Kamala Harris, Donald Trump debate prompts major endorsement, Fox News invitation for a 2nd face-off

Thus far, at least 42 out of the currently serving 49 Republican senators have endorsed former President Donald Trump. 

In the House of Representatives, just over 75% of the GOP delegation has also endorsed Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight’s endorsement tracker. Other high-profile endorsers of Trump include former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions. 

Meanwhile, Trump has garnered other endorsements from 21 out of the country’s 27 Republican governors. Endorsements for Trump have been rolling in ever since he announced his intention to run for the presidency again in November 2022. Several of the GOP politicians who now support Trump, however, did not initially. Haley, one of Trump’s big endorsers, actually campaigned against Trump before dropping out and ultimately pledging her support to the former president.

Former President Donald Trump sat down with Fox News' Sean Hannity after the debate Tuesday night, during which he praised his performance and suggested he would consider debating again if it was done on a "fair network."

"I had a good time, I think it was our best debate ever," Trump said, before slamming ABC and its moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, for being unfair. "We had three against one," Trump insisted.

Trump took Harris to task for "destroying our country" during the interview and noted it was intentional when he left his criticisms about Harris' job as vice president for his closing remarks. "She's complaining about all the stuff that's wrong about the country and she's been [in the White House] for three and a half years," Trump told Hannity. "And I wanted to save that for my last little summation."

When asked by Hannity if he was considering participating in a second-debate, which the Harris campaign signaled it was open to Tuesday night, Trump said "maybe."

"If it was on a fair network," he added.

Trump, meanwhile, compared Harris to a prize-fighter who just lost and wants a rematch.

“When you're a prize fighter and you lose you immediately want a new fight -- you want a rematch. The guy that won is sort of happy and thinking about it.”

"It’s pretty clear to me that on Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris won what may be the only debate between herself and former President Donald Trump.

The vice president had some help, too. She was aided and abetted by two ABC News moderators who seemingly felt the need to fact-check virtually everything the former president said.The former president was clearly frustrated and became more strident and divisive as the nearly two-hour debate continued.

And the vice president appeared to gain renewed confidence as she saw Trump faltering under relentless questioning from herself and moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.Although Harris clearly won the debate in my estimation, it isn’t at all clear that this debate, just 56 days before the election, will fundamentally impact the outcome on November 5."

Read the full opinion editorial from Doug Schoen.

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris faced off in a heated debate Tuesday night, sparring about abortion, immigration, Israel, the economy and a range of other issues—but Trump also battled the ABC News moderators, who were quick to challenge and "fact check" the 45th president, while leaving Harris’ numerous distortions untouched. 

Trump and Harris engaged in their first, and possibly only debate of the 2024 general election cycle at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pa. Tuesday night—a highly-anticipated ninety-minute showdown as they traded jabs, and repeatedly, accused each other of lying. 

The two met for the first time Tuesday night on the debate stage, with the vice president introducing herself as "Kamala Harris" to the former president as they shook hands--before making it a top priority to attempt to get under his skin and bait him throughout the debate. 

The debate got underway with questions from ABC News’ David Muir and Linsey Davis, who challenged Trump throughout the debate. 

Shortly after it concluded, Trump told Fox News Digital that he thought it was his "best debate ever, especially because it was three on one." 

Fox News' Brooke Singman and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Former President Trump sat down with Fox News's Sean Hannity following the debate Tuesday night.

"I thought it was a great debate," Trump told Hannity. "I think I got everything out."

Fox News has formally re-upped its offer to host a second presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.

On the heels of the ABC News Presidential Debate on Tuesday, FOX News Media executives sent a letter to the Harris and Trump campaigns offering to host another debate, with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as moderators. 

"Now that the first debate is underway between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, FOX News Media is re-upping its proposal. As the Harris Campaign has stated, the American people will have another opportunity to see both on stage in October," FOX News Media president & Executive Editor Jay Wallace and Vice President of Politics Jessica Loker wrote. 

