Donald Trump stayed true to form as the presidential debate unfolded on Tuesday, leveling attacks at President Joe Biden despite the fact that he was debating Vice President and Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.
After the ex-president unleashed a series of personal, age-related attacks against Biden, ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis turned to Harris for her response, which amounted to a swift reminder: “You’re not running against Joe Biden. You’re running against me.” Harris followed by arguing that Trump would likely “just give it up” if welcomed back to the world stage as a global leader, also criticizing his close ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO,” the Veep said. “And what we have done to preserve the ability of [Ukrainian President] Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”
Harris then encouraged Trump to “tell the 800,000 Polish-Americans right here in Pennsylvania” about his ostensible support of the Kremlin and its leader, a dictator who the VP also claimed, “would eat you for lunch.”
“Putin would be sitting in Moscow and he wouldn’t have lost 300,000 men and women but he would have been sitting in Moscow,” Trump retorted, having had the mic handed back to him by Muir.
“Quiet, please,” he continued when Harris tried to interject, in seeming reference to her well-known response to former VP Mike Pence’s interruptions during a 2020 debate. “He would have been sitting in Moscow much happier than he is right now. But eventually, you know, he’s got a thing that other people don’t have. He’s got nuclear weapons. They don’t ever talk about that.”