as Kamala Harris W without delivering the knockout out for Trump how do you see that yeah that's what I see actually her numbers coming out of the debate were not as good as even um um secretary Clinton's coming out of their first debate uh both of them were decided Victors in the debate and I do think she uh handled herself very well I do think she missed an opportunity because so many Americans don't really know who she is um she definitely knocked it out of the park um and and when she was talking about domestic policy when she was talking about Reproductive Rights um but I do feel like she needs to still let us know a little bit more see her personality a little more and let us know a bit more about her personally um but you know this really wasn't the Forum I think that she can do that it was a Miss on the CNN interview as well um I think there's more work that team has to do there Eric was her best for performance the best performance for Harris the fact that she managed to go Trump into a corner she never gave him a chance to present his own vision for what's happening next when he becomes president spending Mo most of his time trying to refute every single attack and Bob against him no question this was an implosion by Donald Trump and it was certainly precipitated by kamla Harris's Golding of him which we knew and expected she would do however because kamla Harris coming into this debate had not done a lot of media interviews had not been in a debate in four years she was seen as the exactor and clearly I think people want to know more about her story and I think what people perhaps would have wanted to hear was more about what in fact she did that was seen as a guiding theme for her during the Biden Harris Administration how does she plan to actually take those policies that have been implemented move them forward but also weaving her narrative into that last night was certainly I think an audience for her to do that because it was a captive audience whether or not she did that we won't know on until people actually began to respond to what took place last night Jennifer she owned much of the debate she dictated the terms of the evening but did she manage to present her plan for the American people and particularly for the undecided voters you know these debates are almost always measured against expectations we go into them with particular kinds of expectations for the candidates and then we see whether or not they met them and going into this debate I would say that for Harris the expect were very high uh when when Biden first tapped her as the nominee she came out saying I can prosecute the case against Donald Trump and this was her first test about whether or not she could make good on that claim um and you know a campaign doesn't typically relish very high expectations for their candidate because it's so easy not to meet them um I would I would say that Trump also had fairly low expectations because that's kind of uh how how we tend to treat Donald Trump um and even with those expectations set I would say that Harris met them she was prepared she was strategic she was sincere she had a clear prepared strategy in which she would deliver these substantive remarks that were mixed in with this bait that she knew he would not be able to let alone um and in the end that means I think Trump had more speaking time overall in the debate um and that did not harm Harris at all Amy when you are on the defensive As Trump was you basically have to accept that you will receive more and more punches do you think that was this was a missed opportunity for Donald Trump no so I actually think this was the best I've seen him and I've not been a big uh fan of Donald Trump in debates um he was more prepared he frankly won the Eon uh the discussion of the economy and on foreign policy and he was driving the discussion there I think where people get where people are seeing this as a win one she was definitely stronger on domestic and Reproductive Rights those are going to be the areas that she's going to be the strongest um however on immigration which should have been his issue which he should have owned she did pull him out distract him with discussions about his rallies and then he had this whole you know you know sort of crazy old man diet tribe about Ohio um and people eating dogs and that's what's being remembered but watching the foreign policy discussion of Ukraine and and Israel he was on he had the they tried to bait him into picking a side in Ukraine and he said I want the war to end that's the right answer um and on the economy he started I was like oh this is a different man it's it's just that Donald Trump gets in Donald Trump's way and he really did in a huge way on an issue that should have been his strength Eric you said earlier that Harris knew beforehand that the expectations are high and people wanted to know more about her but you see this is the problem when it comes to substance and the moment when she should have talked more about why she's been flip-flopping on some of the decisions more sense of clarity about her positions when it comes to border crossing fracking and so on and so forth she was not really that elaborate on those particular issues do do you think they will come to haunt her in the next debate no not at all and I think we have to actually speak about this look this whole idea of flip flop that was certainly used to great effect during the 2004 election when George W bush used it against John krey but I think to actually have a candidate have anybody who actually just kind of evolves over time on their issues and their thinking I think that's something that should be rewarded not actually attacked but if we want to look at how in fact this debate played last night all you had to do was go inside the spin room in the debate Hall after the debate took place and none other than Donald Trump himself actually showed up saying that there were polls immediate polls showing that he overwhelmingly won the debate and clearly what he was doing was trying to actually spend the narrative uh that he actually had won which clearly was not the case and so I think what we saw last night was this was a debacco uh no way around it for Donald Trump and I think coming out of that it it could be potentially consequential because we know the the margins between both of these candidates going into the election we so razor thin I think Jennifer one of the highlights of the debate was basically uh the reaction of CA Harris particularly when Trump was making those outlandish remarks about uh immigrants eating pets but can I ask you a question about a polarized Nation where ultimately Trump does understand very well that he has a strong power base a support base that will ultimately trust him so fact checking does it make any difference you know I think it's important to keep in mind that debates are a very sort of traditional way that we do campaigns and campaign politics in the United States we used to have a whole Commission on presidential debates that would pre-negotiate and pre-organize these