This is the fifth in a series on the Trump/Harris debate. Prior posts are here and here, The debate transcript is available here.
DAVID MUIR: And just to clarify here.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They threw him [Biden] out of a campaign like a dog. We don't even know, is he our president? But we have a president...
DAVID MUIR: Mr. President,
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: ...that doesn't know he's alive.
DAVID MUIR: Your time is up. Just to clarify the question, do you believe it's in the U.S. best interests for Ukraine to win this war? Yes or no?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think it's in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal. Because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.
COMMENT: I think Trump's personal attacks on Biden and Harris are contemptible. Trump's evasion of the moderator's explicit question is unacceptable. The moderator should have reminded Trump he signed military aid to Ukraine into law. Yes, war is terrible, but let's remember Trump's hypocritical backing of the Saudi aggression in Yemen against explicit Congressional opposition.. The military industrial complex did well under Trump.
DAVID MUIR: I want to take this to Vice President Harris. I want to get your thoughts on support for Ukraine in this moment. But also as commander in chief if elected how would you deal with Vladimir Putin and would it be any different from what we're seeing from President Biden?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, first of all, it's important to remind the former president you're not running against Joe Biden, you're running against me. I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up. And that's not who we are as Americans. Let's understand what happened here. I actually met with Zelenskyy a few days before Russia invaded, tried through force to change territorial boundaries to defy one of the most important international rules and norms, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. And I met with President Zelenskyy. I shared with him American intelligence about how he could defend himself. Days later I went to NATO's eastern flank, to Poland and Romania. And through the work that I and others did we brought 50 countries together to support Ukraine in its righteous defense. And because of our support, because of the air defense, the ammunition, the artillery, the javelins, the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine stands as an independent and free country. If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. And understand what that would mean. Because Putin's agenda is not just about Ukraine. Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO. And what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to fight for their Independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe. Starting with Poland. And why don't you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.
COMMENT; Odd answer from Harris who once again ignores the moderator's question of how her foreign policy from Biden. Harris doesn't know Trump's plan for ending the Ukraine/Russia war. The fact is that the US meddled in the 2014 Ukraine revolution, particularly under the Obama Administration and has essentially treated Ukraine as an informal NATO ally. Trump should be addressing this as context . The Harris domino theory is ludicrous and should be called out.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris Thank you. We heard from both of you on Ukraine tonight. Afghanistan came up in the last hour -- I wanted her to respond to something you said earlier.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I have to respond.
DAVID MUIR: Please I'll give you a minute here.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Putin would be sitting in Moscow and he wouldn't have lost 300,000 men and women. But he would have been sitting in Moscow
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: (inaudible)
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Quiet, please. He would have been sitting in Moscow much happier than he is right now. But eventually, you know, he's got a thing that other people don't have. He's got nuclear weapons. They don't ever talk about that. He's got nuclear weapons. Nobody ever thinks about that. And eventually uh maybe he'll use them. Maybe he hasn't been that threatening. But he does have that. Something we don't even like to talk about. Nobody likes to talk about it. But just so you understand, they sent her to negotiate peace before this war started. Three days later he went in and he started the war because everything they said was weak and stupid. They said the wrong things. That war should have never started. She was the emissary. They sent her in to negotiate with Zelenskyy and Putin. And she did and the war started three days later.
DAVID MUIR: Vice president...
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And that's the kind of talent we have with her. She's worse than Biden. In my opinion, I think he's the worst president in the history of our country. She goes down as the worst vice president in the history of our country. But let me tell you something. She is a horrible negotiator. They sent her in to negotiate. As soon as they left Putin did the invasion.
COMMENT: Trump has no evidence here to support his point of view. Trying to blame Putin's invasion on failures of Biden/Harris's alleged diplomatic failure is ludicrous.
