--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, September 11th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today. We begin today with the first presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The two met for the first time last night in Philadelphia, where they debated their stances on the economy, immigration, abortion, and more.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I'm Gideon Resnick. I was there, and I'm joining Shumita now. Hey, Shumita.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Hey, Gideon. So let's get right to it. Overall impressions of the night.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, I mean, Harris spent much of the night trying to get under Trump's skin and often really succeeded there. You know, she was attempting to cast herself as a change candidate, something that American voters and polls have indicated that they want, but also something that is a challenge for somebody who is the sitting vice president.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's right. And one example of this, the Wall Street Journal described it this way. Harris tried to make the point that she, who is 59 years old, is the candidate of the future, and Donald Trump, who is 78 years old, is a candidate of the past. And not only in the sense of age here, but also ideas and this notion of a politics of division that many Americans associate with the Trump era.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It is important that we move forward, that we turn the page on this same old tired rhetoric and address the needs of the American people.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now, Donald Trump, meanwhile, also wants to be a change candidate in a sense, and he tried to paint a picture of America in shambles, made worse by the Biden administration. He also faulted Harris generally with not solving issues while she has served as vice president.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I just ask one simple question. Why didn't she do it? We're a failing nation. We're a nation that's in serious decline.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But one thing that emerged at the end here is that much of the debate actually ended up being about Trump and his record, what he did on January 6th. Unfulfilled promises about health care plans, things of that nature, which is part of the reason that Democrats feel like this was a successful debate for Harris.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, I want to talk about things like overall performance and demeanor in just a moment. But first, let's talk about policy. The economy came up early and often. We heard both candidates repeat points that they've made on the campaign trail. Harris attacking Trump's tariff plan and Trump criticizing Harris for inflation under the Biden administration.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Anything stand out to you and what they had to say to each other face to face?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, this is pretty early on where Harris got in kind of an early dig at Trump, right? She referenced that his alma mater, Wharton, was the school where professors had said that Trump's tax plan would, quote, explode the deficit. That's her word choice, by the way.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But the Wharton analysis did, in fact, find that Trump's plan would increase the deficit by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Harris also was talking about tariffs leading to more expenses for middle class families. CBS News fact-checked that part, found it's true, but estimates of the costs do vary. The Washington Post also talked to a number of economists, including at least one who served in Trump's White House, who say that his proposal would likely raise inflation.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now, as you mentioned, Trump responded by talking about inflation under the Biden administration, then saying that immigrants were also taking American jobs. And he claimed inflation is the worst it's ever been in our nation's history, which is not quite true.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, another big topic, of course, was abortion. The moderator from ABC, Lindsay Davis, made the point that Trump has changed his position even recently on abortion quite a few times. And she asked where he stands on a national abortion ban. Would you veto a national abortion ban if it came to your desk?
--:-- Donald Trump: Well, I won't have to because, again...
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He ended up mostly avoiding the question, but Davis pressed him again. But if I could just get a yes or no, because you're running me, J Vance has said that you would veto if you did come to your desk.
--:-- Donald Trump: Well, I discussed it with J. In all fairness, J and I don't mind if he has a certain view, but I think he was speaking for me. But I really didn't.
--:-- Shumita Basu: For Harris, this was a moment of sharp contrast between her debate performance and President Biden's. I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot.
--:-- Kamala Harris: She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. They don't want that. And I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it in to law.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, I think this is the exact kind of exchange that CNN reporter Kristen Holmes had told us Trump's team didn't really want to see him get into.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And you're absolutely right that this was the most clear contrast, perhaps, of the night between the candidate the Democrats had in Joe Biden and the one they have in Kamala Harris.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Maybe the same overall message would have been conveyed, but she can convey it in a much more significant and impactful way. And polling indicates that it's an issue where she does significantly better than Trump does.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now, Trump, in part of his answer, also gave credit to the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he asserted that he did a great service returning the issue to the states, as he put it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Gideon, I also think it's worth fact checking one part of the abortion conversation here. Trump repeatedly suggested that there are states where babies are being killed after they are born. We have heard him say this often before. What is he talking about?
--:-- Shumita Basu: Yeah, there's really no evidence of this claim. And the ABC moderators called that out as well, with Lindsay Davis specifically correcting Trump and clarifying there is no state where it's legal to kill a baby after it's born.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump had been saying that former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam once affirmed that parents can elect to kill an infant after it is born. The AP has fact-checked this, said it's wrong, that Trump is misconstruing a comment Northam had made involving a hypothetical scenario where the baby is born with severe abnormalities or where the fetus in the late stage wasn't viable.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Another fact check from the moderators came around immigration and this claim that we've been hearing in recent days from Trump and Republicans that illegal immigrants are eating pets. What is going on here?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, if you were scratching your head when the former president was talking about people eating pets, you might not have been alone. This has been a false claim pushed on social media about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Local police have said these rumors are not true. NPR says it seems to have first originated from far-right activists, local Republicans, and even neo-Nazis, before Trump's vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, eventually started spreading the claim as well.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Okay, so let's leave that behind us for a moment and just actually talk about the role the moderators played tonight, David Muir and Lindsay Davis, they jumped in with a fact check on Trump's answers at least four times by my count.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And it was a big contrast with the last debate where CNN decided to have its moderators not do any fact checking. Totally right. And that became a big talking point after the debate that Republicans and even Trump himself came into the spin room and were basically saying that they were, you know, ganged up on three on one, essentially you know Harris and the moderators.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You could also see during the debate that Trump looked pretty aggrieved with the moderators at times. But some of the aggressive questioning did lead to some revealing moments. For example, on the topic of health care and what Trump would do to replace Obamacare, the moderators pushed him on whether he has a plan.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan. I have concepts of a plan. Keep in mind that Trump has been talking about a plan for something like nine years now.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The moderators also did ask Harris about some of her shifts on policy. We honestly didn't get a whole lot new there. She said her values haven't changed. That's something that we've heard before. Dodged in some cases and turned back to focusing on Trump.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So Gideon, when we spoke yesterday in the lead up to the debate, you told us how Trump's team believed that success for them would look like being able to control their candidate's demeanor and temperament. And for Harris, it would be if she could convincingly rile him up. How are the campaigns reflecting this morning?
