2024-09-13 22:07:25
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sought to convey unity during a ceremony marking the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York, after an election debate in which the Democrat managed to put the Republican on the defensive.
They shook hands as President Joe Biden looked on in Manhattan at the site of the completely rebuilt World Trade Center.
As every year, the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the jihadist attacks carried out by the Al Qaeda group in 2001 were read out. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg attended the event.
– «On my knees» –
“Twenty-three years ago, terrorists believed they could break our will and bring us to our knees. They were wrong. They will always be wrong,” Biden said in a statement.
“In the darkest hours, we find light. And in the face of fear, we come together to defend our country and help each other,” he insisted, calling for freedom, democracy and unity.
He was seen talking to his nemesis Trump for the first time since their June 27 debate, which cost him the support of Democrats alarmed by his disastrous performance. In July, he passed the baton to his vice president, Harris.
In another statement, the latter also considered that “unity is possible in the United States (…) in the face of terrorism.”
The first handshake between her and Trump was on Tuesday evening during a debate in Philadelphia, a city in the state of Pennsylvania, one of the six or seven that will decide the outcome of the November 5 election. Harris will return to him on Wednesday before going to North Carolina while her rival will go to Arizona and Nevada.
In this race for the White House, the Democratic candidate has the support of Taylor Swift, a singer with millions of followers who praised her as a “talented and strong leader.”
An endorsement with potential effects among younger voters that exasperated Trump.
“I wasn’t a fan of Taylor Swift (…) She’s very liberal. She seems to always support the Democrats and she’ll probably pay for it with her sales in the market,” he said grumpily to Fox News.
– Cornered –
In Philadelphia, Harris and Trump discussed the main issues of concern to Americans, particularly abortion rights, immigration and the economy.
The 59-year-old vice president pushed the stormy septuagenarian to the limit, first listing the harrowing situations women living in states that have severely restricted abortion rights may have found themselves in.
He then mocked his rallies and claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “would be sitting in kyiv right now, looking out at the rest of Europe, starting with Poland” if Trump were in the White House.
Visibly upset, the Republican counterattacked by accusing her of having “copied” President Biden’s economic program and of having allowed “millions of people” to come to the United States “from prisons, psychiatric institutions” abroad.
“Kamala did a good job and gave us hope,” Tanya James, a retired teacher from Texas, declared outside the White House. In contrast, Ikaika Juliano, a musician from Florida, thought she was “fake.”
Trump complained on Fox News that during the debate the hosts “corrected everything (he said), but they didn’t correct her.”
The Republican doubled down on the lies and echoed the hoax, denied by authorities, that migrants eat “pets” in an American city.
– Impact –
“This may not move the polls very much,” which are currently very close with eight weeks to go before the election, recalled Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton University. “But she pushed him toward the kind of speech that illustrates the chaos he brought to the political scene.”
Most media outlets and commentators believe Kamala took the lead.
Trump, however, considered that he had knocked her out like in boxing. “So why would she do a rematch?” he asked on his Truth Social network, opposing a second debate.
The running mates of both candidates will debate on October 1 in New York.
© Agence France-Presse
