Presidential debate live updates: Abortion Trump Harris attacks

Trump declined to say if he would veto a national abortion ban if such a bill crossed his desk as president.

“I won’t have to,” he said, suggesting that bill would never pass.

A moderator followed up that Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has said Trump would veto that bill.

“Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD,” Trump replied, adding, “I don’t mind if he has a certain view.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump defended his plans to enact tariffs on imports from other countries during the debate with Harris.

“We’re doing tariffs on other countries. Other countries are going to finally, after 75 years, pay us back,” Trump said. “The tariff will be substantial in some cases.”

He doubled down on his tariff policy proposals later in the debate.

Harris hammered Trump on what he left the United States and the Biden administration to deal with when he exited the White House in January 2021.

“I would love to let’s talk about what Donald Trump left us,” Harris said.

“Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century,” she continued.

“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 concluded.

– Dan Mangan

Trump and Harris took the debate stage in Philadelphia.

Unlike at Trump’s last debate with Biden, the two nominees shook hands before taking their places at opposite lecterns.

— Kevin Breuninger

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protestors are blocking off the intersection of North 12th and Market Streets, NBC News reports. This is several blocks from the National Constitution Center, where the debate is being held tonight.

— Ece Yildirim

The Stand With Crypto Alliance launched by Coinbase last year is pushing ABC News to get a crypto question asked at the debate.

The crypto lobby group initiated a letter writing petition five days ago to pressure the network to ask such a question.

In recent months, Trump has branded himself as the pro-crypto candidate. Harris hasn’t yet made her official stance known on digital assets, but the Biden administration’s aggressive crackdown on the industry has created an opening for the former president.

ABC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

– MacKenzie Sigalos

Harris has spoken with former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton about tonight’s debate, three sources familiar with their discussions told NBC News.

Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee and the only other woman to have faced Trump in a one-on-one debate, advised Harris that Trump might attempt to “bait” her, and suggested Harris provoke Trump directly.

Philippe Reines, Clinton’s former aide, has played the role of Trump in Harris’ debate prep — reprising the role he played for Clinton eight years ago.

– Josephine Rozzelle

No matter how the tonight’s debate goes, the Harris campaign is stocking a room full of surrogates to spin the outcome in her favor.

The Harris spin room will feature some higher-profile Democrats like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, two names that were once floated to be Harris’ running mate. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will also attend.

Also on the list are surrogates who can speak on election issues like abortion access and veterans’ protections, along with government officials who have history with Harris.

“Some of these elected officials have worked alongside the Vice President for years,” the campaign wrote in a memo. “Many of these surrogates are also uniquely qualified to speak to why Donald Trump is unfit to lead.”

Here is the full list of spin room surrogates the campaign has announced:

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom
• New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper
• Brigadier General Steve Anderson (Ret.)
• Senator Laphonza Butler
• Senator Tammy Duckworth 
• Senator Chris Murphy 
• Congressman Jason Crow
• Congresswoman Veronica Escobar
• Congressman Robert Garcia
• Congressman Ted Lieu
• Former Congressman Cedric Richmond
• Reproductive Freedom for All President & CEO Mini Timmaraju 
• Gold Star Father Khizr Khan

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump emerged from his plane at 6:52 p.m. ET.

The former president, clad in his standard uniform of a navy blue suit, solid red tie and white shirt, was not accompanied by former first lady Melania Trump as he descended the aircraft staircase and entered his motorcade.

A coterie of campaign officials and other aides disembarked before him — including Laura Loomer, the pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and far-right activist.

Other passengers seen exiting the plane included Trump’s son Eric Trump and his wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and attorney Alina Habba.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump’s plane touched down at Philadelphia International Airport shortly before 6:40 p.m. ET.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Trump posted bizarre artificial intelligence-generated images featuring cats and ducks on social media while flying to the debate, in a nod to a false conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating such animals.

One image posted by Trump on his Truth Social account showed him sitting on a plane with a white cat in his lap, with other cats and ducks next to him and in the background.

Another image he posted showed tabby cats wearing tactical gear while toting assault rifles and wearing ball caps bearing the word “MAGA” — an acronym for Trump’s political slogan “Make America Great Again.”

Trump’s running mate Vance on Monday in a post on X wrote, “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.”

