Trump vs. Harris Debate Showdown

Disclaimer: While this article does go over the debate on September 10th between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the contents discussed are more poking fun at what occurred within the debate, shining light on some of the things the candidates said, and providing information whilst being non-monotone

(TL;DR: It’s a much more relaxed feeling and much less formal/serious)

If you’ve been staying up to date with the presidential race, you would know that the 2024 election will be one of the most interesting elections yet. With Biden having dropped out so recently and Trump having faced two assassination attempts, all bets are off with how the presidential race will turn out. Most polls see a tossup in the election between Harris and Trump, often with Harris leading by a razor-thin margin.

With that context, we (the American people) were so blessed to receive a debate between these two candidates a while back on September 10th, creating much-needed clarity on the candidates’ positions on topics, and even more much-needed political comedy and memes.

Let us first discuss some interesting quotes from both sides of the debate (as writers of this article, we will acknowledge there is a certain amount of bias towards Harris, but that’s also because some of the stuff Trump says is just genuinely insane, and it’s hilarious)

• “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” – Trump

Let it be clarified that the evidence Trump is working off of is a claim of JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, who said that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating the pets of the Americans who live there. For further clarification, that evidence doesn’t exactly exist (with the closest concrete evidence between a video of a white woman eating a cat or something 20 miles away from Springfield in a nearby city). So, uh, unless JD Vance and Trump came back from a separate timeline in which the Haitians were in fact cooking up the pets in Springfield, this claim seems pretty suspicious.

• “He said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we’ll execute the baby.” – Trump

ABC News immediately fact-checked this. It didn’t take much to prove that statement false since, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.” – Lindsey Davis

• “Our elections are bad. And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically.” – Trump

Whether or not all illegal immigrants know how to speak English is unknown. At the same time, it is very difficult to believe that immigrants do not know what country they are in. One of the reasons immigrants cross the border illegally is largely due to America being America. If one were to show up in a country where the people are dressed up fancy, talk fancy, and eat fancy food such as snails next to a big tower that kind of looks like a transmission tower, one can only assume they are in France.

• “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.” – Trump

Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris has come out with Kamala’s birth certificate stating that she is in fact Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Therefore, it is very unlikely that Kamala Harris is actually Joe Biden.

• “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.” – Harris

This would be impossible as Trump is roughly 215 lbs and 6’2”. Furthermore, he has been aging for roughly 78 years, making his meat tougher as well as heavier to eat. It would be extremely unhealthy for Putin to eat 126% of his body weight. 

• “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.” – Trump

It is unclear who Trump is referring to as Hibatullah Akhundzad is the current leader of the Taliban and has been the leader of the since 2016. We believe he may have been referring to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban. Whether or not Trump actually told Abdul, “don’t do it anymore, you do it anymore you’re going to have problems” we will never know.

• “She’s a Marxist. Everybody knows she’s a Marxist. Her father’s a Marxist professor in economics. And he taught her well.” – Trump

Unfortunately, we were unable to obtain any information about whether or not Harris is a Marxist. However, we did find out that Kamala Harris’ father is a post-Keynesian economist who wrote on Marxist theory. Still, whether or not he actually taught Kamala Harris to be a Marxist is uncertain.

• “She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers. She wanted to go to the sorority party.” – Trump

Despite having been done with school since 1989, Kamala Harris is part of a sorority called Alpha Kappa Alpha. Although Kamala Harris was most likely at the sorority to look good to a certain demographic of voters, there is a possibility that she went there to party. Perhaps she was a little unsteady after this supposed sorority party and that’s why she gave Trump a suspicious look after his discussion of cats and dogs.

• “And I’m going to actually do something really unusual and I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch.” – Harris

This would be considered true since Trump often says things in his speeches that would be considered interesting due to the shock factor of his claims. Such claims include claiming that China had a part in why he lost the presidential debate in 2020, claiming that he calls Xi Jinping  the “king,” and claiming that he came up with the word “caravan.” His outrageous claims are so surprising yet somehow so boring due to his lack of vocabulary that Kamala Harris has started to leave due to how boring and unreasonable it is.

• “I have nothing to do, as you know and as she knows better than anyone, I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely.” – Trump

Even if Trump has not personally read Project 2025, he is still connected, as many of the people involved are his policy advisors. Furthermore, his name has been attached to Project 2025 when Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak said, “Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term.” Trump has of course distanced himself from the project so it would be unlikely for Project 2025 to be branded as “a second Trump term.” However, to say that he has nothing to do with the project is questionable. 

• “Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD In all fairness. 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 because she’d never be able to get it just like she couldn’t get student loans.” – Trump

It seems Trump and Vance aren’t discussing many key issues together (like abortion). 

• “I fired most of those people. Not so graciously. They did bad things or a bad job. I fired them. They never fired one person. They didn’t fire anybody having to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban…So when somebody does a bad job I fire them. And you take a guy like Esper. He was no good, I fired him. So he writes a book. Another one writes a book. Because with me they can write books. With nobody else can they. But they have done such a poor job. And they never fire anybody. Look at the economy. Look at the inflation. They didn’t fire any of their economists. They have the same people. That’s a good way not to have books written about you.” – Trump

I get we made fun of Biden for having incoherent sentences and stuff, but what even is this? The context is that Harris mentioned she has the support of Trump’s former employees and fellow Republicans, and Trump responds with how he fired them but then proceeds on about how Biden never fired anyone and got books written about him. Trump thinks that because he fires his “bad employees” they retaliate by trash-talking him in literature, trying to throw shade by  saying Biden doesn’t fire “bad employees.”

• “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.” – Trump

Unfortunately, Trump is wrong here. it is not up to Harris to decide what race she is. Although she is not completely African American, she still has African American lineage. Fortunately, Trump decides neither lineage nor ethnicity.

Work Cited

Cillizza, Chris. “The 51 Most Outlandish Lines From Donald Trump’s Announcement Speech.” CNN, 16 Nov. 2022.

Hoffman, Riley. “READ: Harris-Trump Presidential Debate Transcript.” ABC News, 11 Sept. 2024, abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542.