Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald J. Trump faced each other for the first time during a much-anticipated national debate on ABC News last night.
Ms. Harris became her party’s presidential nominee this summer following President Joe Biden’s unexpected departure from the race. She clearly gained the upper hand in the contest with Mr. Trump last night, consistently putting him on the defense.
Time and again, Ms. Harris successfully goaded Mr. Trump into going off course—for example, by making disparaging comments about the size of his campaign rallies and by listing numerous Republicans who have announced their support for Ms. Harris. And she sternly berated his reputation with foreign leaders.
“It is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because…they can manipulate you with flattery and favors,” Ms. Harris said to Mr. Trump. “That is why so many military leaders who you have worked with have told me you are a disgrace.”
Throughout the evening the candidates sketched distinct views on a number of issues, some of them of particular interest to Catholics.
On immigration, neither candidate addressed the suffering of migrants and asylum seekers. Mr. Trump repeated many familiar talking points on immigration. He seemed eager to talk about the issue, even when the question asked was not specifically about it.
“We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re coming in and they're taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics and also unions,” Mr. Trump said in his response to a question about the economy. Later, he added, “Many of these people coming in are criminals. And that’s bad for our economy, too.”
Later he referenced videos circulating on social media about Haitian immigrants in Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating dogs,” he said. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. This is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
David Muir, one of the moderators, noted that the city manager of Springfield said that “there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” (In his response, Mr. Trump protested that “I saw people on television talking about it.”)
Like Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris echoed her campaign speeches, referencing her history of prosecuting “transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs and human beings.” She also referenced a bipartisan border bill that failed in Congress, blaming Mr. Trump’s influence for its defeat.
“That bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now overtime trying to do their job,” she said. “It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States.”
But immigration advocates opposed the failed measure’s restrictions on seeking asylum in the United States. “The presumption that the border can be closed as easily as turning a key on a lock is based on a completely mistaken understanding of what a border is,” Bishop Mark Seitz, the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee, told America earlier this year.
“Many people who are arriving at the border have strong asylum claims. They’ve been fleeing for their lives, and the only place they can find refuge is the United States,” he said.
The Catholic Church in the United States has advocated for comprehensive immigration reform for decades. The discussion of immigration during the debate, however, focused largely on border enforcement.
Is Mr. Trump the “lesser of two evils” on abortion? Mr. Trump repeated his boast on abortion: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, thanks to his appointments to the court, the issue is now rightly decided at the state level. Senator JD Vance, Mr. Trump’s running mate, suggested Mr. Trump would veto a national abortion ban, but Mr. Trump declined to confirm that during the debate.
Instead, Mr. Trump said he believes in exceptions “for rape, incest and life of the mother” and attempted to distinguish his position from Ms. Harris on late-term abortion. He went so far as to say Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, now Ms. Harris’s running mate, supported “abortion in the ninth month” and “execution after birth.”
Linsey Davis, one of the moderators, said killing a baby after it is born is illegal in every state.
The moderators also directly asked Ms. Harris whether she would support any restrictions on abortion, a question the vice president dodged.
Ms. Harris vowed to nationalize access to abortion, “reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade.”
“Understand what has been happening under Donald Trump’s abortion bans,” she said, referring to state restrictions on abortion that have taken effect since Roe was overturned. “Couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied [in vitro fertilization] treatments,” she said. (Mr. Trump says he supports I.V.F. and recently proposed mandated insurance coverage of the procedure.)
The Catholic Church opposes direct abortion in every instance, as well as I.V.F.
Mr. Trump would not admit any wrongdoing in connection to the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Trump was asked whether he regretted anything he did on Jan. 6, the day his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Trump said, essentially, that he does not.
“I join people of good will in condemning the violence today at the United States Capitol. This is not who we are as Americans,” Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, then-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement on the day of the riot.
Ten days later, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, then-chairman of the bishops’ committee on domestic justice and human development, issued a statement calling for peace noting that “the violence of January 6, and the many voices that urged it on, including some political leaders, were the opposite” of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which include peace, kindness and self-control. Noting that some present at the riot at the Capitol had “misappropriated Christian symbols,” Archbishop Coakley said, “There must be accountability for these actions.”
The editors of America advocated for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, conviction and removal from office for his role in the events of Jan. 6.
Only one candidate engaged the issue of climate change. While running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Ms. Harris said that she would ban fracking—a controversial technique for extracting oil and natural gas from the earth. After she became Mr. Biden’s running mate in 2020, she changed her position—a much-scrutinized revision that came up multiple times during the debate. Ms. Harris restated, as she often has, “I will not ban fracking.”
She did, on the other hand, discuss her environmental efforts in response to a question about climate change. “We know that we can actually deal with this issue. The young people of America care deeply about this issue,” she said. “Over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels.”
Mr. Trump did not address climate change in his response but instead pivoted to manufacturing jobs.
Pope Francis, in his 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’,” urged greater care for the environment. “Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home,” he wrote. “Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.”
On health care, Ms. Harris may sound more “Catholic,” but it’s complicated. Ms. Harris touted the Biden administration’s record on health care—like capping costs on prescription drugs—and voiced her support of the Affordable Care Act. She also said that “access to health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it.”
The Catholic Church also describes health care as a human right. But the church and Ms. Harris part ways when it comes to what counts as “health care.” She characterized abortion and I.V.F. as health care during the debate, describing abortion as “the freedom to make decisions about one's own body.”
Mr. Trump’s response to the health care question was more difficult to follow. He called the Affordable Care Act “lousy” but explained he felt “an obligation” to support it now, even though it was “too expensive for people.” When pressed for a concrete plan, Mr. Trump said, “I have concepts of a plan,” and vowed to deliver something “better and less expensive.”
Despite the recent school shooting in Georgia, gun restrictions were not discussed. Four people were killed and nine were injured during a Sept. 6 school shooting in Winder, Ga. Yet the moderators of the debate did not ask about gun control measures or other ways to curb violence in schools and neighborhoods.
For his part, Mr. Trump said Ms. Harris “wants to confiscate your guns.” Ms. Harris responded to the accusation much later in the debate, noting that both she and Mr. Walz are gun owners. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away,” she said. That was the extent of the exchange.
Last year, there were nearly 19,000 gun deaths in the United States, not including suicides. In 2013, the editors of America urged a repeal of the Second Amendment. Referring to the thousands who lose their lives to guns each year, the editors wrote, “If the American people are to confront this scourge in any meaningful way, then they must change. The Constitution must change.”
(In the past, the U.S. bishops have questioned the logic of possessing handguns in particular.)
While not specifically Catholic, it should be noted that the candidates and moderators did little to address the devastating, long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It began during the Trump administration and continued during the Biden administration. Many of the trends referenced during the debate—including the economy, crime and immigration—cannot be properly understood without at the same time considering the unprecedented global pandemic.
The candidates did not discuss mental health, and Mr. Trump mentioned his attempted assassination only in passing. The debate also neglected the Supreme Court, which Mr. Biden vowed to reform in July, as well as education.
Granted, only so much can be covered during one 90-minute debate. In past elections, candidates would agree to multiple debates at a time, with perhaps one being designated as a foreign policy discussion and another that focuses more on domestic issues. Last night’s debate was the only one scheduled, but perhaps the candidates will agree to more. Many questions remain to be asked.
