From the stage to the polls, presidential debates have been crucial to U.S. elections since 1960. The 2024 Presidential Debate between democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and republican candidate Former President Donald J. Trump took place on September 10th at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA, and was hosted by ABC News. The media spin room took place at The Convention Center shortly after the debate.
Both candidates frequently campaigned in Pennsylvania throughout the election. Philadelphia, a diverse city with a history of being the birthplace of democracy, is a politically charged city in the swing state, adding to the significance of the location of the debate. On Election Day, Pennsylvania was formative in the race. Receiving 50.4% votes for the Republican Party, it was deemed a red state. How did we see this reflected in the presidential debate, and why should the world be watching?
Per the rules of the debate, the candidates were allotted two minutes to answer each question and their microphones were muted unless it was within the two minutes they were given to speak or the time they were given for rebuttals. Only moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were permitted to ask questions.
The main talking points centered around abortions & women’s rights, immigration/national security, foreign policy, and taxes. Presidential Debates have been one of the most influential methods that candidates use to market themselves and make their views clear to a wider audience. During the debate, we saw both candidates use various tactics in order to be more persuasive.
On abortion & women’s rights, Vice President Harris used the technique of making her stance obvious, especially in comparison to Former President Trump, stating, “I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.” Later, at the end of her two minutes, she remarked, “I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one's own body, should not be made by the government.”
However, Former President Trump’s response to the topic of abortion played on making offensive comments towards his opponent as well as claims about serving the public. He made clear that he felt the overturning of Roe V. Wade, a landmark decision of the U.S. The Supreme Court, in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion, was what the majority of the US wanted. He said, “And there's no reason to sign a ban. Because we've gotten what everybody wanted. Democrats, Republicans and everybody else and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states. And the states are voting. And it may take a little time, but for 52 years this issue has torn our country apart. And they've wanted it back in the states. And I did something that nobody thought was possible. The states are now voting. What she says is an absolute lie.”
Moving onto immigration and national security, Vice President Harris proposed instating 1500 more border agents in order to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the US in the near past before the bill was “killed” by Former President Trump. She doesn’t comment further on immigration, and instead spends time making comments that might be aggravating to Former President Trump, such as “I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
Leaving Former President Trump in a vulnerable state, he spent most of his allotted time responding to the comment about his rallies. He then said, “What they (President Biden and Vice President Harris) have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk - not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats.” This was then fact checked and proved untrue by David Muir after he contacted the city manager of Springfield. When asked about this by a reporter at The Convention Center spin room after the debate, to which he spontaneously showed up, he refused to comment.
Former President Trump also stated, “They allowed criminals. Many, many, millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in, drug dealers, to come into our country, and they're now in the United States. And told by their countries like Venezuela don't ever come back or we're going to kill you. Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down? You know why? Because they've taken their criminals off the street and they've given them to her to put into our country.” He plans to address undocumented immigrants through local police. He did not reason as to why he tried to kill the bill, or say that it was a false statement.
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After taking a closer look at some of the strategies used in the debate, we can see that Vice President Harris made some of the policies she is known for (such as reproductive rights) very clear, and spent the rest of her allotted time baiting Former President Trump and waiting for him to say something incriminating. While this was successful during several moments of the debate, Former President Trump spent the majority of his allotted time making exaggerations and attacks on his opponent. Even while being fact checked 4 times and making over 30 false claims, the debate was televised to around 67 million viewers, not all of whom did their research about the candidates and their policies, leaving themselves highly impressible. As Pennsylvania went red and Former President Trump won the election, it is clear that his tactics were influential.
It is essential for voters to tune into televised events centering political candidates, for this is where democracy is able to take the spotlight. However, watching coverage is not where it ends. Candidates know that media is where they can spin narratives about themselves and their policies; they are usually more concerned with social politics and shaping the way the general public views them than accuracy. Moving forward, it is of utmost important for voters to not only consume this media but also to continue doing their research afterwards, reading break-downs of events, reading transcripts, and checking facts that they are unsure of, for local elections as much as for presidential elections, as we saw the effects of media coverage and varying levels of research done in voters play out in the 2024 election.
Transcript: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542
The Bullhorn News Spin Room Clip collaboration footage with WAAY 31 News: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yz0dcn_aNPvJkrTQzErVD7nOFtl6IUgy/view?usp=sharing
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