US Presidential debate 2024 LIVE updates: Trump, Harris clash over abortion, immigration; Taylor Swift endorses vice president

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump traded jabs, some old false and misleading claims emerged, along with some new ones.

Trump endorsed false rumours about immigrants eating pets, claimed Democrats supported abortions “after birth”, and also claimed Harris met Russian President Vladimir Putin before the invasion of Ukraine.

We’ve fact-checked these claims, and many others, here.

President Joe Biden has weighed in on the debate, writing on X that Harris was the clear winner, and it “wasn’t even close”.

Former first lady Michelle Obama also said that after this debate “there should be no doubt – no room for discussion” that Harris is “the only candidate in this race who is ready to be president”.

Speaking to reporters after today’s event, Donald Trump played down the prospect of a second debate against Kamala Harris.

The Harris campaign quickly put out a statement saying the vice president had commanded the stage and is ready for a second debate, challenging Trump to agree.

But in spontaneous remarks in the so-called spin room after the debate, Trump was hesitant. He referred to a number of “polls” from unnamed sources that claimed he had won.

“She wants to do another one because she got beaten tonight, but I don’t know if we’re going to,” he said. “I felt very good, I had a good time doing it. I hate to speak about our country so negatively, but that’s what happened. They’ve ruined our country.”

During the debate, the former president repeatedly argued the US was a failing nation and a global laughingstock.

Trump then appeared on Fox News and told host Sean Hannity the debate was stacked against him, describing it as three against one with Harris and the ABC News moderators.

“The reason you do a second debate is if you lose, and they lost,” he said, adding he would consider another debate “if it was on a fair network”.

Kamala Harris comfortably won today’s debate against Donald Trump, according to an instant CNN poll of debate watchers.

They awarded Harris the win 63 per cent to 37 per cent, in an exact swap of the result from June’s debate, where 63 per cent felt Trump had beaten Joe Biden.

CNN said the partisan breakdown of the group closely matched the overall population, but the poll had a margin of error of 5.3 per cent.

Before the debate, the group was evenly divided – 50 per cent each for Harris and Trump – over who they thought would win.

Donald Trump saved his best for last, but it was too late to recover from what will go down as a genuinely shocking performance, writes Bruce Wolpe of today’s US election debate.

Wolpe, a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, writes in his opinion piece that a relentless Kamala Harris “sliced Trump like sashimi, when he wasn’t doing it himself”.

The prosecutor put the convicted felon away.

First, Kamala Harris made her case on where she wants to take the country. The polls have been telling Harris the voters do not know her well enough. She got the message and provided more depth on the economy, on energy, and on America’s leadership abroad. She attacked the “Trump sales tax” from his tariffs. She was relentless on what Trump did to abortion rights.

Then she sliced Trump like sashimi. Kamala used ridicule as her weapon of choice. “The American people are exhausted. World leaders are laughing at you. Putin is a dictator who would eat you for lunch.” Trump, she said, is “a weak, pathetic man”.

Trump wanted to monster her off the stage by defining her as the radical, elite, Marxist, immigrant, extremist – and he called her that. Trump always goes on the offensive, but his heavy hand boomeranged. “Biden hates her and can’t stand her.” Trump went on rants that had dead ends. Illegal immigrants are eating cats in Ohio, apparently.

So how does Trump win from here?

Read Wolpe’s full piece here.

Donald Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance, has defended his campaign’s promotion of a baseless rumour that immigrants in an Ohio town are abducting locals’ pets and eating them, saying the “meme” had forced the media to care about the effects of immigration.

Trump doubled down on the rumour during the debate, spreading it to tens of millions of viewers, despite moderators clarifying that officials in the town of Springfield said there was no evidence of such behaviour.

Speaking to CNN after the debate, Vance said the Republican campaign had been contacted by “a number of constituents on the ground, both first hand and secondhand reports, saying this stuff is happening”, and that the media should investigate.

“I think it’s important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this stuff for themselves,” he said. “When you have a lot of people saying, ‘my pets are being abducted’, or ‘geese at the city pond are being abducted right in front of us and slaughtered’, this is crazy stuff.

“Whether those exact rumours turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be – this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Healthcare costs are up, housing costs are up, communicable diseases have skyrocketed.”

Vance went on to say the media did not care about these matters “until we turned it into a meme about cats”. He added: “If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we’re going to keep on doing it.”

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins challenged Vance over whether he had a responsibility not to promote misinformation. “If someone calls your office and says they saw Big Foot, that doesn’t mean they saw Big Foot,” she said.

Vance replied: “Nobody’s calling my office and saying that they saw Big Foot. What they’re calling and saying is, ‘We’re seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats’.”

It had been anticipated that this debate might be the only time Harris and Trump would come face-to-face before November 5, but now the vice president says she’s ready for another one.

In a statement put out immediately after the debate, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said the Democratic nominee commanded the stage and was ready for a second debate.

“Is Donald Trump?” O’Malley Dillon asked.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on a possible second meeting. Trump initially baulked at the arrangements surrounding today’s debate, saying he had made the agreement with Biden before the president ended his re-election bid.

The vice-presidential nominees will hold their debate on US broadcaster CBS on October 2 (AEST).

Agencies

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz says he’s “incredibly grateful” for the endorsement of Taylor Swift following the Harris-Trump debate after the megastar posted her support on Instagram.

Swift noted Walz’s longstanding support for LGBTQ issues and women’s reproductive rights, and called on her 283 million followers to register to vote if eligible.

She signed the post “childless cat lady”, a reference to Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s pejorative description of Democratic voters.

Walz, a fellow cat owner, described Swift’s statement as eloquent and clear. “That’s the type of courage we need in America – to stand up,” he told MSNBC.

The Minnesota governor also responded to Trump’s reiteration during the debate that he still believes he won the 2020 election, despite Trump saying on a recent podcast that he lost “by a whisker”.

“He’s never had anybody – other than a pillow guy – support his insane rhetoric around this,” Walz said, a reference to MyPillow founder and Trump backer Mike Lindell.

Walz said the Democratic campaign was ready for a repeat of 2020, in which Trump refuses to admit losing. “We know that he’s not going to probably concede.”