Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have showcased starkly different visions for the United States on the economy, immigration and American democracy as they met for the first time in perhaps their only debate before November’s presidential election.

The Democratic vice president tried to get under the skin of the Republican former president, provoking him with reminders about the 2020 election loss that he still denies, mocking his rally crowds and delivering derisive asides at his other claims. 

Trump tore into Harris as too liberal and questioned why she was proposing ideas she hadn't accomplished while serving as vice president. He often launched into the sort of freewheeling personal attacks and digressions from which his advisers and supporters have tried to steer him away.

Harris promised tax cuts aimed at the middle class and and championed women's health rights during the debate. 

Kamala Harris presses forceful case against Donald Trump in debate. – AP

Trump said his proposed tariffs would help the US stop being cheated by allies on trade and said he would work to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine war – though he twice refused to say he wanted Ukraine, which bipartisan majorities in Congress have backed, to win the war.

Harris’ performance by nearly every measure seemed to be the opposite of President Joe Biden’s in June, with sharp, focused answers designed to showcase the contrast between her and Trump, whereas Biden at times was muddled, halting and at times incoherent. 

Harris used her body language and facial expressions to confront Trump and express that she found his answers ridiculous or amusing – or both – a pronounced change from Biden's slack-jawed expression when Trump attacked him.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during the presidential debate. – Reuters

In one moment, Harris turned to Trump and said that as vice president, she had spoken to foreign leaders who “are laughing at Donald Trump”, and said she had spoken to military leaders, “and they say you’re a disgrace.”

As Trump, 78, again questioned her racial identity, the 59-year-old Harris, the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president, pointedly gestured to Trump and responded: 

"I think the American people want better than that, want better than this.”

Trump in turn tried to link Harris to the still-unpopular Biden, questioning why she hadn’t acted on her proposed ideas while serving as vice president. “Why hasn’t she done it?” he said. Trump also focused his attacks on Harris over her assignment by Biden to deal with the root causes of illegal migration.

He repeatedly dismissed her and Biden as weak, and cited the praise of Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán to show that he is a widely respected by leaders around the world, saying Orbán calls him the “most feared person”.

The debate, Trump’s seventh as a presidential nominee as he mounts his third run for the White House and Harris’ first, was perhaps the best opportunity for both of them to define themselves on their own terms.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during the presidential debate. – AP

The event concluded hours before the first ballots of the election will begin to be mailed on Wednesday in Alabama. Election Day is November 5, less than two months away.

Trump again denied that he lost to Biden four years ago, when a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to stop the certification of his loss based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

Trump has in recent days ramped up his threats of retribution if he returns to the White House, saying he would prosecute lawyers, donors, and other officials whom he deems to “cheat” in the election.

“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people," Harris said, "So let’s be clear about that. And clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that.”

Her campaign ended the debate by expressing openness to another meeting in October.

Saying it's “time to turn the page”, Harris delivered an appeal to Republicans and independents turned off by Trump’s style and his efforts four years ago to overturn the 2020 presidential election, saying there’s a place in her campaign for them “to stand for country, to stand for our democracy, to stand for rule of law and to end the chaos.”

Harris sharply criticised Trump for the state of the economy and democracy when he left office, as the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the nation and after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Harris sought to defend her shifts away from liberal causes to more moderate stances on fracking, expanding Medicare for all and mandatory gun buyback programs – and even backing away from her position that plastic straws should be banned – as pragmatism.

Asked about her changing positions on a number of issues, she twice repeated a phrase she has used to try to explain it away, saying, “My values have not changed.”

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris shake hands ahead of the debate. – Reuters

Trump, meanwhile, quickly went after Harris for abandoning some of her past liberal positions and said: “She’s going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat.” Harris smiled broadly and laughed.

Harris responded to a question about her plans to improve the economy by saying she would extend the tax cut for families with children and a tax deduction for small businesses while attacking Trump’s plans to impose broad tariffs as a “sales tax” on goods that the American people will ultimately pay.

Trump was stone-faced during her answer but retorted:

“I have no sales tax. That’s an incorrect statement. She knows that.”

Trump, who is trying to paint the vice president as an out-of-touch liberal while trying to win over voters skeptical he should return to the White House, continued to call Harris a “Marxist” and said, “Everyone knows she’s a Marxist.”

Trump attacked Harris for the inflation seen under the Biden-Harris administration, a major liability for the vice president. He quickly turned his answer to warning about immigrants coming into the country – one of the subjects he’s focused on most heavily in his campaign.

He called his proposed tariffs a straightforward way to make other countries pay up for what he has long argued is an imbalance that hurts the US. Harris called the tariffs an effective national sales tax. Trump reacted swiftly and called that “an incorrect statement”.