“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” Vance wrote.

Authorities in Springfield disputed Vance’s claims. John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, called the claim “yet another conspiracy theory that’s just seeking to divide people based on lies, and, let’s be honest, based on an element of racism,”

“This kind of language, this kind of disinformation, is, is dangerous because there will be people that believe it no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is, and they might act on that kind of information and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt,” Kirby said.

– Dan Mangan

If Harris wants to win over undecided voters during the debate, she has to do more than just attack Trump, Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wrote in a New York Times op ed.

“There is an opening at the debate to offer an alternative — to offer voters hope,” Christie wrote.

“Ms. Harris has a better opportunity to do this than Mr. Trump. She needs only to have the courage to do it; to break away from the political culture of petty bickering and name calling that her opponent personifies.”

Christie, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and 2024, has debated against Trump and helped prepare him for other debates.

“No one has more experience in the arena listening to his attacks and debunking them than I have,” he claimed. “That’s how I know that Ms. Harris’s goal during the debate cannot be merely besting Mr. Trump or out-insulting him.”

Despite serving as vice president since 2021, many voters say they still don’t know enough about Harris. Christie, who put himself in that group, argued that presents an opportunity for her.

“She needs to demonstrate a commitment to changing not just the way we talk to one another, but the very way we must steer our governance on a more productive path,” he wrote.

“For Republicans and independents who do not support Mr. Trump, this is how she earns their vote. They want to be for something, not just against someone.”

— Josephine Rozzelle

Trump’s message to congressional Republicans: If their stopgap spending bill doesn’t come with the GOP’s hardline voter ID bill, go ahead and shut down the government.

“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” the Republican presidential nominee wrote in a Truth Social post.

“THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN – CLOSE IT DOWN!!!”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is adamant about attaching the SAVE Act, which would require individuals to show proof of citizenship for voter registration, to his six-month spending resolution.

Democrats have repeatedly said they will vote against any funding bill that is paired with the SAVE Act, leaving lawmakers at a stalemate as the Sept. 30 partial shutdown deadline nears.

Read the full story here.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Ever since suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump on Aug. 23, former independent presidential candidate RFK Jr. has fought to remove himself from swing state ballots.

The ballot plan was meant to help Trump, who often polls better in head-to-head matchups with Harris than in six-candidate races.

The only swing states where that is not true are Nevada and Georgia, where it is Harris who polls better in a two-way race, according to polling averages from RealClearPolling.

Three states — Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin — also rejected Kennedy’s request to withdraw, leading to a legal fight in each of the battlegrounds.

On Monday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Kennedy would stay on the state’s ballot. Just hours later, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled the opposite, ordering state election officials to reprint ballots without Kennedy’s name.

A judge has yet to rule on Kennedy’s lawsuit in Wisconsin.

— Josephine Rozzelle

Trump and his allies have exuded a qualified confidence ahead of the debate, boasting the Republican nominee’s speaking skills while asserting that it is Harris who has more to prove.

“You can’t prepare for President Trump. There’s just no way to do it,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said Monday in a press call previewing the debate.

“It’s imagine like a boxer trying to prepare for Floyd Mayweather or Muhammad Ali. You just you don’t know what angle they’re going to come at you with. You don’t know what style of contrast that they’re going to deliver,” Miller said.

Trump’s recent debate record is indeed enviable. While he skipped all of the Republican presidential primary debates, his appearance against Biden in June could not possibly have gone better for him.

But Harris, 59, is unlikely to suffer the same pitfalls as the 81-year-old Biden, whose failure in that debate was a result of his own shortcomings rather than Trump’s abilities. The facts of Harris’ age, race and gender also make her an altogether different opponent for Trump, 78, to face.

The Trump campaign, however, said their nominee is not planning to change up his style.

“If it’s the same one he had with Biden, it’ll be a success,” Miller said. “President Trump is going to be himself.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on the call, said “I would just add the stakes are far higher for the vice president in this debate because she doesn’t do interviews with all of you.”

Tim Murtaugh, a former Trump 2020 campaign staffer, echoed that sentiment in an X post Tuesday morning.

“Harris’ campaign has raised the stakes and placed enormous pressure on her to really perform well,” Murtaugh wrote. “It’s a high bar she set for herself.”

