As the school year commences at Bronx River High, so does the anticipation for the upcoming 2024 Presidential election. Many eagerly await who will lead the country and prepare where their votes go. With this in mind, in every election candidates participate in one or more debates about some of the most troubling issues of the time. On September 10, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump had their 90-minute long presidential debate, with Election Day about two months away.
Prior to this event, President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race on July 21, leaving his vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for this year’s presidential election. With America never having a female president before, the outcome of this year’s election is highly anticipated.
The debate opened with Harris and Trump shaking hands at arrival before the first topic of the evening started the discussion off. The opening topic was about the general state of America’s economy or the cost of living and how “voters repeatedly say it is their number one issue.” Harris started first, introducing her plan of “extending a tax cut for those families of $6,000” and a $50,000 tax deduction for starting small businesses. Harris ended her statement by adding, “My opponent, on the other hand, he plans to do what he has done before, which is to provide a tax cut for billionaires and big corporations, which will result in $5 trillion to America’s deficit”.
Trump disagreed, saying, “First of all, I have no sales tax. That’s an incorrect statement. She knows that. We’re doing tariffs (taxes) on other countries. Other countries are going to finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world”. After stating this, Trump continued to respond to the initial question, “I created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country. I’ll do it again and even better.”
However, Trump had made the remark that “We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums. And they’re coming in and they’re taking jobs that are occupied right now by African-Americans and Hispanics and also unions.” He also said, “They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden let into our country. And they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality. And we have to get them out. We have to get them out fast.” After Trump’s proclamation, many people on social media started rushing to voice their disbelief about his statement.
Afterward, the moderators responded by saying that immigration was a topic they’d get back to, and the conversation on the economy continued. Harris responded again saying, “Let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us. Donald Trump left us with the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century. Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. And what we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.”
Harris continued her retort by saying, “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again. I believe very strongly that the American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. And I pledge to you to be a president for all Americans.” To this, Trump disagreed again by claiming he “has nothing to do with Project 2025” and has not, nor plans to read it.
The next topic was abortion laws in America. The starting candidate was Trump, who was asked about his stance on abortion after having “changed his position so many times.” Trump immediately said that “her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is fine. He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born, is okay. And that’s not okay with me.” He followed up by saying afterward that, “Now, I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. I believe strongly in it.” To this, a moderator corrected Trump by noting that, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” and it became Harris’ turn to respond.
Harris stated, “And now in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care. In one state it provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest.” Again to which, Trump disagreed by saying, “I’m not signing a ban. And there’s no reason to sign a ban. Because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted. Democrats, Republicans, and everybody else and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states,” and that he’s “not in favor of abortion ban. But it doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.” This conversation sparked extreme controversy on social media sites such as X and TikTok, some tweets include but are not limited to:
“For the record: You cannot have an abortion in the 9th month. You cannot have an abortion after birth. If we didn’t keep banning books, maybe we wouldn’t have to clear that up. #Debate2024” -NAACP on X
“That’s not how abortion works, Donald.” -PPact on X
The next topic switched to immigrants and border security, to which Harris started the conversation with her account of trafficking and how Trump responds to these issues saying, “That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings. But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill. And you know why? Because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.” Harris built a new point with Trump’s rallies by saying, “I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch” and that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
Trump was asked why he decided to “kill the bill,” and to this, he responded, “First let me respond as to the rallies. People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busting them in and paying them to be there” and that he has “the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost.” In addition to this statement, Trump continued with a quote that’s being spread around social media, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country.” The moderators of the debate swept into fact check and said, “There have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Continuing the conversation on immigration, Trump was asked to explain his deportation laws, to which he replies, “They allowed criminals. Many, many, millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in, drug dealers, to come into our country, and they’re now in the United States” and that “Crime here is up and through the roof.” To his previous statement, he was fact-checked yet again, and told that “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” Harris was asked to respond, she started with, “I think this is so rich. Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing,” Trump again responds by denying Harris’ retort.
When interviewing staff at Bronx River High School, the question “How do you think this compares to presidential debates in the past?” arose. “Instead of accusing each other of things, they sounded more educated,” explained Kalniesha Joseph when comparing the 2012 debate to this year’s debate.
“I thought the moderators did a better job this time than they did in the debate in June. I didn’t like the format though; I think their mics should not have been cut off, and I think that hearing those little under-the-breath comments are helpful to get into the mind of both candidates; their body language was also very telling,” said teacher Stephanie Decicco, “There were moments where both moderators had to step in and say ‘no that’s not true,’ which I appreciated because I didn’t feel like that happened in the previous debate with Trump and Biden.”
As November comes, Bronx River staff and students await the election results along with the rest of America.