Throughout his campaign, Trump has leaned on illegal immigration, an issue that has bedeviled Biden and Harris with rising numbers of illegal border crossings and the arrivals of thousands of people needing shelter in Democratic-led cities. He accused Democrats of abetting large numbers of unauthorised crossings.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during the presidential debate. – Reuters

The candidates met in a small, blue-lit amphitheater converted into a television studio, with no live audience, meaning there was no rowdy applause, cheers or jeers. The intimate setting – with the candidates’ lecterns positioned less than 10 feet from each other – belied the contentious debate to follow.

As the debate opened, Harris walked up to Trump’s lectern to introduce herself, marking the first time the two had ever met, since Trump skipped her 2021 inauguration. “Kamala Harris,” she said, extending her hand to Trump, who received it in a handshake – the first presidential debate handshake since the 2016 campaign.

Trump, 78, has struggled to adapt to Harris, 59, who is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. He has at times resorted to invoking racial and gender stereotypes and falsely claiming that Harris, who attended a historically Black university, hid her race during her career.

“I read where she was not Black,” Trump said when asked about comments questioning Harris' race, adding a minute later, “and then I read that she was Black.” He seemed to suggest her race was a choice, saying twice, “That’s up to her.”

Harris responded: “I think it’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people.”

Trump at one point launched into an attack on Biden, questioning his mental acuity by making the claim that Biden “doesn’t even know he’s alive.”

Harris quickly tried to turn it around to make Trump look less than sharp.

“First of all, I think it’s important to remind the former president, you’re not running against Joe Biden. You’re running against me,” she said.

People watch the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in Las Vegas. – AP

Takeaways from the debate 

Riling her rival

Harris made a point to get under Trump’s skin, as her campaign had forecast.

She urged viewers to attend a Trump rally, where she said Trump would say bizarre things such as windmills cause cancer (something he has, in fact, said) and where, she taunted, attendees would leave out of exhaustion and boredom.

Trump, who prides himself on the crowds he draws, was clearly riled.

“My rallies, we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” he said.

He accused Harris of busing in attendees to her rallies.

Playing defence

Another of Harris’s goals, as a former California prosecutor, was to call Trump out for his past actions, particularly his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

An hour into the debate, her strategy appeared to be paying off. Trump was continually on the defensive.

Asked about the January 6, 2021, siege of the US Capitol, he insisted he “had nothing to do with that, other than they asked me to make a speech”. He also maintained, falsely, that he had won the 2020 election.

Harris used Trump’s actions as an argument for the country to turn the page.

"We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts as he did in the past to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election.”

The vice president dug at Trump a little more, saying world leaders were “laughing” at him and calling him a disgrace – language that Trump has employed himself at rallies in reference to how he says other countries view President Joe Biden.

Robert F Kennedy Jr speaks to reporters in the spin room before the debate. – AP

A few minutes later, Trump erupted, claiming Harris had received “no votes” in claiming the Democratic nomination and suggesting she replaced Biden as part of some sort of coup.

“He hates her,” Trump said of Biden. “He can’t stand her.”

The exchanges may have aided Harris’s argument that Trump, as she put it, lacks the “temperament” to be president.

Handshake

Heading into the debate, there was a question as to how Harris and Trump, who have never met, would greet each other.

Harris settled the issue, definitively. She walked over to Trump at his podium, extended her hand and introduced herself as “Kamala Harris”.

It was a disarming way for Harris to approach a man who has spent weeks insulting her race and gender.

After that, the debate quickly settled into an expected groove. Harris swiftly painted herself as a forward-looking candidate. She predicted Trump at the debate would pull from the “same tired playbook”.

“A bunch of lies, grievances and name calling,” Harris said.

Sparring on the economy

In the debate’s opening minutes, Trump and Harris went to battle on one of the issues that is top of mind for voters – the economy.

Harris detailed the economic policies she has rolled out in recent weeks, which include a substantial tax credit for small start-ups. Trump focused his comments on tariffs, saying he would protect the American economy from unfair foreign competition.

While both sides got their jabs in, Harris got to speak first on a topic where she trails Trump in terms of voter trust. She appeared to force the former president onto his back foot, and Trump essentially played defence on one of his strongest issues.

“She doesn’t have a plan,” Trump said after Harris’s opening comments. “It’s like Run, Spot, Run.”

‘Weaponised’ justice

In one heated exchange, Trump and Harris accused each other of conspiring to “weaponise” the Justice Department in a bid to go after their enemies.

Trump said the indictments he faces for conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and for his mishandling of classified documents – as well as his conviction for forging documents related to hush money payments – are all the result of a conspiracy cooked up by Harris and Biden. There is no evidence for that assertion.

Harris shot back by pointing out that Trump has promised to prosecute his enemies if he wins a second term.

“Understand this is someone who has openly said he would terminate, I’m quoting 'terminate', the Constitution,” Harris said.

The exchange underlined how Harris and Trump see the stakes of this election as existential. Both see their opponent as a threat to democracy itself.

Donald Trump arrives in Philadelphia ahead of the debate. – Reuters