Trump has projected even more confidence by claiming he will prevail in a hostile environment, while insinuating without evidence that Harris will be playing with a stacked deck.

“Even if she knows the answers and knows the questions, I don’t think she’ll be very good,” Trump said at a news conference Friday.

— Kevin Breuninger

The Trump campaign has released a long memo that aims to draw debate moderators’ attention to what it says are Harris’ “preposterous claims” about crime and immigration rates.

The Trump campaign said Harris is falsely claiming that violent crime has fallen during the Biden-Harris administration. The Republican’s team also asserts it is “completely false” that there are fewer illegal entries into the U.S. today than there were when Trump was in office.

The roughly 3,800-word memo to moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News urges “media analysts” to “hold Kamala Harris to account for her egregiously false claims.”

After Biden imposed an executive order in June restricting asylum to the U.S., migrant encounters at the U.S. southern border reportedly plunged. The Trump campaign memo claims that the downward trend is a mirage that masks a redirection of migrant traffic.

“Violent crime is near a 50-year low,” Harris said in June. The White House has made the same claim, pointing to data from an independent police organization and crediting the American Rescue Plan for enabling public safety investment in cities. Fact checkers have backed up that claim, citing FBI statistics showing violent crime has fallen across all major categories.

The Trump campaign memo argues that other crime data, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, shows crime rising. But the most recent NCVS data ends in 2022, and the campaign memo only looks at a span from 2020 to 2022 to back its assertion of a “crime wave.”

— Kevin Breuninger

A gauge of economic misery that has a strong track record of predicting elections is tilting toward a Harris victory — but it appears tight entering the race’s final stretch.

You can read the full article here.

— Alex Harring

As the election ramps up, many investors are focused on capital gains taxes and how proposals from both parties could affects their assets.  

Harris last week proposed a 28% tax on long-term capital gains, or profits from the sale of assets owned for more than one year, for those making more than $1 million annually. The plan would raise the top rate from 20%.

Read the full story here.

— Kate Dore

Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be in the spin room tonight in Philadelphia on behalf of Trump, according to Democratic National Committee spokesperson Matt Corridoni.

Kennedy suspended his campaign last month, endorsed Trump and was added to the former president’s presidential transition team.

Kennedy is joining as a surrogate alongside the likes of former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who has been helping Trump prepare for the debate, and previous Trump challenger in the Republican primary, Vivek Ramaswamy.

— Ece Yildirim

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says it was “dangerous” for Republican vice presidential nominee Vance to share a false conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating other people’s pets.

“What’s deeply concerning to us is you’ve got now elected officials in the Republican Party pushing, you know, yet another conspiracy theory that’s just seeking to divide people based on lies, and, let’s be honest, based on an element of racism,” Kirby tells reporters.

Vance is partially walking back his claims after local police denied the unfounded rumors about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

“In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants.”

“It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” Vance says.

Read the full story here.

— Josephine Rozzelle

Harris’ running mate Walz said she will benefit from the fact that Trump has done so many general elections debates that the Democratic nominee will know what to expect from him.

“Let’s just all be very clear — this is the most qualified person who’s ready to do the job,” the Minnesota governor said of Harris.

“Tonight, we’ll get an opportunity to see that,” Walz said. “Now, look, Donald Trump’s a showman, this is his seventh general election debate. No one in modern times has done more of these.”

“The good news is that this is his seventh debate, and we know exactly what to expect.”

— Dan Mangan

Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney tore into Trump’s running mate Vance, for suggesting he would have had states submit pro-Trump “alternative” electors, rather than automatically certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“Let’s be clear: This is illegal and unconstitutional,” Cheney wrote on social media platform X in reply to Vance’s remarks on the “All-In Podcast” published Monday. “The Vice President has no constitutional authority to tell states to submit alternative slates of electors because his candidate lost.”

“That is tyranny,” wrote Cheney, who said Friday that both she and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, would vote for Harris.

“Trump picked JD Vance because Vance will do whatever Trump wants, including violating the Constitution. They are both far too dangerous to serve. It’s our duty to stop them,” Cheney wrote.

The former congresswoman from Wyoming became Trump’s most vocal conservative critic after his many attempts to overturn his loss to Biden culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Vance has previously made similar suggestions about how he would have handled the certification process versus then-Vice President Mike Pence, who concluded that the Constitution provides no basis for him to challenge the electoral results.

