Trump clashes with Harris and ABC moderators in an uphill debate

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris met in person at the ABC studios for the first presidential debate of this new race. The two candidates clashed on nearly every issue, including the economy, immigration, abortion and Afghanistan, with the moderators in the eye of the storm for weighing in on behalf of Harris.

All eyes were on this debate after that June event, which ended Joe Biden's re-election bid.

This time, Trump and Harris exploded on social media with the hour-and-a-half debate in which the ABC News moderators made headlines for their interventions.

The first face-to-face between Trump and Harris

The Republican and Democrat greeted each other before starting, with Harris going to find Trump to shake his hand and introducing herself by first and last name.

The first topic was the economy, and there, Trump joined Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and made it clear that the economic reality is "terrible" and that the country is going through one of the "worst inflations in history." At the same time, in something constant throughout the debate, he linked the topicality of the economy with illegal immigration. Indeed, he mentioned the reality of the southern border every chance he got.

For her part, Harris promised to build an "opportunity economy" and assured the four winds that the Biden-Harris administration cleaned up the "Trump mess." Nor did she miss an opportunity to connect Trump to Project 2025.

The Republican counterattacked, saying that his opponent does not have a plan and defining her as a "Marxist," while Harris made gestures that did not take long to go viral on social media. In turn, he remarked that Harris began to copy proposals to him, joking about the possibility of sending her a cap that says "Make America Great Again."

"She's Biden. Worst inflation we've ever had. Horrible economy because inflation has made it so bad. That, she can't get away with," the Republican insisted.

"If she wins we're going to be Venezuela on steroids"

The debate veered to abortion, where Harris blamed Trump for the plight of women in states where abortion is not allowed or is only allowed for what she considers a short time.

On this topic, the Republican celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood, which put the decision back to the voters in each state. He also said he believed in "exceptions" and that Democrats would push for abortions up to seven, eight and even nine months.

Despite the issue at hand, Trump talked about the border and insecurity every chance he got, summing up his position that if Kamala wins in November, the United States will become "Venezuela on steroids."

Kamala insists her values "didn't change"

The moderators asked Harris about her changing positions on fracking, eliminating private health insurance and not criminalizing illegal border crossers. The Democrat claimed she was not actually in favor of banning fracking, ignoring the rest of the issues and insisting that her values actually "didn't change."

"I'm speaking, sound familiar?"

One of the debate's most viral moments came when Trump was speaking, and Harris was responding to him with her microphone off, prompting the Republican to quote what she said to Mike Pence in 2020: "Excuse me, I'm talking, does that sound familiar?"

Moderators in the eye of the storm over an alleged "three-on-one"

David Muir and Linsey Davis were the ABC journalists tasked with moderating the presidential candidates. Unlike Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who moderated the June debate, both of them butted in and even corrected Trump about 11 times, which did not go unnoticed by users on social media.

"Why hasn’t she done it?"

When it came time for closing arguments, Harris was articulate, looked directly into the camera, invoked unity and vowed to put people first.

"That's the kind of president we need right now. Someone who cares about you and doesn't put himself first. I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on what we can do over the next 10 and 20 years to rebuild our country," she closed.

Trump concluded with a phrase that many analysts were asking him at the beginning, "So she started out saying she was going to do this, she was going to do that. She's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for three and a half years. They've had three and a half years to fix the border. They've had three and a half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn't she done it?" he concluded.