Former President Donald Trump and VP Kamala Harris traded blows on the issue of crime in the United States in the first presidential debate, with Harris defending accusations that migrant crime has increased under her watch by citing Trump's legal issues.

"Yeah, it is much higher because of them," Trump said during the debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania discussing crime committed by illegal immigrants in the U.S., some of which entered the country under Biden's watch. 

"They allowed criminals, many, many millions of criminals," Trump continued, "They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in drug dealers to come into our country. And then now in the United States and told by their countries like Venezuela, don't ever come back or we're going to kill you. Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down?"

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller.

Vice President Harris told former President Trump that he is "not running against Joe Biden" during the presidential debate.

"We're playing with World War Three, and we have a president that we don't even know if he's - Where is our president? We don't even know if he's the president," Trump said of Biden during the presidential debate on Tuesday.

"They threw him out of the campaign like a dog," Trump added. "We have a president that doesn't even know he's alive."

Harris responded that she is the candidate Trump is running against, not Biden.

"It's important to remind the former president you're not running against Joe Biden, you're running against me," Harris told Trump.

Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July, throwing his endorsement behind Harris immediately after ending his campaign.

Former President Donald Trump cited his assassination attempt during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, saying he "probably took a bullet to the head" due to rhetoric from Harris and Democrats. 

"I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. I'm a threat to democracy. They're the threat to democracy," Trump said from the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening. 

Trump faced an assassination attempt in July during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooter, Matthew Crooks, shot Trump in the ear, injured two audience members and fatally shot local dad and fireman Corey Comperatore. 

This is an excerpt of an article by Fox News' Digital's Emma Colton.

Trump continued to hit out at Biden-Harris foreign policy, citing the change in policy towards Iran and accusing them of enriching the nation to the detriment of close allies such as Israel.

“Iran has $300 billion because they took off all the sanctions that I had,” Trump said. “Iran had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror, and they are spheres of terror, horrible terror.”

“They had no money … they had no money for terror. They were broke,” he insisted. “Now, they’re a rich nation, and now what they’re doing is they’re spreading the money around. Look at what’s happening with the Houthis and Yemen.”

When pressed on why he believes the war in Ukraine would end once he took office, Trump touted his good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that everything has “gone to hell” after he left office.

“I will get it settled before I even become president,” Trump promised. “If I win, when I'm president elect, what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other. I'll get them together. That war would have never happened.”

“In fact, when I saw Putin after I left, unfortunately left because our country has gone to hell, but after I left, when I saw him building up soldiers, he did it after I left, I said, oh, he must be negotiating,” Trump explained.

“It must be a good, strong point of negotiation,” he added. “Well, it wasn't because Biden had no idea how to talk to him. He had no idea how to stop it. And now you have millions of people dead, and it's only getting worse.” 

Vice President Kamala Harris claimed former President Donald Trump would install a national abortion ban that would allow for no exceptions, despite Trump saying moments before that he believes in exceptions for abortion. 

"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, which understand what that means. A survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body. That is immoral, and one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body," Harris said Tuesday evening from Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center. 

"Understand, if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign the national abortion ban," Harris added. 

Moments before, Trump said he believes in exceptions for abortion, similar to former President Ronald Reagan. 

Former President Trump took a jab at Vice President Harris for getting a possible endorsement from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Putin endorsed her last week, said he hopes she wins, and I think he meant it," Trump said.

Harris had claimed that autocrats were "rooting" for Trump to be president because he could be manipulated with "flattery and favors."

Putin said last week that ultimately it was up to the American people to decide, but said that as President Biden has backed Harris, "we will do the same, we will support her."

"She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her," he added.

Former President Donald Trump challenged Vice President Kamala Harris to leave the debate, go to Washington D.C. and get President Biden to sign a bill to "close up the border."

"Why are we allowing these millions of people to come through on the southern border? How come she's not doing anything?" he said.

