US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, accompanied by outgoing President Joe Biden, displayed a rare and fragile semblance of unity in New York on Wednesday for the ceremony to commemorate the September 11, 2001 attacks, the day after an acrimonious debate.
• Also read – Presidential debate: Here are the lies and half-truths thrown by Trump and Harris
• Also read – Five things to remember from the Harris-Trump debate
In this historic race for the White House — where a few weeks ago Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, Joe Biden threw in the towel and Kamala Harris took over — the Democratic vice president can now count on the influence of global pop megastar Taylor Swift, who praised a “gifted and strong leader.”
A support that the Republican billionaire did not appreciate, predicting on Fox News that the artist “will probably pay the price in the music market.”
Unexpectedly, he and Ms Harris found themselves in Manhattan at the site of the completely rebuilt World Trade Center for ceremonies marking the 23rd anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
AFP
As they did at the opening of the debate Tuesday night in Philadelphia, they shook hands, with Mr. Trump smiling or smirking, while President Biden looked on amused.
In a statement, the 81-year-old president stressed that “23 years ago today, terrorists thought they could break us and bring us to our knees.”
“They were wrong and they will always be wrong. Even in the darkest hours, we saw the light, in the face of fear, we came together,” Joe Biden hammered home, praising the values of “freedom, democracy and unity” of the United States.
He was even seen exchanging courteous remarks with his enemy Donald Trump, whom he had faced during a debate on June 27, a disastrous encounter for the Democratic president, who was forced to withdraw from the race on July 21.
Kamala Harris, who replaced him at short notice, also believed that “unity was possible in America (…) in the face of terrorism.”
As is the case every September 11, the names of the 2,977 people killed in these jihadist attacks carried out by the Al-Qaeda group, which crashed airliners into the two WTC towers, the Pentagon near Washington and in Pennsylvania, were read out for four hours.
Pennsylvania, Home State
The rural, industrial northeastern state is one of six or seven swing states that will decide the Nov. 5 election, and where the two candidates are neck and neck: Harris returned there Wednesday, before North Carolina; Trump was with the 9/11 firefighter heroes in New York before traveling to Arizona and Nevada.
Abortion, immigration, the economy: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump fiercely debated Tuesday in Philadelphia the major issues that concern Americans less than two months before the election.
“Kamala did a great job and gave us hope,” Tanya James, a retired schoolteacher from Texas, said outside the White House. Florida musician Ikaika Juliano, on the other hand, called her “wrong.” For 90 minutes, the 59-year-old vice president pushed the 78-year-old former president to his limits, first on restricted abortion rights, then on his attendance at campaign rallies and also on the risk that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “eat him up” if re-elected.
Annoyed and defensive, Donald Trump accused his rival of having “copied” President Biden’s economic program and of letting “millions of people flood into our country from prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums” abroad.
“Rigged” debate
The tribune continued his sweeping statements and untruths, taking up the false accusation by a section of the right on social media that migrants from Haiti were eating pets in a town in Ohio.
Under the stunned gaze of the two journalists from the ABC channel that Donald Trump accused on Wednesday on his conservative competitor Fox News of having “rigged” the debate.
For Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton University, Kamala Harris “pushed” Donald Trump, but that “may not (make) the polls move much.”
AFP
Although these televised meetings are always highlights of the electoral campaign, their impact on the vote is often limited.
While most media outlets and commentators believe on Wednesday that Mr.me Kamala came out on top Tuesday night, with Donald Trump proclaiming on his Truth Social network that he had “beaten her soundly” and that he refused to “play it again.”
