LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Vice President Harris and former President Trump faced off over the economy, abortion, foreign policy and immigration.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Trump's goal - to tie Harris to President Biden's record.
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DONALD TRUMP: She doesn't have a plan. She copied Biden's plan, and it's, like, four sentences. Like, run, Spot, run.
MARTIN: As for Harris, she sought to define herself to voters as a new and younger leader who cares about them.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Clearly, I am not Joe Biden. And I am certainly not Donald Trump.
FADEL: Senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith watched the debate and joins us now. Good morning, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: OK. So quite the performance last night. What did you learn about the candidates and their policies?
KEITH: There were a lot of questions about policy, but most of the answers were really aimed at trying to frame each other and themselves.
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: Harris' pitch was about turning the page on Trump, and Trump's pitch was that the country is a mess, the world is falling apart, and it was better when he was in office. He talked a lot about immigration and said he would lead a mass deportation, though he did not explain how it would work. He tried to distance himself from unpopular restrictions on abortion, and Harris did everything she could to tie him to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its aftermath.
FADEL: Yeah. And most people remember debates more for style rather than substance. So what stood out to you there?
KEITH: Harris clearly had spent a lot of time preparing lines of attack aimed at getting under Trump's skin, and some of them definitely worked. Trump was more frenetic. Some of it seemed prepared. A lot of it seemed improvised, much like his rally speeches. You know, in a presidential debate, the split-screen shot of the candidates...
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: ...With one candidate speaking and the other reacting nonverbally can easily become the story of the debate.
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: And that appears to be happening here. Vice President Harris looked directly at Trump often, sometimes resting her chin on her hands and raising her eyebrows. Her facial expressions were doing a lot of work. Meanwhile, the former president looked straight ahead. He furrowed his brow - referenced Biden more than a dozen times and not once addressed Harris by name. He just called her she and her.
FADEL: Wow.
KEITH: Yeah. He did land some punches, though, some about shifts in policy positions over time - her shifts - and, at the end, in his closing statement, asked her what she's been doing for the past 3 1/2 years.
FADEL: OK. So what are people going to be talking about at the watercooler, or whatever the modern equivalent, is this morning?
KEITH: Well, it happened after the debate, but pop megastar Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she had watched it and would be voting for Harris.
FADEL: I mean, that's big. Swifties are pretty powerful. She has 238 million followers on Instagram, but it's not totally surprising. What about debate, rather than Swift moments?
KEITH: Trump's tendency to veer between subjects and traffic in falsehoods and conspiracy theories was quite striking.
FADEL: Yeah.
KEITH: In response to a question about why he asked Republicans to kill a bipartisan deal to boost border security, Trump started boasting about the crowds at his rallies. He claimed Harris buses people to attend hers, says we're headed for World War III, before then turning to immigration, saying immigrants are destroying the country. And then he amplified a dehumanizing and fully debunked story about Haitian migrants in Ohio.
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TRUMP: A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs - the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets.
KEITH: They're not talking about it because it's not true.
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: Other eye-popping moments from the debate for Trump include him very nearly accusing Harris of being responsible for the assassination attempt against him and again insisting that he won the 2020 election and falsely denying that he had anything to do with the January 6 insurrection. Harris responded to the election denial by saying it is a problem that someone who wants to be president is, quote, "confused" by facts.
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HARRIS: Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let's be clear about that. And clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that.
FADEL: So a lot of falsehoods and conspiracy theories from Donald Trump. This was the first time these two leaders have met. Will there be another debate before the election?
KEITH: Well, Harris' campaign was quick to say this debate was so great that they look forward to another one in October. Trump went to the spin room after the debate to say this one wasn't fair, and he didn't seem that eager for another one.
FADEL: NPR's Tamara Keith. Thank you, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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