DAVID MUIR: President Trump, thank you. You did bring up something, you said she went to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin, can you clarify tonight?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Yet again, I said it at the beginning of this debate, you're going to hear a bunch of lies coming from this fella. And that is another one. When I went to meet with President Zelenskyy, I've now met with him over five times. The reality is, it has been about standing as America always should, as a leader upholding international rules and norms. As a leader who shows strength, understanding that the alliances we have around the world are dependent on our ability to look out for our friends and not favor our enemies because you adore strongmen instead of caring about democracy. And that is very much what is at stake here. The President of the United States is commander-in-chief. And the American people have a right to rely on a president who understands the significance of America's role and responsibility in terms of ensuring that there is stability and ensuring we stand up for our principles and not sell them for the benefit of personal flattery.
COMMENT:: Let's be clear. We are not the policeman of the world. This is primarily a European security problem. Harris has not drawn a line defining our security interests. We have a limited budget. The US has meddled in the affairs of other nations (consider Iran). After the collapse of the USSR, we had promised Russia we would not expand NATO to Russia's borders. There is moral hazard in Harris' seeming blank check to Ukraine. I don't really care about issues of personal style, how Trump admires Putin, etc.
.DAVID MUIR: We've talked about Ukraine and Vladimir Putin. I do want to talk about Afghanistan. It came up in the first hour of this debate.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: David, one thing.
DAVID MUIR: I want to move on to Afghanistan.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Secretary General Stoltenberg said Trump did the most amazing thing I've ever seen, he got these countries, the 28 countries at the time, to pay up. He said I've never seen -- he's the head of NATO. He said I've never seen -- for years we were paying almost all of NATO. We were being ripped off by European nations both on trade and on NATO. I got them to pay up by saying one of the statements you made before, if you don't pay we're not going to protect you.
COMMENT I am not going to repeat the arguments against economic illiteracy behind Trump's unnecessary trade war with the EU. First of all, NATO this year finally reached 2%--under Biden."In February", NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “In 2024, NATO allies in Europe will invest a combined total of $380bn in defence. For the first time, this amounts to 2 percent of their combined GDP.” As of this year, Trump cannot withdraw from NATO withoutCongressional consent: "Most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, enacted on December 22, 2023, prohibits the President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without approval of a two-third Senate super-majority or an act of Congress." Trump's unprecedented bullying behavior has been divisive within the alliance. [Note: as a libertarian I think NATO, especially post USSR, is an anachronism and in a sense has contributed to the Ukraine/Russian conflict.] But Trump is part of the reason the US spends more than 3% of its GDP on defense, more than the target 2% for NATO. So of course the US spends about 2/3 of NATO funding.
DAVID MUIR: President Trump--
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Otherwise we would've never gotten it. He said it was one of the most incredible jobs that he's ever seen done.
DAVID MUIR: Thank you. I want to turn to Afghanistan. We witnessed a poignant moment today on Capitol Hill honoring the soldiers who died in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. I do want to ask the vice president, do you believe you bear any responsibility in the way that withdrawal played out?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, I will tell you, I agreed with President Biden's decision to pull out of Afghanistan. Four presidents said they would, and Joe Biden did. And as a result, America's taxpayers are not paying the $300 million a day we were paying for that endless war. And as of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world, the first time this century. But let's understand how we got to where we are. Donald Trump when he was president negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine. He calls himself a dealmaker. Even his national security adviser said it was a weak, terrible deal. And here's how it went down. He bypassed the Afghan government. He negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5,000 terrorists, Taliban terrorists released.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: And get this -- no, get this. And the president at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David. A place of storied significance for us as Americans, a place where we honor the importance of American diplomacy, where we invite and receive respected world leaders. And this former president as president invited them to Camp David because he does not again appreciate the role and responsibility of the President of the United States to be commander in chief with a level of respect. And this gets back to the point of how he has consistently disparaged and demeaned members of our military, fallen soldiers, and the work that we must do to uphold the strength and the respect of the United States of America around the world.
