How Kamala Harris defeated Trump in debate and what they said about war in Ukraine
On 10 September, US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump finally met face-to-face on the debate stage.
Both political camps have made a clear conclusion: Kamala Harris won the debate. A CNN poll showed that 63% of voters rated the vice president's performance better. In contrast, after the June debate, 67% of voters in a similar poll favoured Trump.
Of course, a lot can change in the two months before the US presidential election. However, Harris is steadily gaining momentum in her campaign, and the recent debate has only confirmed this.
The debate has provided more insight into both candidates' positions on the war in Ukraine, with some potentially surprising revelations.
Read more about what the candidates discussed in the article by Oleh Pavliuk, a European Pravda journalist – Harris starts and wins: what the presidential debates revealed and what was said about Ukraine.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the debate between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump was one of the most anticipated political events, not only in the US but worldwide.
The debate is not decisive when it comes to voters' preferences.
But the current situation was unprecedented in its own way. Never before had a US presidential candidate entered the race so late.
For Harris, this was both a challenge and an opportunity to catch Trump off guard and disorient him.
For the Democrat, the debate was a key event, a chance to introduce herself to the broader public and announce more certain plans she intends to implement if elected.
She leveraged her prosecutorial background, not so much debating her opponent but rather "interrogating" him. And, it must be said, she used this strategy to the fullest.
Harris aggressively attacked Trump, even on topics uncomfortable for her, which the Republican campaign had likely intended to focus on during the debate.
Her prosecutorial skills helped Harris catch Trump in outright lies.
Of course, this doesn’t mean Harris performed perfectly. She didn’t provide enough specifics regarding the economy, although she repeatedly claimed to "have a plan."
As for Trump's performance, the best way to describe it would be a "role reversal."
Whereas in the June debate, the Republican candidate was in his element, constantly attacking Biden and not giving him a moment to breathe, this time, Trump was often on the defensive, fending off Harris's equally persistent accusations.
Trump's attempts at personal attacks against his Democratic opponent weren't particularly convincing either.
Overall, the debate was an opportunity for Trump to show that Harris was no different from Biden and that he alone could lead the US out of the "dead end" to which the current administration has brought the country.
As for Ukraine, Trump used the topic to reiterate that the current administration is bad at negotiating.
He refused to say that Ukraine's victory was in the US's interest. Instead, he argued that what's in the US's interest is simply "ending the war."
In contrast, Harris's message closely aligned with the position of the current administration.
While Trump claimed that with him in office, the war in Ukraine wouldn’t have happened, Harris stated that in such a scenario, "Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe. Starting with Poland."
In closing, she directly criticised the idea of any "negotiations" with Putin, saying that during his presidency, Trump enjoyed flirting with dictators and that Putin is a dictator who "would eat you for lunch."