Major Questions Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Still Face After Debate

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump clashed on some of the biggest issues the country faces heading into the election during Tuesday night’s presidential debate in Philadelphia, but the White House hopefuls offered few details on a number of topics.
Both set out their priorities and gave responses to moderators’ questions, but several times they also shared few details or avoided questions entirely.
Newsweek broke down some of the big questions voters might still have for each candidate.
The economy is the number one issue for many voters and both candidates spoke to various policy positions.
Harris outlined her plan to build what she called an “opportunity economy” by supporting the middle class and working people, extending tax cuts for young families, and providing tax deductions for small businesses. She touted her and President Joe Biden’s administration for growth in American manufacturing jobs and attacked Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported goods, characterizing them as a “sales tax” that would be passed on to consumers, a view she pointed out was shared by Goldman Sachs and 16 Nobel laureates in economics.
Harris said that the United States needed to invest in emerging technologies like quantum computing and artificial intelligence in order to “win the competition for the 21st Century” against China. She said that she would not ban fracking.
Trump refuted Harris’ claims that his proposed 10 percent or 20 percent tariffs would increase prices for consumers, arguing that they would bring in “hundreds of billions of dollars” to the U.S. economy while criticizing Biden and Harris’ administration for inflation on the cost of goods like “cereal, bacon and eggs.” He criticized the administration for allowing manufacturing jobs to be outsourced to other countries. Trump said he would “cut taxes very substantially.”
Trump did not respond substantively to a question from moderator David Muir about whether his tariffs would result in higher prices for American consumers, simply replying “they aren’t gonna have higher prices.”
He also did not address concerns that his planned tax cuts, which include lowering corporate tax, would disproportionately benefit the wealthy while increasing the national debt. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that Trump’s tax plan would add $5.8 trillion to the national debt, which currently sits at more than $35 trillion.
Harris did not address a question from Muir about whether Americans are better off now than they were four years ago, given elevated prices on many consumer goods. Instead, she responded by setting out some of her tax policies and contrasting her middle-class upbringing to Trump, who inherited wealth.
Immigration is a key issue in the election, with record numbers of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, although the numbers have fallen in recent months.
Harris talked about her experience in prosecuting transnational criminal organizations for trafficking guns, drugs and people. She said that Congress, including some conservative members, came up with a border security bill that she supported. Harris accused Trump of calling on members of Congress to kill the bill because he “preferred to run on a problem rather than fixing it.” Harris previously pledged that she would bring back the bill if elected.
Trump did not deny killing the bill for political self-interest. At the time, he publicly urged Republicans to vote it down. When asked by Muir why he killed the bill, Trump used the time to respond to a taunt by Harris that crowds at his rallies were small.
He claimed that millions of people are pouring into the country from prisons, jails, mental institutions and insane asylums, and in doing so increasing the U.S. crime rate while decreasing crime rates in their own countries, a claim he has often repeated without evidence. He claimed that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats.” A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told Newsweek on Monday that there were “no credible reports” of that happening.
Harris did not answer a question about why she waited until six months before the election to try to pass a border security bill. She has long been accused by Republicans of being soft on immigration and voters consider her to be less reliable than Trump on the issue. By dodging the question, Harris did not address the concern that she was not truly dedicated to lowering immigration rates.
Trump did not give specifics of his own immigration policies, though he has consistently said in the past that he will build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and will carry out deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. He did not address any of the legal and ethical concerns that have been raised about those policies, and he did not address long-standing logistical criticism about whether his administration could ever complete the proposed border wall.
The Trump administration said it had built 400 miles of border wall during its time in office, when Republicans also controlled the Senate and the House, but according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, only about 80 miles was new, with the rest replacing existing structures.
Trump touted his role in overturning Roe v. Wade and emphasized his support for exceptions in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. Trump falsely claimed that under Roe v. Wade, women could have an abortion “probably after birth.” When questioned about IVF treatments, Trump said that he did not wish to restrict it, and that he was a “leader on fertilization.”
Harris condemned the abortion bans that states have put in place after Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, arguing that such bans are immoral. She pledged to sign a bill reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade if elected.
Trump gave a contradictory answer about whether he would institute a federal abortion ban. He said a federal ban was not his policy, and that instead abortion law should be legislated by the states, but when asked if he would veto a federal abortion ban if it came across his desk, he refused to answer.
Moderator Linsey Davis asked: “But if I could just get a yes or no. Because your running mate, JD Vance, has said that you would veto [a federal abortion ban] if it did come to your desk.”
“Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD in all fairness,” Trump replied. “JD, and I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I think he was speaking for me, but I really didn’t. Look, we don’t have to discuss it.”
Harris said she intends to strengthen the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) and continue to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, a Biden administration policy she touted as having lowered drug prices.
Trump, who tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his term, continued to criticize it as an “expensive” and “lousy” policy.
Trump outlined vague plans for alternative health insurance, giving voters little information about what to expect if he were elected. When asked if he had a plan for an alternative to Obamacare, he said: “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. You’ll be hearing about it in the not-too-distant future.”
Foreign policy is another key and divisive issue in the election, specifically with regard to the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Both candidates spoke about their respective positions and how they intended to bring an end to global conflict.
Harris said that she was committed to strengthening NATO and ensuring Ukraine won its war with Russia. She said Israel and the Palestinians need to urgently reach a hostage release/ceasefire deal and that there needed to be a two-state solution to ensure peace.
She accused Trump of admiring dictators and autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she said would “eat you [Trump] for lunch.”
Trump said that a Harris presidency would result in a nuclear “third World War” and that, under the Biden administration, the U.S. was a “failing nation” that is being “laughed at all over the world.” He said he would make Europe pay more for the Russia-Ukraine war, so the U.S. could pay less. He criticized Harris and Biden for the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Trump repeated his previous claim that he would settle the Russia-Ukraine war, extending the claim to say he could do so before becoming president, by calling Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he claimed respected him. He did not explain how he would settle the conflict and did not answer when asked directly whether it was in U.S. interest for Ukraine to win the war, leaving open the question of whether he would pull American funding and try to end the war with Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.
He did not explain how he would end the conflict in Gaza, instead only alleging that Harris “hates Israel” and predicting that it “will not exist two years from now” if she is elected.
Harris did not address the controversial Afghanistan withdrawal except to say that she agreed with Biden’s decision to pull out, describing it as an “endless war” that was costing the country $300 million per day. She said the chaos was caused by the bad deal Trump negotiated directly with the Taliban, bypassing the Afghan government.
Harris has faced criticism for not addressing the issue sufficiently or taking sufficient responsibility for it by Republicans and families of some of the 13 soldiers who died during the 2021 Kabul Airport bombing.
Most commentators have described the debate as a victory for Harris. Newsweek conducted a reader poll in which 66.7 percent of the 8,000 respondents said Harris had won and only 33.2 percent said Trump was the winner. Most of Newsweek’s writers also considered it a Harris victory (nine chose Harris, four said it was a tie, and just one said Trump won.) Betting odds markets flipped in Harris’ favor following the debate.
Several political science, debating and government scholars also told Newsweek Harris performed better than Trump.
Trump told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that he “probably” would not agree to more debates, but that he would consider debates moderated by Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham, all of whom are Trump loyalists.
It is too early for post-debate polling, but leading into the event the candidates were extremely close in all seven battleground states.