--:-- Shumita Basu: Yeah, after every debate, each side always says they win. It seems like at least initially, you know, Trump himself said it was his best debate. The Harris campaign said in an email, Donald Trump lost it. You know, they were citing a lot of social media reactions about moments that he appeared to get angry.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: PBS NewsHour's Lisa Desjardins points out that some of the moments that really seemed to upset Trump included, you know, repeatedly bringing up Project 2025, saying that 81 million people fired him in 2020 by voting for Biden. And a big one from Harris was going after crowd sizes. That's something that Trump has been historically quite sensitive about.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In the aftermath of the debate, we heard a lot of commentators, including more right-leaning ones, saying this was a great night for Harris and not really a great one for Trump at all. Here's Britt Hume, Fox News' chief political analyst. Make no mistake about it. Trump had a bad night. He rose to the debate repeatedly, when she baited him, something I'm sure his advisors had begged him not to do.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You know, in the first debate when Biden attacked him, he just kept his cool and kept going. And we heard so many of the old grievances that we'd long thought that Trump had learned were not winners politically. And there they all were, you know, talking about how he didn't lose the election and all that.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I mean, so my sense is that she came out of this in pretty good shape. And CNN's Chris Wallace said the debate was as devastating for Trump as the last one was for Biden. I think that Kamala Harris pitched a shutout on almost every subject I can think of. She shut Trump down on abortion. She shut Trump down on January 6th in democracy. She shut him down on national security and turned to the former president and said, the military leaders who served with you think that you're a disgrace.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The image of the debate to me is she's there happy, smiling, expressive, shaking her head and dismay at things Trump was saying. And Trump looked angry, scowling.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And what, if anything, we can glean from the spin room is that Trump's side was effectively talking a lot about moderators and the media, which is not exactly what a supremely confident campaign might do. And meanwhile, in the minutes after the debate, the Harris campaign was pushing for another one, which, again, gives us some insight into how they might be feeling.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Also, just to note that minutes after the debate ended, Taylor Swift formally endorsed Harris. And in her endorsement, she called out Trump for putting out an AI-generated image that falsely suggested that Taylor Swift supported him.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And for what it's worth, her endorsement was signed Childless Cat Lady.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So now we have both campaigns saying this morning that they win. The pundits are largely suggesting that Harris performed better than Trump. Taylor Swift has spoken. But Gideon, what about the voters? What do we know about how they're feeling?
--:-- Shumita Basu: Yeah, that's a really difficult part of this, right? It's hard to say if this debate is going to mean anything big or small. You know, going into it I think one of the questions we had was will voters feel like they need more clarity still on Harris policy positions. We don't quite know. Do they feel like seeing this performance from Trump moves their needle at all? We also don't quite know.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You know, polling is going to take some time. We do have a single small snapshot that comes to us from The Washington Post. So they asked a group of uncommitted swing state voters in real time about their reactions to Tuesday's debate. This is a tiny, tiny sample size. 23 people said they thought Harris came out on top and just to set that for Trump.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So we'll see in the days to come. All right, Gideon Resnick, thank you so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, thank you.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app. First, to another decision voters will make on Election Day, Missouri citizens will be able to decide whether to overturn the state's ban on nearly all abortions. Yesterday, the state Supreme Court ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment can stay on the ballot.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The ruling came hours before a deadline to finalize the November ballot. The measure was in danger of being removed over a dispute about the gathering of signatures to put it up for a vote.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Missouri is among 11 states that will vote on measures protecting abortion rights this election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Today is 9-11 and 23 years after the terror attacks in New York, first responders are still dying from the health effects of the rescue efforts.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Recently, the New York City Fire Department announced that more of its first responders have died from diseases related to the aftermath than were killed in the attacks themselves. That's more than 700 people in all.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Earlier this month, the FDNY held a ceremony to add 32 more names to a memorial wall.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The 9-11 memorial and museum says more than 350 chemical agents were identified in the dust at Ground Zero, and thousands of responders have suffered from cancer and severe respiratory diseases, according to the fire department.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And now an update on a story that's been unfolding since the weekend. Search teams in Kentucky are still looking for the suspected gunman who fired an AR-15 by the interstate on Saturday, wounding five people.
--:-- Shumita Basu: CNN looks at why the search is so hard for the teams and their drones, helicopters, and search dogs.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The main problem is the dense forest near the area where the suspect's car and weapon were found. Officers are going in with machetes to cut through the brush.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Also, the search mostly pauses overnight. That's to keep search teams safe, though heat-seeking helicopters keep scanning the terrain overnight.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's not clear whether the suspect knows the area or if he packed survival gear, But the longer he's gone, the more health risks he faces. And law enforcement says that may force him to make a mistake that allows them to close in and capture him.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, opening statements are expected today in the federal trial of former Memphis police officers accused of beating Tyree Nichols to death after he was pulled over last year.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Three officers face life in prison if convicted. Two others involved pleaded guilty to charges including using excessive force.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The case got national attention after footage from surveillance and body cameras showed the routine traffic stop escalating into a violent scene.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. The New Yorker tells the story of the unusual way an Austrian heiress planned to give away tens of millions of dollars.
--:-- Shumita Basu: She recruited 50 ordinary people to decide where the money should go. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