— Kevin Breuninger

Shares of Trump Media, the social media company majority owned by Trump, surged more than 10% in intraday trading ahead of the debate.

The positive turn for the Truth Social owner comes amid a weekslong slump that saw the company’s stock crater as much as 75% from its peak in late March.

Trump Media trades on the Nasdaq as DJT, and it is widely seen as a meme stock and a barometer for Trump’s political fortunes. Tuesday’s gains could point to optimism among Trump Media shareholders that the debate will go well for him.

Despite posting multimillion-dollar losses and scant revenue, Trump Media still boasts a market capitalization of nearly $4 billion, making Trump’s nearly 59% stake in the company worth about $2.3 billion at Tuesday’s intraday price.

Trump and other company insiders will soon be free to start selling their shares. But if they do, they may tank investor confidence and drive down the company’s value.

Legendary duo The White Stripes sued Trump and his presidential campaign for the alleged “flagrant misappropriation” of the band’s stadium-rock anthem, “Seven Nation Army.”

The civil lawsuit in New York federal court was filed Monday after Trump’s social media accounts posted videos of the Republican boarding a plane, backed by the hit song’s iconic guitar riff.

The videos used the musical snippet to burnish Trump’s public image “and generate financial and other support for his campaign and candidacy on the backs of Plaintiffs” without seeking their permission, read the lawsuit from Jack White and Meg White.

Trump should have known they would not authorize him to use the song, since they had previously publicly denounced him when a pro-Trump campaign video used the same song during the 2016 election.

The latest video has created a new association that is “even more offensive,” the band alleges, because they “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.”

They accuse Trump of copyright infringement, and ask that he be held liable for “significant monetary damages, attorney’s fees, and costs.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Many other artists have demanded that Trump stop using their music.

— Kevin Breuninger

It won’t just be Harris bashing Trump in Philadelphia.

Her campaign is bringing two former Trump administration officials to the debate to warn voters about what they see as the grave threat posed by the Republican nominee, NBC News reported.

Anthony Scaramucci briefly served as Trump’s communications director. Olivia Troye is a former top aide to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who also served on Trump’s Covid-19 task force.

Both Scaramucci and Troye will speak to the press as Harris surrogates on Tuesday night.

Both former officials have long been vocal critics of Trump. Troye also spoke during the Democratic National Convention.

The Harris campaign is simultaneously airing a new ad on Fox News that features several other former Trump officials — including Pence, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former national security advisor John Bolton and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley — criticizing him.

“Listen, don’t take it from us: Take it from the ones who know Donald Trump the best and who are telling the American people exactly how unfit Trump is to serve as president,” Harris campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said in a statement.

Trump will not see Scaramucci and Troye during the debate, which will take place without a live audience.

When Harris and Trump take the debate stage tonight, expect an onslaught of talking points about the U.S. economy.

Both Harris and Trump have been rolling out new economic proposals and sharpening their policy platforms so that they have ample ammunition for tonight’s faceoff.

As the candidates ready their attack lines, CNBC has a list of the key data about U.S. inflation, jobs, wages, deficits, GDP and more, that are likely to be raised, and fought over, later tonight.

Read the full Trump-Harris economic cheat sheet here.

— Rebecca Picciotto

The Harris-Walz campaign is debuting new billboards across Philadelphia ahead of tonight’s debate in the city.

The billboard mocks Trump and his rally crowd sizes with a nod to the beloved local convenience store chain Wawa.

— Ece Yildirim

The Harris campaign released a new ad this morning featuring clips of former President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in August.

“Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems,” Obama says in the 30-second spot, which uses one of the most viral moments from his speech.

Among other issues, Obama drags Trump for what he says is the former president’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”

The Harris campaign says the ad, which is called “Crowd Size,” is airing nationally, including on Fox News and in the West Palm Beach local media market.

While Florida is not a Democratic target this November, running the ads in Trump’s backyard appears to be an attempt by the Harris campaign to provoke the former president, who watches the network on TV at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

— Josephine Rozzelle

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul says he supports Trump but that his concerns about the federal deficit have tempered his enthusiasm for the GOP presidential nominee.