COMMENT: Well, once again, Harris ignores the direct question from the moderator to defend the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. She simply tries to blame Trump for it, but that doesn't explain why Biden withdrew when he did, without consulting the Afghan government, etc. As for the lie highlighted above. we have troops in harm's way in Syria and Iraq.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you. President Trump, your response to her saying that you began the negotiations with the Taliban.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, thank you. So if you take a look at that period of time, the Taliban was killing our soldiers, a lot of them, with snipers. And I got involved with the Taliban because the Taliban was doing the killing. That's the fighting force within Afghanistan. They don't bother doing that because you know, they deal with the wrong people all the time. But I got involved. And Abdul is the head of the Taliban. He is still the head of the Taliban. And I told Abdul don't do it anymore, you do it anymore you're going to have problems. And he said why do you send me a picture of my house? I said you're going to have to figure that out, Abdul. And for 18 months we had nobody killed. We did have an agreement negotiated by Mike Pompeo. It was a very good agreement. The reason it was good, it was -- we were getting out. We would have been out faster than them, but we wouldn't have lost the soldiers. We wouldn't have left many Americans behind. And we wouldn't have left -- we wouldn't have left $85 billion worth of brand new beautiful military equipment behind. And just to finish, they blew it. The agreement said you have to do this, this, this, this, this, and they didn't do it. They didn't do it. The agreement was, was terminated by us because they didn't do what they were supposed to do.
DAVID MUIR: I want to move on.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And these people did the worst withdrawal and in my opinion the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. And by the way, that's why Russia attacked Ukraine. Because they saw how incompetent she and her boss are.
COMMENT: Trump's argument he terminated the agreement and would have not arranged for his own quick exit is not credible. In fact, it looks like he wanted credit for a withdrawal in the final days of his Presidency: "Then, after the election, Trump reduced the American troops from 5,000 to 2,500, even though the Taliban did not live up to the agreement, including talking to the Afghan government. And one of his aides then went to the Pentagon and said all troops out by January 15, just five days before Biden was to be inaugurated. Pentagon officials balked and said it can't possibly be done that quickly."
DAVID MUIR: President Trump, thank you. I want to move on now to race and politics in this country. Mr. President, you recently said of Vice President Harris, "I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black." I want to ask a bigger-picture question here tonight. Why do you believe it's appropriate to weigh in on the racial identity of your opponent?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't. And I don't care. I don't care what she is. I don't care. You make a big deal out of something. I couldn't care less. Whatever she wants to be is okay with me.
DAVID MUIR: But those were your words. So, I'm asking --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't know. I don't know. All I can say is I read where she was not Black, that she put out. And, I'll say that. And then I read that she was black. And that's okay. Either one was okay with me. That's up to her. That's up to her.
COMMENT; Trump has no credibility here. The fact is, she went to a historically black university and was president of the Black Law Students Association in law school. Now yes, her mother was Indian, but she has consistently identified as black since her youth. Trump is making up this crap about equivocation over her heritage.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, your thoughts on this?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I think it's – I mean honestly, I think it's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people. You know, I do believe that the vast majority of us know that we have so much more in common than what separates us. And we don't want this kind of approach that is just constantly trying to divide us, and especially by race. And let's remember how Donald Trump started. He was a, a, a—land, he owned land, he owned buildings, and he was investigated because he refused to rent property to Black families. Let's remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five. Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution. This is the same individual who spread birther lies about the first Black President of the United States. And I think the American people want better than that. Want better than this. Want someone who understands as I do, I travel our country, we see in each other a friend. We see in each other a neighbor. We don't want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other. I meet with people all the time who tell me "Can we please just have discourse about how we're going to invest in the aspirations and the ambitions and the dreams of the American people?" Knowing that regardless of people's color or the language their grandmother speaks we all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those, not in hate and division.
COMMENT; Well, Harris overplays her hand here. She's basically calling Trump a racist and again launches a personal attack on Trump. The birther nonsense had nothing to do with Obama's racial identity. All she needed to do is say she's the proud daughter of a Jamaican-American professor, and Trump knew nothing about her heritage. -
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris thank you. Linsey?
LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, this is now your third time --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country. There's never been anything like it. They're destroying our country. And they come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted -- they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty -- then they pled we're not guilty. But this is a person that has to stretch back years, 40, 50 years ago because there's nothing now. I built one of the greatest economies in the history of the world and I'm going to build it again. It's going to be bigger, better and stronger. But they're destroying our economy. They have no idea what a good economy is. Their oil policies -- every single policy -- and remember this. She is Biden. She's trying to get away from Biden. I don't know the gentleman, she says. She is Biden. The worst inflation we've ever had. A horrible economy because inflation has made it so bad and she can't get away with that.
COMMENT Trump calling Biden/Harris the most divisive in American history is like the pot calling the kettle black.. This is the only President to be impeached twice. The J6 crisis over a lost election was unprecedented in American history. But it would be hard to argue against Abraham Lincoln, with over 1M Americans dead. Trump's statements about the Central Park Five have sparked a lawsuit; the defendants never pled guilty. "A decade after the attack, a different man confessed to the crime, which was confirmed through DNA analysis". And Trump is delusional about growing the greatest economt in the history of the world; he didn't even reach the GDP growth rate trend since WWII. Trump's COVID relief package was part of the story in what ignited inflation, never mind he initially named Jerome Powell to the Fed.
DAVID MUIR: Mr. President, thank you, your time is up. Linsey --
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I want to respond to that, though. I want to just respond briefly. Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country. One who believes in what is possible, one who brings a sense of optimism about what we can do instead of always disparaging the American people. I believe in what we can do to strengthen our small businesses, which is why I have a plan. Let's talk about our plans. And, and let's compare the plans. I have a plan to give startup businesses $50,000 tax deduction, to pursue their ambitions, their innovation, their ideas, their hard work. I have a plan. $6,000 for young families for the first year of your child's life. To help you in that most critical stage of your child's development. I have a plan that is about allowing people to be able to pursue what has been fleeting in terms of the American dream by offering help with down payment of $25,000, down payment assistance for first-time home buyers. That's the kind of conversation I believe, David, that people really want tonight as opposed to a conversation that is constantly about belittling and name-calling. Let's turn the page and move forward.
COMMENT; Harris doesn't have the funding for these programs, desperate attempts to bribe voters, never mind dubious constitutionality and which only serve to exacerbate inflationary pressures, instead of dealing with the real economic issues ; she's already $2T in the hole every fiscal year
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you.
LINSEY DAVIS: We have to move on. President trump --
PRESIDENT TRUMP: She is destroying our country. She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everybody's gun. She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. That's what her plan is until just recently.
COMMENT: Deliberately false on each count. She never agreed with defunding the police; she did call for some funding shifts to reimage public safety with education, etc. No, she does not support mandatory gun confiscation; in her 2020 campaign she did talk about buying "assault weapons". The fracking she took in 2019 only applied to federal leases and has changed.
LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, President Trump.
VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS: The former president has said something twice and I need to respond too. I just need to respond one time to what he has said multiple times.
LINSEY DAVIS: I'm sorry, we're going to move on, Vice President Harris. This is now your third time running for president. you have long vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. You have failed to accomplish that. You now say you're going to keep Obamacare. Quote, unless we can do something much better. Last month you said, quote, we're working on it. So tonight, nine years after you first started running, do you have a plan and can you tell us what it is?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Obamacare was lousy health care. Always was. It's not very good today. And what I said, that if we come up with something, we are working on things, we're going to do it and we're going to replace it. But remember this. I inherited Obamacare because Democrats wouldn't change it. They wouldn't vote for it. They were unanimous. They wouldn't vote to change it. If they would have done that, we would have had a much better plan than Obamacare. But the Democrats came up, they wouldn't vote for it. I had a choice to make when I was president, do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Never going to be great. Or do I let it rot? And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away. I decided -- and I told my people, the top people, and they're very good people -- I have a lot of good people in this -- that administration. We read about the bad ones. We had some real bad ones too. And so do they. They have really bad ones. The difference is they don't get rid of them. But let me just explain. I had a choice to make do I save it and make it as good as it can be or let it rot? And I saved it. I did the right thing. But it's still never going to be great. And it's too expensive for people. And what we will do is we're looking at different plans. If we can come up with a plan that's going to cost our people, our population less money and be better health care than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it. But until then I'd run it as good as it can be run.
