The presidential debate between Harris and Trump begins with a handshake after which becomes heated and pointed

As the 2 presidential candidates took the controversy stage, Kamala Harris strode over them and shook Donald Trump's hand, setting a confident tone that never let up. throughout the controversy.

Trump, who looked as if it would grow angrier because the night progressed, stuck to his old Themes of American decline and reminded viewers that Harris was a part of the Biden administration, which he blamed for this decline.

Each candidate probably scored points together with his supporters – whether he was in a position to persuade undecided voters will only grow to be clear once the votes are counted. The Conversation US interviewed two scientists, the sociologist from Miami University Rodney Coates, an authority on racial issuesAnd Lee Banvillehas worked for the PBS NewsHour for 13 years and is now director of the School of Journalism on the University of Montana who wrote a book about presidential debatesto reply to what they heard in the controversy.

“The American people want better”

Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies, Miami University

From the start of the presidential debate, Kamala Harris made clear her vision for a more just society while directly difficult Donald Trump's controversial views on abortion, immigration and the U.S. legal system.

“My aim is to encourage people, not to place them down”, Harris said.

A former prosecutor, Harris repeatedly used Trump's own words and past behavior to attack his chaotic first administration. In response, Trump resorted to private attacks, calling Harris “the worst vice president in the history of our country” and saying she had no ideas apart from those of her boss, President Joe Biden.

But after hearing Trump's frequent personal attacks against Biden, Harris finally snapped. “You're not running against Joe Biden,” Harris said. “You're running against me.”

Noticeably absent from Trump’s first personal meeting with Harris were his racist attacks against themSince Biden dropped out of the race in July 2024 and Harris became the Democratic candidate, Trump has described Harris as “a low IQ”, “stupid as a stone”, “weak” and “lazy”.

For many of the debate, Trump avoided this line of attack, but he couldn’t avoid a Myth debunked that Haitian immigrants in Ohio killed and ate pets. But when asked about Harris' ethnicity, Trump said he didn't care what it was.

“I read that she's not black … then I read that she is black,” Trump said. “That's her business.”

Critics accused Trump of racist attacks at the center of his election campaign strategy.

Harris, nonetheless, said there was no room for such a racially divisive strategy.

“It's a tragedy,” Harris said. Trump, she said, “has tried time and time again throughout his career to use race to divide the American people. … I think the American people want better.”

“What people wanted”

Lee Banville, Professor and Director of the School of Journalism, University of Montana

Often, these spectacles of American politics come right down to a memorable moment—a rhetorical jab that bloodies an opponent, an unforced error that haunts an election campaign for weeks. first half-hour of Biden's appearance His debate with Trump in June is just the newest in an extended line of pivotal moments that may disrupt a campaign.

But when does a botched formulation grow to be a political crisis or a factual oversight lead to lost votes? And what of tonight's historic meeting is price greater than a number of TikToks making fun of politicians?

We should know in the following few days, but one in all the explanations could also be that Trump claimed in Roe v. Wade that ending constitutional protections for abortion had returned the matter to the States – a move, he said. “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, every liberal, every conservative, they all wanted to get this issue back to the states where people can vote. And that's what happened.”

Harris then used the phrase “what the people wanted” against the previous president.

“You want to talk about what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term and have a miscarriage, who are denied treatment in the emergency room because doctors are afraid she'll go to jail, and she bleeds to death in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13-year-old incest survivor forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don't want that.” Harris said.

It was a political but in addition personal moment, and it touched on a significant theme of the election campaign. We have seen such moments prior to now: President Gerald Ford falsely declared Eastern Europe free from Soviet rule; President Ronald Reagan deftly defused concerns about his age with a well-placed joke concerning the youth and inexperience of his 56-year-old rival; President George HW Bush, who repeatedly glanced at his watch during a town hall debate in 1992.

I used to be lucky enough to work on a documentary in 2008 – “Debate about our fate” – where the moderator of 12 presidential debates and my former boss, the late Jim Lehrer, interviewed a lot of these candidates concerning the debates. The first President Bush was one in all our favorites.

“You look at the clock and they say he shouldn't have anything to do with being president. He's bored. He's out of it, he's not in it and we need change.” Bush later told us“So, I was glad when the damn thing was over. Yeah. And maybe that's why I watched it, just 10 more minutes of that crap.”

Now Bush can have been the comedian, however it was former President Bill Clinton who, upon reflection, offered some good insight into why some debate moments stick within the memory: “The reason the clock thing hurt so much was that it tended to reinforce his voting problem.”

In other words, stories and moments that reinforce a campaign theme that’s already in voters' minds often linger long after the lights are dimmed.

So now Americans will wait and see what the echo chambers and cable networks consider an exchange just like the one on abortion. Will it sway more female voters to support Harris, or will it wander away in a sea of ​​economic issues and immigration policy?

If Bill Clinton is true, the forwards and backwards on the abortion issue will likely resonate if it is said to what voters already take into consideration these candidates and what the important problems with this campaign are.