At debate, Harris backs Israel’s right to self-defense; Trump says she ‘hates Israel’
VP says Gaza war ‘must end immediately,’ citing hostages and Palestinian civilian deaths, while former president reiterates his claim Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened under his watch
US Vice President Kamala Harris asserted that Israel has the right to defend itself after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, as Republican candidate Donald Trump accused her of “hating” the Jewish state, during a bitter televised debate Tuesday that poured fuel on an already explosive US presidential election.
When asked by the moderators how she would secure a hostage-ceasefire deal and about her remarks from months ago that “Israel has a right to defend itself, but it matters how,” Harris started by explaining how the almost year-long war in Gaza was triggered.
“Let’s understand how we got here. On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert where women were horribly raped. And so, absolutely… Israel has a right to defend itself; we would,” she said.
“And how it does so matters, because it is also true that far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end, it must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out. So we will continue to work around the clock on that.”
The Democratic candidate then insisted, “We must chart a course for a two-solution,” which she said should ensure security for Israelis and “in equal measure” for Palestinians.
“The one thing I will assure you always: I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel. But we must have a two-state solution, where we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve,” she added.
Donald Trump: "She hates Israel."
ABC's Linsey Davis to the rescue!: "VP Harris, he says you hate Israel."
Kamala: He's trying to divide and distract from the reality that he is weak and wrong on national security. He wants to be a dictator! pic.twitter.com/iCGts6OdMq
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) September 11, 2024
For his part, asked how he would “negotiate with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and also Hamas to get the hostages out and prevent the killing of more innocent civilians in Gaza,” Trump repeated his assertion that the war would have never started if he was president, before claiming that Harris “hates Israel.”
“She wouldn’t even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers… She hates Israel. If she is president I believe Israel will not exist within two years from now,” he claimed. “I’ve been pretty good at predictions, but I hope I’m wrong on that one.”
Though the vice president typically presides over such joint addresses as the one Netanyahu made in Washington in July, Harris was speaking at an event in Indiana for Zeta Phi Beta, a historically Black sorority founded at her alma mater, Howard University, and did not attend.
“At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population, because the whole place is going to get blown up: Arabs, Jewish people, Israel. Israel will be gone,” Trump went on. “It would have never happened. Iran was broke under Donald Trump… Iran had no money for Hamas, or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror… horrible terror… they were broke.”
“Look at what’s happening with the Houthis in Yemen. Look at what’s going on in the Middle East. This would have never happened. I will get that settled and fast.”
The Yemen-based Houthis are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” a group of terror groups and militias in the Middle East aligned against Israel and the US that also includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Syrian and Iraqi militant groups.
Asked to respond to Trump’s claim that she hates Israel, Harris said, “That’s absolutely not true,” describing herself as a lifelong supporter of the Jewish state.
Antisemitism in Charlottesville
The only mention of antisemitism in the debate was a brief remark by Harris about the violence that erupted during the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, which saw white nationalists chanting “Jews will not replace us,” surrounding counter-protesters and throwing tiki torches at them.
“Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate — and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side,” she said of Trump, after also accusing him of inciting “a violent mob to attack our nation’s Capitol, to desecrate our nation’s Capitol” on January 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 presidential elections to Joe Biden.
One of the most jarring exchanges in the debate was on Trump’s unprecedented refusal to accept his loss to Biden in the 2020 election, before trying to overturn the result.
In front of an audience expected to run into the tens of millions of voters, Trump doubled down, insisting there is “so much proof” that he really won.
Harris turned to Trump and said that his own former security officials in the White House have called him a “disgrace.”
“World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump,” she said.
Trump would “give up” Ukraine to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, “a dictator who would eat you for lunch,” she charged. “Dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again.”
The ABC News debate began with Harris unexpectedly approaching Trump to shake his hand before they took to their lecterns at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Within minutes, the 78-year-old Trump called her a “Marxist” and falsely claimed that she and Biden had allowed “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”
Harris pointed out that Trump is a convicted felon, called him “extreme” and said it is “a tragedy” that throughout his career he had used “race to divide the American people.”
Another intense exchange was on abortion.
Trump insisted that while having pushed for the end of the federal right to abortion, he wanted individual states to make their own policy.
Harris said he was telling a “bunch of lies” and called his policies “insulting to the women of America.”
Harris mocks Trump rallies
The last presidential debate in June doomed Biden’s reelection campaign after he delivered a catastrophic performance against Trump. Harris took over as nominee amid Democratic fears that Biden was too old and infirm to defeat the scandal-plagued Republican.
Harris has earned a reputation in past debates and while serving as a US senator for ice-cold put-downs and tough questions.
Her five days of intensive preparation appeared to pay off against Trump, perhaps the most brutal public speaker in American politics.
Trump has long defied political gravity by seeming invulnerable to usual attacks.
He has been convicted of falsifying business records to cover up an affair with an adult film star, found liable for sexual abuse, and faces trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
But Harris clearly needled him on one of his favorite, if less serious topics — his trademark rallies. Attendees, she said, prompting an angry retort, were leaving early out of “exhaustion and boredom.”
Swift backing
Shortly after the debate ended, meanwhile, Taylor Swift, one of the music industry’s biggest stars, endorsed Harris for US president.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post, which included a link to a voter registration website.
Swift has a dedicated following among young women, a key demographic in the November election, and her latest tour has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales. In a half hour, the post received more than 2.3 million likes.
Swift wrote that her endorsement was partially prompted by Trump’s decision to post AI-generated pictures suggesting that she had endorsed him. One showed Swift dressed as Uncle Sam, and the text said “Taylor wants YOU to VOTE for DONALD TRUMP.”
Trump’s posts “brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” Swift wrote, adding, “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice.”
Swift is a popular figure nationwide, but especially among Democrats. An October 2023 Fox News poll found that 55 percent of voters overall, including 68% of Democrats, said they had a favorable view of Swift. Republicans were divided, with 43% having a favorable opinion and 45% an unfavorable one.
With only 56 days left before the election, the intense spotlight was a rare opportunity for both candidates to shift the balance in what polls show is an almost evenly split contest.
And the debate was a key chance for Harris to introduce herself to more voters after only jumping into the race less than eight weeks ago, when 81-year-old Biden abruptly quit.
