It had been reported before the debate that unlike Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Trump underwent minimal preparation for facing off against his adversary. The results of that became apparent when the former president, seemingly rattled by Harris’ performance and her personal digs—including about the crowds at his rallies, the prosecutions against him, and his reputation among world leaders—answered the moderators’ questions with error-laden rants and lashed out at Harris with convoluted tangents about niche online gripes.
Here are some of the strangest talking points he made during the night.
That Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ pick for VP, “is OK” with executing babies after birth
Trump was asked why women should trust him on reproductive rights given how often he has changed his position on abortion. He framed the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a move that gave women more control, not less, because now decisions about abortion could be made at the state level. But he also tried to turn the tables by accusing Democrats of…er…wildly extreme abortion politics. Which led him to this whopper:
They have abortion in the ninth month. They even have—and you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor who’s doing an excellent job, but the governor before, 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.
Her vice presidential pick—which I think was a horrible pick, by the way, for the country because he is really out of it—but her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth—it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born—is OK.
The falsehoods he rattled off about abortion were so bold that one of the moderators, Linsey Davis, firmly refuted one—”There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after its born”—before moving onto the next question, something that happened only a handful of times in the night. It’s not unheard of for Republicans to baselessly accuse Democrats of supporting the killing of newborn infants, but Trump seems to have his baseless accusation a bit jumbled. His comments about the governor of West Virginia were probably meant to target something the former Virginia governor Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, once said about situations in which a baby was born with severe deformities that made survival unlikely.
That the autocratic prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, supported him
Early in the night, Trump bragged that he had been essentially endorsed by a far-right European politician with dictatorial leanings—not really someone who is known for respecting the democratic process.
The assertion followed a barb from Harris, who claimed world leaders were “laughing” at Trump and thought he was a “disgrace.” Her point? “Americans deserve better.” To counter that, Trump brought up a particular favorite leader of his (and of many far-right Republicans).
“Let me just say about world leaders: Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men—they call him a strongman. He’s a tough person. Smart. Prime minister of Hungary. They said, ‘Why is the whole world blowing up? Three years ago it wasn’t. Why is it blowing up?’ Because you need Trump back as president.”
He added: “Look, Viktor Orbán said it—he said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump.”
Observers of international politics typically agree Orbán has moved his country towards authoritarianism in pursuit of his “illiberal Christian democracy.” It’s a worrying model of politics with a strange following on the far-right in the U.S., especially among right wingers who have given up on democratic ideals. That Trump was touting an endorsement from a foreign leader who has moved to weaken the courts, the press, and the ability of his opposition to present a challenge to his power is bad. But perhaps the most absurd part of Trump’s quote was his conflation of the word “strongman” with the descriptor “tough person.” That’s not what strongman means.
That immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are “eating the dogs”
For two days, Trump seemed to resist the call to spread misinformation via a deeply racist, anti-immigrant tale that has been sweeping the internet. On Monday and Tuesday, Republican lawmakers began to post AI-generated photos of Trump rescuing kittens and ducks, a joking reference to false rumors that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating waterfowl and pet cats. While Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, openly embraced the memes and the fearmongering, Trump had, up to this point, only posted more standard complaints about Haitian migrants in Springfield. During the debate, he decided to go all-in on the ghoulish fake story.
“A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it,” he said, referring to municipalities that were being supposedly overtaken by migrants. “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.”
Again, this is not true.
That when he admitted losing the 2020 election, he meant it “sarcastically”
One of Trump’s greatest political necessities is maintaining his professed belief that the 2020 election was stolen from him: It justifies, to his supporters, Trump’s behavior leading up to Biden’s inauguration, his goading of the mob on Jan. 6, and of any future plans to challenge another potential election loss, while also allowing Trump to maintain his unbeatable savior-like persona for his most devoted fans. And yet, in recent weeks, Trump seems to have slipped up on the narrative, saying in a press conference that he “didn’t quite make it, [was] just a little bit short” and telling a podcaster that he “lost by a whisker.”
At Tuesday’s debate, moderator David Muir pointed this out.
“I said that?” Trump said.
“Are you now acknowledging that you lost in 2020?” Muir asked.
“No,” Trump said. “I don’t acknowledge that at all. I said that sarcastically. You know that. It was said oh, we lost by a whisker. That was said sarcastically.”
Ok, sure.
That when it comes to Harris’ racial identity, “whatever she wants to be is OK with me”
During a disastrous interview with the National Association of Black Journalists last month, Trump was strangely belligerent about Kamala Harris’ racial identity, asserting that Harris had only recently and for political reasons started identifying as Black. The language he used was that she “happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.” That was, well, flatly untrue, but also rude and racist. And it was received poorly. So Trump likely knew he would be asked about it at the debate.
Even still, when asked why he thought it was “appropriate to weigh in on the racial identity of your opponent,” he didn’t bother with sensitivity or respect.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care what she is. I don’t care. You make a big deal out of something—I couldn’t care less. Whatever she wants to be is OK with me.”
Pushed on this, he added: “All I can say is I read where she was not Black—that she put out, I’ll say that. And then I read that she was Black, and that’s OK. Either one was OK with me. That’s up to her.”
That Harris wants to do “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison”
This line got a lot of attention because it ticked off so many buzzwords for conservative outrage in a very short sentence. Transgender operations! Illegal aliens! Prison!
The thing is, this claim seemed to be based somewhat in reality. According to CNN, Trump was referencing a 2019 questionnaire Harris filled out for the American Civil Liberties Union. In that questionnaire, she wrote that “it is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need” and “transition treatment is a medical necessity.” So, absurd as this statement was—Harris is certainly not actively advocating for gender affirming surgeries for incarcerated undocumented immigrants—it’s one where Trump could at least cling to a sliver of truth.
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