Taylor Goodyear

Everyone loves a good debate. Since as long as we have existed, we have had opinions, and have liked to share them with others. Whether it’s the Thanksgiving dinner table or English 30H, debates are bound to happen. And 52 days after Kamala Harris announced her presidential campaign, she and Donald Trump met in Philadelphia to practice the age-old tradition of yelling at each other. Ah, politics.

By this point, everyone and their pet parakeets have heard the highlights of the election. If you haven’t, here’s a quick run down of the major events:

1. There was a mini debate going among Twitter users over whether or not Trump and Harris would shake hands at the debate opening. They did, with Harris actually walking all the way to Trump’s podium to ensure that he couldn’t avoid her. Yay, basic signs of respect!
2. Trump said that immigrants were eating pets. Don’t worry, you don’t need to clutch your pet parakeets too closely – aside from being incredibly disrespectful to immigrants, the claim is completely false. There are no records of immigrants, Haitian or otherwise, stealing and eating cats and dogs. However, Trump insists it was true, claiming that “he saw it on television.” Weren’t his generation the ones always telling us that you can’t believe everything you see on TV?
3. Trump still believes he won the 2020 election. Even after 3.5 years, the former president firmly believes that the 2020 election was rigged against him, saying things like “I don’t acknowledge [that I lost]”. Multiple judges and even Trump’s personal attorney told him he didn’t have a case for voter fraud, but he refuses to accept it.
4. Harris told people to visit a Trump rally. In perhaps one of the most iconic moments of Harris’ campaign, she invited people to attend a Donald Trump rally and truly take in their ridiculousness. Trump retaliated by saying that he had the “biggest and the best rallies”. For comparison, Trump’s 2024 campaign rallies have had an average of 5,600 people in attendance; Harris’s turnout is typically between 10,000 to 15,000. Five thousand, fifteen thousand — the same number, really.
5. Politicians lied. What else is new? The preliminary fact-checking by CNN caught 1 lie from Kamala Harris and 33 lies from Donald Trump. These numbers only include blatant lies; misdirection and out-of-context facts weren’t included in their count.
6. Closing Statements were… interesting. Vice President Harris’s closing remarks focused mostly on her plans for the future. She made several points on how Americans “have so much more in common than what separates us” and how she plans to “create an opportunity economy”. These are standard talking points for presidential candidates; perhaps a little overused, but still valid statements. Former President Trump, on the other hand, didn’t mention a single policy plan or campaign idea. His entire closing debate was about Harris and her failings, appealing to Americans’ fear of not being the best by calling us “a nation that’s in serious decline” and said Biden and Harris were “destroying our country”. Personally, I would rather hear what you would do for the country instead of why they would ruin it, but that’s just me.

I and many fellow Americans thought that Harris won the debate with her strong showing. She succeeded in throwing Trump off of his rhythm while remaining calm and collected. Trump was rambling about several issues that had little to no relevance to the question being asked. Take for example, this beautiful exchange:

Debate Moderator David Muir: “How would you deport 11 million undocumented immigrants?”

Trump: “They allowed criminals. Many, many, millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists.”

While Harris isn’t entirely guilt free of this too — see also: When asked if she feels Americans are better off now than they were four years ago, she responded with her plans for the future — Trump does it numerous times while adding little to no impactful information to the conversation.

Now, I know that Twitter has been raving about the unfair moderators and biases of ABC news. However, here is my retort: Former President Trump got over five minutes more speaking time than Vice President Harris did. Former President Trump consistently went over his time limits with few-to-no repercussions. Former President Trump has an extensive digital footprint of controversial things that the American people have questions about. Of course they do; hearing someone say that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese”, an actual tweet of his from 2012, is bound to raise some eyebrows and require a few follow-up questions. Vice President Harris, on the other hand, has no such history, and thus doesn’t require questions about it.

The other biggest complaint by the far right is the live fact checking done by the moderators. How dare people want to prevent the flow of misinformation? Their biggest problem with fact-checking was the one-sidedness of the correction, with no fact-checking done on Harris’ comments. Therefore, in an attempt to mollify the angry mob, here is a quick True vs False for the debate, according to several news websites.

Trump: The Biden administration had the highest inflation in American history.

False – Inflation peaked at 9.1% during the Biden administration. Just 40 years ago, in 1980 inflation hit around 15%.

Harris: Trump left office with the highest rate of unemployment since the great depression

False – It was the 6th highest, at about 7% when he left office. 

Trump: Every legal scholar wanted abortion rights to be brought back to the states.

False – When was the last time everyone agreed on anything? We can’t even agree on which Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor is the best. It’s Half Baked, but that’s neither here nor there.

Harris: Trump said windmills cause cancer.

True – He’s actually said that. The noise from windmills causes cancer, he claims. Someone tell the Netherlands.

Trump: Democrats support abortions in the ninth month and after birth.

Mostly False – Killing children remains illegal everywhere. Abortions in the ninth month are exceedingly rare, <1%, and only occur when the life of the mother or baby is at risk.

Harris: Trump exchanged love letters with Kim Jung Un.

Probably False – no one knows what was in the letters they exchanged.

Trump: He received the most votes out of any Republican and/or sitting president in history.

Half True – He holds the record for Republican presidents, with 74,223,975 votes in the 2020 election. However, he isn’t the most voted for overall; President Biden received 81,283,501 votes in the same election. It’s also important to acknowledge that the US voting population is larger than ever; it would be difficult for Abraham Lincoln to get 74 million votes when there were only 31.5 million people in the US at the time.

Harris: The Trump administration had one of the worst trade deficits in America’s history.

Eh – Yes, it was bad. However, The Biden-Harris administration’s trade deficit is even higher than Trump’s.

Trump: Harris was the border czar.

False – Nope, that was Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Harris: We created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs.

True, but out of context – Most of those ‘new jobs’ were actually jobs lost during COVID-19. There are only 206,000 more jobs now than there were in March 2020, before the pandemic.

Just for fun, here are a few more statistics from the debate:

Times Trump interrupted Harris: 4

Times Harris interrupted Trump: 7

Times trump interrupted the Moderators: 21

Times Harris interrupted the Moderators: 1

I love debates.

Here is my biggest problem with Donald Trump: He doesn’t have a plan. All of his debate points were against Harris instead of telling us what he himself was going to do. When asked about his plans for Obamacare, Trump responded with “I have concepts of a plan. I’m not president right now.” Now, if my memory of my high school guidance counselor serves, a plan is made for the future, not the right now. I have plans to eat dinner, even though I’m not hungry at this exact moment. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, disclosed parts of her presidential plan. She claims that she will restore the rights of Roe v Wade via legislation, give a $50,000 tax deduction to small business owners, give $6,000 to families with newborns, and give a $25,000 down payment deduction to first-time house buyers. These are all concrete goals that we can look forward to. Trump’s plan still remains “Make America Great Again”, with little to no explanation of how he plans to do that. Even Project 2025, for all its threats to democracy, is an outline of a plan. Trump has nothing.

The debate was certainly an experience that nobody was looking forward to. Yet, 67 million of us tuned in to watch the live train wreck like people watching their neighbors get arrested through the living room window. People from all across the United States watched the debate. Everyone’s for-you page has been full of comedians and youtubers putting their spin on events since the moment ABC shut off the cameras. My group chat was going wild with live commentary on funny facial expressions and absurd claims. But in the end, what happened in the debate isn’t nearly as important as what comes next. At this point in time, nearly all independent voters have made their decisions. All that’s left to do is wait for November 5th. Who will you be voting for?