The first showdown between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was closely watched not only in the US but around the world.
The debate in Philadelphia featured some tense exchanges on foreign policy between the two presidential candidates.
From Beijing to Budapest, here’s how the debate went down, according to BBC foreign correspondents.
Mentions of Putin noted by Kremlin
Kamala Harris told Donald Trump that President Putin is “a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”
The expression “to eat someone for lunch” (or breakfast, or any other meal) doesn’t exist in Russian. But one thing you will find in Moscow is the appetite for a US election result that benefits Russia.
The Kremlin will have noted (with pleasure) that in the debate Trump sidestepped the question about whether he wants Ukraine to win the war.
“I want the war to stop,” replied Trump.
By contrast, Harris spoke of Ukraine’s “righteous defence” and accused Vladimir Putin of having “his eyes on the rest of Europe”.
Later the Kremlin claimed to have been irked by all mentions of Putin in the debate.
“Putin’s name is used as one of the instruments for the internal battle in the US,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told me.
“We don’t like this and hope they will keep our president’s name out of this.”
Last week Putin claimed he was backing Harris in the election and praised her “infectious laugh.”
Later a Russian state TV anchor clarified that Putin had been “slightly ironic” in his comments.
The presenter was dismissive of Harris’ political skills and suggested she would be better off hosting a TV cooking show.
I wonder: would it feature “dictators” eating US presidential candidates “for lunch”…?
America’s longest war ended in August 2021 when it scrambled to pull out the last of its troops, and evacuate thousands of civilians, as the Taliban swept into Kabul with surprising speed.
That debacle made it into the debate and, not surprisingly, the issues were dodged, dismissed, distorted.
Harris veered away from the question “do you bear any responsibility in the way that withdrawal played out?”.
As a correspondent who followed the chaotic pullout closely, I never heard that the vice-president was in the room when decisions were taken in those final fateful weeks. But she made it clear she agreed with President Biden’s decision to leave.
Trump boasted that he talked tough with “Abdul”, the “head of the Taliban” who is “still the head of the Taliban.”
He seemed to be referring to Abdul Ghani Baradar, who signed the withdrawal deal with the US. But he never headed the Taliban, and has been sidelined since the Taliban takeover.
The mention immediately prompted a wave of internet memes featuring “Abdul” with people named Abdul weighing in, and others asking “who is Abdul?”
Both contenders focused on the flawed deal with the Taliban. The truth is that the Trump team negotiated this exit plan; the Biden team hastily enacted it.
Trump said the deal was good because “we were getting out”.
There were no good ways to go. But the departure turned into a disaster and all sides are to blame.