things and it was all on a schedule and we knew about the debates before even the candidates were settled sometimes um and we don't have that anymore and the reason we don't have that anymore is because Donald Trump refused to go along with that system Donald Trump is a populist style candidate that does not play uh to the the Norms of regular politics um and so we put him now in a venue a debate that is a traditional style and he's a non-traditional candidate um so it doesn't surprise me at all that we wind up with uh sort of him doing his regular outlandish thing Harris doing her much more measured traditional sort of expert thing um and the contrast comes off uh quite starkly uh so I think that the um yeah go ahead okay Amy if I were a an decided vote voter from North Carolina I would be more interested in learning more about Trump's plan for a second term now when I see him being baited into reacting angrily to most of the comments made with by uh CA Harris and then I would say I'm not really impressed the the thing with former president Trump is all of that is baked in um and so we sort of take it I'm sorry to say as it comes because that's what it is and so at being a non-traditional candidate which I completely agree with the those kind of rules do not apply Trump has a woman problem Trump has a problem that if the women if women turn out and kind of The Quiet power numbers that they did in 2022 he's got an issue on the other side on the other side uh vice president Harris has is hemorrhaging men um and not just white men men of color as well and so they're going to have to Shore that up and if neither of those if either of those candidates succeed or fail in those areas that's the ball game okay Eric what do you think happens next are we going to see a momentum building in favor of CA Harris or do you think Trump still has a strong chance I think this is interesting in terms of what we see coming out of that debate because I think going into the to the debate I think the latest polls were showing that perhaps kamla Harris's campaign was beginning to hit a wall in terms of these large rallies that were in fact building momentum and seeing record fundraising as well and and now given the success that she had last night perhaps we will see a new phase of this campaign where you begin to see kamla Harris do more interviews where she is engaging and telling more about her story but more importantly what her plans are for the country if in fact she's elected and the reason I say that is because clearly last night what we saw from K well she continued to go back to this Narrative of her coming from this middle class family and so clearly she was recognizing that she needed to do more to tell her story and I think now that she recognizes that we could see a new phase of her campaign where she tries to do more at connecting who she is to the American people to actually build a base very much like what we see with Donald Trump Jennifer Hillary Clinton won the two debates against Trump but she lost the election could this give us any lesson about what could happen in the upcoming weeks yeah I mean certainly one of those lessons is uh democrats should not be overconfident um all evidence that we have suggests that this is going to be a close election we live in a very hyperpolarized partisan environment in the United States we do not use a popular vote um and so this election is going to come down to uh you know perhaps less than 100,000 maybe maybe more than that uh but you know not very many votes across five or six states perhaps um and so that sort of knife edge kind of result that we've seen in the last couple of Elections that we should probably expect again because the way partisanship is organized now suggests to me that we are going to see um you know this is going to remain heated until the end and I do you know there's there's no reason to think that this is going to be some kind of blowout or one of the candidates is going to start uh sitting back or or acting like they've already lost um that being said it's been very interesting in the last week to hear Donald Trump on the campaign Trail uh making statements that are seeding doubt in election Administration you know he's he's sort of already talking about uh making false claims about mail and ballots in Pennsylvania and so forth um so this is uh definitely anti-democratic behavior that seeds out an election Administration that is not at all what we want to see in healthy democracies um and it suggests that he is already crafting a plan uh for if he loses that might make where where he might react similarly to how he did in 2020 and that's very concerning Amy one of the strong uh punch Lines by Harris when she reminded Trump that he was fired by 81 million voters and she did that for a reason she wanted to remind people of the claims that he made a widespread election fraud and the mobs that attack the Capitol Hill in uh January the 6th 2021 do you think this episode is likely to haunt him in the upcoming weeks I don't see that again I don't think these are new claims by Donald Trump they're erroneous and wrong and and he should be quiet about them but he he's been making those since 2020 um and so I don't think that's going to impact that although I understand uh why the Harris campaign wants to you know continually bring it up and they should it's a fair it's a fair attack um however I really think that Americans right now all polling is showing we're concerned about inflation we're concerned about the economy we're concerned about immigration these are the issues that are coming up and the candidates would do well to focus on what they're going to do about those things and and uh frankly the better argument last night for economy was was President Trump and the better uh immigration win was uh was vice president Harris so we'll see Eric if we are to move forward now and let's talk about both candidates tied now in the pools who is likely to define the future and particularly the outcome of the election do you think that the Battleground states are likely to deliver the final decision oh absolutely and I think there's no bigger prize than where I am right now in Pennsylvania uh this is this is the epicenter right now of this election who wins Pennsylvania will likely win election and what both of these candidates had to do last night was speak to that very small sliver of Voters in these key Battleground States uh clearly KLA Harris needed to be able to pass that commander-in Chief test and Donald Trump needed to show that he could be a stable Force if in fact he is returned to the White House clearly those were the questions that both of the candidates had going into into the last night's debate it's unclear how voters overall saw what to place last night but clearly this is going to be a razor razor thin election and also just very quickly uh we still need to uh talk about the role that the moderators played last night because they were very effective I think in holding both of the candidates uh to their positions and also factchecking