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PHILADELPHIA — Former President Donald Trump repeatedly found himself on the back foot Tuesday night during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris — as Republicans seethed over repeated fact-checks of the GOP candidate and a noticeably lighter touch for the Democrat’s own disputed statements.
Harris, 59, arrived well-prepared to rattle Trump by claiming that military leaders had told her that the Republican nominee and 45th president was a “disgrace,” that world leaders were “laughing” at him and even asserting that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom” after he was “fired by 81 million people” in 2020.
Trump, 78, found himself having to answer not only Harris’ repeated and pointed attacks on both his pride and policy, but also a pair of moderators who quibbled with some of his statements despite what his supporters viewed as a lack of even-handedness.
When Trump argued that crime in the US is increasing because of migrants allowed into the country on Harris’ watch, “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir interjected: “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down.”
Trump fired back with his own fact check that “they didn’t include the cities with the worst crime,” referencing the omission of data from Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.
The 45th president also was brought up short when he said that Biden “sent [Harris] in to negotiate with [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelensky and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and she did, and the war started three days later, and that’s the kind of talent we have with her,” referring to the veep being deployed to Europe in February 2022 to try to prevent the Kremlin invasion of Kyiv.
Muir asked Harris, “Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin?” — with the Democrat duly citing it as one of Trump’s “lies.”
At another point, “World News Tonight Sunday” host Linsey Davis intervened after Trump made reference to former Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2019 remarks about aborting babies after birth, part of an extended commentary by the former president about his belief in state autonomy and legal access to the procedure in cases of rape, incest and the health of the mother.
“You can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia … 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 said, misidentifying Northam’s state. “The Democrats are radical in that.”
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” stated Davis after Trump concluded, drawing howls from conservatives who noted that six states and the District of Columbia currently do not place any limits on the procedure.
At one point near the end of the debate, a Trump campaign spokesperson texted a Post reporter “3 on 1” in reference to the dynamic on the National Constitution Center stage.
The 59-year-old Harris, meanwhile, delivered a far stronger appearance than the dismal showing by President Biden in June that stoked Democratic fears of a Trump landslide victory — with the former prosecutor avoiding major gaffes and deflecting potentially damaging questions about her record and evolving stances on a range of major issues.
The VP was helped by her opponent, who proved unable to resist when Harris used what she described as Trump’s strategy of “lies, grievances and name calling” against him.
In one illuminating exchange, after Harris accused Trump of persuading Capitol Hill Republicans to kill a border security spending bill, she claimed his signature rallies had lost their action-packed, blockbuster quality.
Rather than responding to the immigration attack, Trump defended his showmanship, saying: “People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light, so she can’t talk about that.
“People don’t leave,” the former president went on. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We’re a failing nation.”
Ahead of the debate, Republicans focused on Harris’ close friendship with Dana Walden, a senior Disney executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, and questioned the impartiality of the network.
Those fears appeared justified as the debate gave cursory focus to Harris’ liabilities, including a series of policy flip-flops on stances from her 2019 run for president — such as past vows to eliminate private health insurance, decriminalize illegal border crossings, ban fracking for oil and natural gas, and ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — and her role as President Biden’s designated point person on reducing illegal immigration, which surged to annual record highs in the first three years of her role as the so-called “border czar.”
Catch up on The Post’s debate coverage
Trump allies and Republican commentators were left fuming and compiling a long list of missed opportunities for Muir and Davis to rebuke Harris, such as when she said that police had died during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot; that Trump had imperiled access to IVF treatment and that Trump would implement the provisions of the right-wing Project 2025 governing blueprint, despite the former president disavowing it repeatedly.
Other falsehoods by Harris that went unchallenged included her comment that Trump was threatening a “bloodbath” if he lost the election, when the context of that remark was in reference to the US auto industry, and for invoking his statement in 2017 that there were “very fine people” on both sides of Charlottesville race riot, when the ex-president’s supporters insist he was not referring to the white supremacists involved.
“David Muir is out of control,” tweeted Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, writing, “It isn’t ‘fact-checking,’ it is attacking.”
“ABC is making a huge mistake trying to fact check this live. They’re only proving how biased they are. Harris fabricated an attack on Trump over IVF. ABC sat there and said nothing,” tweeted Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary under President George W. Bush.
“She’s shaking her head as he mentions her Minnesota bail fund action, which is a fact. Her tweet is still live,” tweeted conservative political commentator Guy Benson.
“Harris just said that police died on January 6th[.] No police died on January 6th[.] It’s a blatant lie from Harris — yet ABC doesn’t fact check it,” tweeted Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) wrote, “ABC’s selective ‘Fact Checking’ is why no one believes biased ‘Fact Checking’.”
“Harris just lied about the SCOTUS ruling on immunity. Zero fact-checks from the moderators after multiple fact-checks against Trump. Really bad look for ABC News,” tweeted the influential conservative commentator AG Hamilton.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) tweeted, “ABC News has refused to ‘fact-check’ Kamala Harris on lying about Trump’s positions on: – Project 2025 – Charlottesville comments – ‘Bloodbath’ comments – IVF”
Former Trump White House spokesman Hogan Gidley wrote, “Wait. Did [Muir] and [Davis] NOT factcheck Kamala’s clear and repeatedly debunked lies about ‘Charlottesville’ and ‘bloodbath?’ What the hell?!?”
Former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany added, “Kamala just invoked the Charlottesville ‘both sides’ hoax that has been fact checked as false by left-wing Snopes and the ‘bloodbath’ hoax. Why is Trump having to debunk this and not the moderators?? The ABC moderators only fact check Trump.”
“David Muir fell asleep for four years,” one former Trump White House official bitterly told The Post, “and woke up thinking Americans were stupid enough to believe the same lies on J6.”
On the other side, Democrats were left crowing over the moderator complaints, which they said proved it was a poor night for Trump.
“He wants to be president of the United States, I would hope that he can manage a few obvious questions,” said one former Harris-Biden administration official, adding that the attacks were “just like the former president — always blaming someone else for your failures.”
Another Democratic source noted that Trump himself undercut his own claims about the destabilizing effect of illegal immigration by invoking disputed accounts of Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.
“Eating cats and dogs? You have to be kitten me,” the Democrat joked, adding, “Moderators are letting Trump be himself. That’s never ideal.”
In a sign of Democratic confidence about the VP’s performance, Harris reps immediately pitched a second debate next month, to which the Trump camp responded by noting that the former president is still interested in more faceoffs with Harris, having made offers to take part in forums that would have been hosted by both Fox News and NBC News.
There was no immediate word Tuesday about the prospect of a second Trump-Harris showdown.