LINSEY DAVIS: So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I have concepts of a plan. I'm not president right now. But if we come up with something I would only change it if we come up with something better and less expensive. And there are concepts and options we have to do that. And you'll be hearing about it in the not-too-distant future.
COMMENT: Trump is evading the issue. He wanted to repeal and replace 7 years ago and he can't still outline what his plan would be? We libertarians don't believe the answer is a better centrally-administered mouse trap. We believe in a more decentralized approach.
LINSEY DAVIS: Vice President Harris, in 2017 you supported Bernie Sanders' proposal to do away with private insurance and create a government-run health care system. Two years later you proposed a plan that included a private insurance option. What is your plan today?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, first of all, I absolutely support and over the last four years as vice president private health care options. But what we need to do is maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act. But I, I'll get to that, linsey. I just need to respond to a previous point that the former president has made. I've made very clear my position on fracking. And then this business about taking everyone's guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff. As it relates to the Affordable Care Act, understand, just look at the history to know where people stand. When Donald Trump was president, 60 times he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. 60 times. I was a senator at the time. When, I will never forget the early morning hours when it was up for a vote in the United States Senate and the late great John McCain, who you have disparaged as being – uh, you don't like him, you said at the time because he got caught, he was an American hero. The late great John McCain, I will never forget that night. Walked onto the Senate floor and said no, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't get rid of the Affordable Care Act. You have no plan. And what the Affordable Care Act has done is eliminate the ability of insurance companies to deny people with pre-existing conditions. I don't have to tell the people watching tonight, you remember what that was like? Remember when an insurance company could deny if a child had asthma, if someone was a breast cancer survivor, if a grandparent had diabetes? And thankfully, as I've been vice president and we over the last four years have strengthened the Affordable Care Act, we have allowed for the first time Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of you the American people. Donald Trump said he was going to allow Medicare to negotiate dr, drug prices. He never did. We did. And now we have capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. Since I've been vice president we have capped the cost of prescription medication for seniors at $2,000 a year. And when I am president we will do that for all people understanding that the value I bring to this is that access to health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it. And the plan has to be to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not get rid of it, (in audible) in terms of where Donald Trump stands on that.
COMMENT: Well, the moderator here does not probe Kamala's change in principle. It reminds me of the Dem-controlled House in the 111th Congress; Pelosi essentially backed the so-called public option; what company could survive a predatory price attack from a government competitor which can run up a $35T deficit? But the Senate Dems included members at risk for 2010, leading to infamous political deals like Gator Aid, the Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback; After Scott Brown's upset election to succeed Kennedy allowing the GOP to filibuster bills, the Dems took the corrupt ObamaCare sausage and forced it through the House. The basic architecture created a rigged super-regulated marketplace of private entities. It is well-known for high premiums and deductibles and limited industry participants. The Dems disingenuously argue that the government is cheaper based on economy of scale and lower marketing/administrative costs. I have written in various X and other posts about the $35 monthly insulin cap before, which in fact was initiated by the Big 3 vendors; other vendors were entering the marketplace, and Dems were comparing list prices usually sharply discounted. Trump also had similar trial programs in process. But insulin and prescriptions affect more than Medicare beneficiaries, and Harris doesn't discuss them. Once again, most of this is a personal attack on Trump.
LINSEY DAVIS: I want to move to an issue that's important --
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: She made a mistake. Number one, John McCain fought Obamacare for ten years. But it wasn't only him. It was, All of the Democrats that kept it going. And you know what? We could do much better than Obamacare. Much less money. But she won't improve private insurance for people. Private, medical insurance. That's another thing she doesn't want
LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump.
COMMENT:. Sen. McCain died in 2018. ObamaCare passed in 2010. His vote to save ObamaCare was in 2017. Not quite a decade. Trump is claiming lower costs, but he doesn't provide specifics. And Harris started her response attesting to her acceptance of private carriers.