"And I'll tell you what I would do, and I would be very proud to do it. I would say we would both leave this debate right now. I'd like to see her go down to Washington, DC during this debate, because we're wasting a lot of time...Go down to Washington, DC and let her sign a bill to close up the border, because they have the right to do it, they don't need bills."

He then took a jab at President Biden, accusing him of being asleep during the day.

"The President of the United States, you'll get him out of bed. You'll wake him up at four o'clock in the afternoon. You say, 'Come on down to the office, let's sign a bill.' If he he signs a bill that the border is closed, all he has to do is say it to the Border Patrol, who are phenomenal. If they do that the border is closed."

"Those people are killing many people, unlike [January 6 2021]," he said.

Former President Trump said that Vice President Harris would end fracking "on day one" if elected.

During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris said that "there's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking." Harris shifted her stance on the issue after becoming the 2024 Democratic nominee, saying now that she does not support a ban on fracking.

The issue was brought up during the presidential debate in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

"Fracking? She's been against it for 12 years," Trump said.

"This is a radical left liberal that would do this," the former president added. "She will never allow fracking in Pennsylvania. If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on day one."

Vice President Harris recounted her experience of Jan. 6, during which time she was VP-elect and a sitting senator, and accused Trump of inciting “a violent mob.”

“I was there, and on that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation's capitol, to desecrate our nation's Capitol,” Harris said.

“On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured and some died,” she said. “And understand the former president has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason. But this is not an isolated situation.”

Trump bemoaned that Harris and her campaign “bring all of this stuff up,” referring to Jan. 6, Project 2025 and other allegations made against him.

Trump touched directly on Jan. 6, noting that Biden has not done enough to combat crime as a result of illegal crossings at the border, saying that “those people are killing many people – unlike J-6.” 

Trump hit out at the Biden administration for failing to take more clear and punitive action following the death of 13 U.S. servicemembers during the Afghanistan drawdown.

“I'm a different kind of a person. I fired most of those people. Not so graciously,” Trump said.

“They did bad things or a bad job: I fired them,” he continued, claiming that Biden and Harris “never fired one person” for poor performances, including in response to the military drawdown.

“13 people who were just viciously and violently killed, and I got to know the parents and the family,” he said. “They didn't fire - they should have fired all those generals, all those top people, because that was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen.”

“So when somebody does a bad job, I fire him,” Trump said, pointing to Mark Esper, saying “he was no good” so he “fired him.”

“They have done such a poor job, and they never fire anybody,” Trump insisted. “Look at the economy. Look at look at the inflation. They didn't fire any of their economists. They have the same people. That's a good way not to have books written about you.” 

Former President Trump fueled viral claims online that migrants are eating pets in a town in Ohio, despite pushback from officials and debate moderators.

Trump, speaking on immidgration, highlighted issues in Springfield, Ohio, which has seen a significant amount of Haitian migration in recent years. This week there have been claims online, fueled by Republicans, that some migrants have eaten ducks and pets.

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live there," Trump said.

However, officials in Springfield pushed back on those claims in a statement, which was also referenced by the moderators at the debate.

"In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community," the statement said this week, provided to Fox News Digital.

But Trump stood by his remarks when challenged by the moderators.

"The people on television say 'my dog was taken and used for food,'" he said.

Trump raised a few policies that the Biden-Harris administration had promised but failed to fully implement during their tenure, stressing that Harris will continue to fall short if she won the election.

“Look, we don’t have to discuss it because she’d never be able to get it, just like she couldn’t get student loans, they couldn’t get student loans,” Trump said.

“They taunted young people and a lot of other people that had loans,” he added. “They can never get this approved, so it doesn’t matter what she says about going to Congress. So wonderful: Let’s go to Congress. Do it.”

“But the fact is that for years they wanted to get it out of Congress and out of the federal government, and we did something that everybody said couldn't be done, and now you have a vote of the people on abortion,” Trump said.