specifically on Donald Trump which is something we did not see last debate uh Jennifer now Democratic strategies now are looking at the map of the swing state Arizona Florida Georgia Michigan Nevada North Carolina Wisconsin and Pennsylvania if Harris is to seal the deal and win the election where do you think she will have to Faire better as far as those states are concerned I think I heard you throw Florida in that mix and that went through me a little bit uh the polling that I've looked at suggests uh as my co-panelist just just said that Pennsylvania is probably the big prize whoever wins Pennsylvania uh that's likely to be a Tipping Point State at this point at this point although we're still 54 days out you know uh that could change between now and election day that's just where we are right now uh but also Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania these are critical States for Democrats to win if they're going to win the election uh and Arizona um and Nevada uh are also very close States um and big prizes to win uh and throwing Georgia into that mix and sometimes North Carolina uh these are the seven states that are most critical and in reality this is where the election is is is taking place um you know hundreds you know I don't know 50 million Americans or something like that are going to cast ballots uh but it is the you know few few million in those seven states where this is going to turn out to be decisive and one of the effects of that is that if you don't live a swing state you're a you're not getting as much campaign at your face which uh some some may enjoy um but it can also be disaffected for voters it can be demotivating um and uh we we talk in political science about a lack of personal efficacy with respect to elections and politics and representation and that's pretty problematic for for democracies um and so thinking of ways of engaging broader voters thinking about down ballot races um encouraging people to think of voting as a community level activity rather than something they just do for themselves I think is really important Amy 63% of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most of the of of America Kamal Harris know that this is pretty much Trump's vulnerable area is she likely to further tap into it in the upcoming weeks because she knows she could hurt him badly when it comes to particularly the issue of abortion when it comes to reproductive health and Women's Health in general um as well I think he's incredibly vulnerable although he has shored up his response on um the IVF I think in a in a very good in a better way um but no this is this is what the Trump campaign has to be mindful of and where the Harris campaign are going to push because sort of driving what happened in 2022 a replay of that election where women really didn't show polls but just quietly came out and voted for the Democrats that's what they're looking for on that um conversely she has a fracking uh her fracking answers and her energy answers were terrible and will not play well in those key states of Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania we have three minutes and uh I appreciate we can uh talk about other aspects particularly foreign policy which we know is not going to be hugely impacting the outcome of the election but would like to start first asking Eric about the strong exchanges when we saw about Ukraine and uh Gaza are they going to resonate among some of the undecided voters I think they will play only at the margins particularly the war in Gaza we know Michigan has a very large Palestinian Arab American population and so they are clearly a fired up around the issue I want to go back to something that you brought up when you mentioned the State of Florida and I think what we're seeing with the Harris campaign is something we typically don't see from Democratic presidential campaigns and I think Harris perhaps recognizes that that state might be a bridge too far but also recognizes that there is a potential to actually pick up a senate seat there and when you look at how vulnerable Senator John Tester the Democrat is in Montana I think KLA Harris is recognizes that even if she's elected president of the United States not having Democrats in the in in Congress controlling both chambers of Congress could prove difficult to actually get her her her her policies passed and I think that's why we're seeing her play play aggressively in places like North Carolina Florida and also why she has actually transferred more than $25 million to many of these down ballot races so when we talk about a hold of government approach to policy I think what we're seeing here is a ho of politics approach to the election recognizing that it cannot just be KLA Harris that gets elected it has to be Democrats all up and down the ballot Jennifer shortly if you don't mind do you think that Harris managed to convince the Americans that she's going to be a strong commander-in-chief if elected this is really interesting because if she's elected she'll be the first female president and uh the idea of a female as commander-in-chief has been a barrier for some folks and I thought her foreign policy answers last night were frankly uh extremely strong uh it was one of her first times talking that in that kind of public venue about foreign policy and she really was able to demonstrate and articul Americans why NATO is important and then to attack her opponent by associating himself with uh authoritarian dictators Amy you remember exactly that point when she Associated him with the dictators and saying that his election could further erode a longstanding tradition of strong International political order particularly Trump saying in the past that he's willing to uh abandon the alliance with uh NATO those issues do you think they will uh be big players in this election I don't think they'll be large players and the problem for vice president Harris is that she can say what she wants but she will be Contin she will be continuously tied to the foreign policy of the of her administration of the Biden Harris Administration um and that's just been um you know has been difficult it's been terrible um whether it's Israel Ukraine even the withdrawal from Afghanistan um I think she's very vulnerable on this point and so she might have had some you know kind of quippy remarks on it last night um but the substance is going to be a problem for her interesting times ahead and we're likely to wait for the upcoming weeks to see how this is going to further evolve and what the Americans are going to see and who is going to be elected as next president Eric ham Jennifer Victor Amo I really appreciate your Insight and looking forward to talking to you in the near future thank you and thank you too for watching you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website aljazeera.com for further discussion go to our Facebook page that's facebook.com/ AJ insid story you can also join the conversation or ask our handle is at AJ inside story from miash and the entire team here in Doha bye for now [Music]