Amid the heavier financial, immigration and overseas coverage points that surfaced within the debate between U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday evening, there have been some stranger moments and claims.
Tuesday evening’s 90-minute face-to-face debate, extensively seen as a “job interview” for the nation’s high job, may very nicely be the one debate between the 2 candidates earlier than the November election.
Odd moments throughout a debate can inform us as a lot about potential leaders as they do in regards to the larger points. What odd feedback had been made, and the way did political rivals deal with them?
Trump: “Haitian immigrants are consuming pets in Ohio”
Trump claimed that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been consuming residents’ pets.
“In Springfield, they’re consuming the canine, the individuals who got here right here. They’re consuming the cats. They’re consuming… they’re consuming the pets of the individuals who stay there,” he thundered.
Trump’s operating mate JD Vance made the same declare on Monday, posting on his X account: “Months in the past, I raised the difficulty of Haitian unlawful immigrants draining social providers and customarily inflicting chaos all through Springfield, Ohio. Experiences now present that individuals have had their pets kidnapped and eaten by individuals who shouldn’t be on this nation. The place is our Border Czar?”
This rumor seems to have originated in a non-public Fb group for Springfield residents, which claimed {that a} cat had gone lacking and was later found hanging from a tree at a Haitian neighbor’s residence. The rumor was first reported within the Springfield Information-Solar.
Trump has lengthy campaigned on decreasing the variety of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers in the US, however the declare that immigrants are consuming pets in Springfield is unfounded.
In line with a press release from Springfield Metropolis Supervisor Bryan Heck’s workplace: “There have been no credible studies or particular claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by people throughout the immigrant neighborhood.”
Trump: “Transgender operations towards unlawful immigrants” in jail
“Now she [Harris] “President Trump desires to carry out transgender surgical procedures on unlawful immigrants in jail. That’s a radical left-wing liberal who would do this,” Trump mentioned through the debate.
This assertion pertains to Kamala Harris’s response to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire supporting the usage of taxpayer funds to offer gender-affirming care to transgender folks.
The query, posed to the candidates within the earlier presidential elections, The query was: “As President, will you utilize your govt authority to make sure that transgender and nonbinary individuals who depend on the state for well being care, together with folks in jail and immigration detention, have entry to complete remedy related to gender transition, together with all crucial surgical care? If that’s the case, how will you accomplish that?”
Harris responded “Sure,” writing: “It will be significant that transgender individuals who depend on the state for care obtain the remedy they want, together with entry to remedy related to gender transition.”
Though Harris’ response was lately talked about in a CNN report, Harris’ marketing campaign has not confirmed whether or not she nonetheless stands by that place.
Trump and the thriller of ‘Abdul’
In August 2021, throughout a heated trade over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Harris accused Trump of being irresponsible by inviting the Taliban to Camp David in 2019, when Trump was president. This assembly was later cancelled by the White Home following a Taliban assault in September of that yr during which 12 folks had been killed, together with a US serviceman.
Throughout Tuesday evening’s debate, Trump referred to “Abdul” in a rambling speech during which he mentioned he had instructed the Taliban to cease killing American troopers.
He mentioned: “Abdul is the pinnacle of the Taliban. He’s nonetheless the pinnacle of the Taliban. I instructed Abdul, ‘Don’t do that anymore. Should you do that anymore, you may be in hassle. ’ And he mentioned, ‘Why are you sending me an image of my home? ’ I mentioned, ‘You’re going to have to search out out, Abdul. ’ And for 18 months there have been no deaths.”
Trump was doubtless referring to Abdul Ghani Baradar, who throughout his peace talks with Trump in Could 2020 was the Taliban’s chief negotiator. Baradar, nevertheless, will not be the Taliban’s supreme chief. He’s at the moment a senior Taliban commander and Afghanistan’s first deputy prime minister.
Trump: Democrats emboldened assassination try
Trump claimed the assassination try on him throughout a marketing campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when his ear was grazed, was provoked by Democratic rhetoric.
“I used to be in all probability shot within the head for the issues they are saying about me,” Trump mentioned. “They speak about democracy. I’m a risk to democracy.”
A number of days earlier than the assassination try on Trump, the Florida Democratic Social gathering issued a press release in response to a Trump marketing campaign rally on the Trump Nationwide Doral golf membership in Miami, stating: “And the imaginative and prescient he laid out, Undertaking 2025, is an existential risk to our nation. His threats towards immigrants, girls, the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, and extra ought to terrify us all, as a result of if he wins, we all know he’ll do the whole lot in his energy to make sure he ends democracy as we all know it. That’s why we should do the whole lot we are able to to defeat Trump and re-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this November.”
At a September occasion in Tempe, Arizona, to honor the late Sen. John McCain, President Joe Biden mentioned, “If his excessive agenda is carried out, it’ll essentially alter the establishments of American democracy as we all know it.”
He continued: “Trump says the Structure gave him ‘the precise to do no matter he desires as president.’ I’ve by no means heard a president say that even in jest.”
Throughout Tuesday evening’s debate, Harris additionally claimed that Trump would “finish the US Structure.”
On August 28, the FBI held a briefing to offer updates on the investigation into the tried assassination of Trump and gave particulars, together with the suspect’s attainable motives. Kevin Rojek, FBI particular agent in control of the Pittsburgh area workplace, mentioned, “We proceed to see by way of our evaluation a mixture of ideologies. So, I’d say that we don’t see any definitive ideology related to our topic, whether or not it’s left-wing or right-wing. It’s actually been a combination and it’s one thing that we’re nonetheless making an attempt to type by way of and draw conclusions on.”
Harris: Trump claims “windmills trigger most cancers”
Maybe most weird of all, a query about abortion from ABC Information Reside host and debate moderator Linsey Davis led Harris to mock Trump’s rallies and point out Hannibal Lecter, a fictional serial killer within the movie The Silence of the Lambs.
Harris mentioned: “You will note that in his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He talks about how windmills trigger most cancers. And what additionally, you will discover is that individuals begin leaving his rallies early as a result of they’re drained and bored.”
There have been no official studies on how many individuals left early throughout Harris’s or Trump’s rallies.
Trump determined to answer this “offensive” point out: “Let me first reply in regards to the rallies. She mentioned persons are beginning to go away. Folks aren’t going to her rallies. There’s no cause to go. And the people who do go, she brings them in on buses and pays them to be there.”
Trump: “Unlawful immigrants” vote in presidential elections
Trump repeated his declare that the Democratic Social gathering depends on undocumented immigrants as a voting bloc. In a November 2016 tweet on X, Trump mentioned that hundreds of thousands of individuals had voted illegally within the 2016 presidential election, suggesting that undocumented immigrants had been amongst them.
Along with successful the Electoral School in a landslide, I received the favored vote if you happen to low cost the hundreds of thousands of people that voted illegally.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016
“Our elections are unhealthy and they’re making an attempt to persuade many of those unlawful immigrants who’re coming to vote. They don’t even communicate English. They virtually don’t even know what nation they’re in. And these persons are making an attempt to persuade them to vote,” Trump mentioned through the debate.
Harris responded not directly to the declare: “However we can not afford to have a president of the US who tries, as he has previously, to subvert the need of the voters in a free and truthful election.”
In line with the Bipartisan Coverage Heart, a US-based nonprofit that works with policymakers, it’s unlawful for undocumented immigrants to vote in US elections.
“The Unlawful Immigration Reform and Immigrant Duty Act of 1996 explicitly prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. In no state is it authorized for a noncitizen to solid a poll in a federal election.”