“I think there’s no question that Donald Trump is better than Kamala Harris,” Paul said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“But as far as my enthusiasm, I’m a deficit hawk,” Paul added. “The Trump administration added $8 trillion. The Biden administration is going to add $8 trillion.”

Trump approved $8.8 trillion of new borrowing during his administration, but cancelled out some of it with $443 billion of deficit reduction measures, according to a report by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The net total $8.4 trillion of Trump spending included roughly $3.6 trillion for Covid-19 pandemic relief and stimulus packages.

Meanwhile, Biden approved $6.2 trillion of new borrowing in his first three years and five months in office, balanced out with $1.9 trillion of deficit reduction, per the CRFB.

— Rebecca Picciotto

As his running mate counts down the hours until her debate with Trump, Tim Walz will continue campaigning in key battleground states today.

The Minnesota governor is set to speak at campaign events in Las Vegas and Phoenix on Tuesday. His last event in Pheonix is schedule to begin at 8:30 p.m. ET, a half hour before the highly anticipated debate begins.

— Josephine Rozzelle

Nearly three-quarters of American voters say they will watch the debate tonight, according to the latest poll by NPR, PBS News and Marist.

The debate between Trump and Biden earlier in June drew 51.3 million viewers, down from the record 73.1 million viewers who tuned in to watch the first debate between them in September 2020. That was the third-most watched debate ever, according to Statista.

— Ece Yildirim

Police in Springfield, Ohio, deny JD Vance’s claim in a post on social media site X that people in the city have had their “pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”

“There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” the Springfield Police Department said in a statement. The police also denied that immigrants in the city had been squatting, littering or disrupting traffic.

The Vance campaign has responded with a statement of its own, saying the Ohio senator has received “a high volume of calls and emails” about an influx of Haitian immigrants in the city.

The campaign does not mention anything about pets being stolen and eaten.

— Josephine Rozzelle

Similar to the June presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden, candidates’ microphones will be muted when they are not speaking tonight, according to rules released by ABC News.

The debate will last 90 minutes with two commercial breaks, during which time Trump and Harris cannot interact with members of their staff. There is no live audience.

The nominees will have two minutes to answer each question, two minutes for rebuttal and an extra minute for follow-ups, clarifications or responses.

Trump won the coin toss and has chosen the last word. Harris has chosen to be on the right side of viewers’ screens tonight. Neither of them will give an opening statement.

— Josephine Rozzelle

Jessica Leeds, who has previously testified that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her on an airplane in the late 1970s, calls him “a sexual predator” who does not understand the “psychological damage” done to women victimized in that way.

“We cannot let this person back in the White House,” Leeds, 82, said at a press conference outside of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Monday afternoon. 

Leeds spoke days after Trump lashed out at her in connection with her testimony at his trial last year for a sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit by writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in a New York department store in the 1990s.

Trump called Leeds’ allegation that he groped her on a flight a “totally made up story,” and said she “would not have been the chosen one.”

On Monday, Leeds said, “He assaulted me 50 years ago and continues to assault me today.”

Asked if she would sue Trump for his comments about her while denying her allegation, Leeds said, “We’re considering a number of options because of his latest remarks, but no decision has been made at this time.”

Carroll has sued Trump twice, and has been awarded more than $88 million in damages for defamation and sexual abuse.

— Dan Mangan

Vice President Kamala Harris’ ally Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says the debate could turn into a battle over Trump’s proposed tariff policies.

“If I were a businessperson and I heard a 20% tariff on every import, and I watched [Trump] be so erratic and unpredictable — I think that’s scary,” Raimondo said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.“

“Every businessperson deserves predictability,” she added. Trump has proposed tariffs from 10% to 20% on imports from U.S. trading partners.

Harris’ team has said she would “employ targeted and strategic tariffs to support American workers, strengthen our economy and hold our adversaries accountable.”

— Brian Schwartz

The presidential debate will be hosted by ABC News in collaboration with local affiliate WPVI-TV/6ABC.

It will air live beginning at 9 p.m. ET on ABC, and the broadcaster will be live streaming the debate on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. It will also be available on the ABC app and website, abc.com.

Other major broadcasters will simulcast the debate, including NBC, CNN, CBS and Fox News.

— Ece Yildirim