Live Presidential Debate Coverage of the Fracas in Philly

Presidential debates — for those of us who love politics, for journalists, for policy wonks of all types — are like game days. Given that tonight's debate in Philadelphia may well be the only one in this presidential election season, the Harris/Trump matchup is sort of like the Super Bowl of politics.

Will one of the teams come out and immediately fumble the ball? Will it be a defensive grind-out in which neither side impresses? Or will it be a blowout the likes of which will be talked about for years, fondly remembered by some, better off forgotten by others?

But unlike football, there isn't always next season. This game is good for four years.

As we do with all sports these days, people are laying odds on the election. Harris was in the lead until late last week, when Trump — for whatever reason — surged back to barely take the odds-on favorite among many betting sites, according to sportsbookreview.com.

And betonline.ag takes the odds one step further, predicting the winner of the debate using geotag data from the social media platform X over the last week, tracking tweets, hashtags and direct keyword phrases like "Kamala will win the debate," "Trump is going to win," and so forth. In all, over 240,000 tweets were tracked.
As you can see from the map above, more states believe Trump will win tonight. However, if this was based on electoral votes, the result would be closer. While this data suggests that Trump would be considered the winner by thirty states to Harris's twenty, the electoral votes would be 296 Trump to 242 Harris.

All of this is, of course, just another way of guessing. Trump supporters are generally more active than Harris supporters on social media, and the stakes are different since this isn't directly about the election results, which are objective, but a gut feeling about what will happen in a debate.

And what is happening, exactly? See our thoughts and comments on the Fracas in Philly below:

Live Presidential Debate Updates

5 p.m.
As the pre-shows get going, we have a whole baseball team on tap from CNN, including Van Jones, Audie Cornish, Erin Burnett and six others, Rachel Maddow leads a panel of seven reporting for MSNBC, and Laura Ingraham is all by her lonesome representing Fox in her usual time slot. The prognosticators are prognosticating, the talking heads are dutifully yapping, and Steve Kornacki is wearing gray slacks, which seems to be a thing people talk about.

Every channel seems just a little more anxious than they'd normally be just before a debate. Stakes are high, and everyone knows it.

5:26 p.m.
One of the interesting things about tonight's matchup is that this will also mark the first time that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump actually meet, right there on the debate stage. Littleton-born pundit Tim Miller made a great point about why that's possible: Trump, unlike every American president since the Civil War, chose not to attend the swearing-in of his rightful successors.

"He went down to Mar-a-Lago...and threw a temper tantrum," Miller said on MSNBC earlier today. "That's why they haven't met. Because he's a baby." 

6 p.m.
Fox News is apparently only covering the pre-show by way of its usual programming. First Laura Ingraham at 5 p.m., and now Jesse Watters at 6. Granted, Watters is focusing his show entirely on the debate, so it's more or less the same thing, only with one voice instead of the full-crews on rival networks. Does that indicate a desire on Fox's part to de-emphasize this debate for their Trumpian audience? Maybe. In any case, Fox decided that an hour of de facto pre-show was enough. This may be one of the few good calls Fox has made since reporting on who won Arizona in the 2020 election.

7 p.m.
Moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir welcome viewers. Trump won the coin toss and chose to speak last. Harris and Trump are ushered in right on time, and Harris crosses the stage to shake Trump's hand, and introduce herself—and perhaps, to correct his constant mispronouncing of her name. ​First question goes to VP Harris, all about the economy, and the gloves come off quickly as she attacks Trump's economic plan, or lack thereof, she says.

7:04 p.m.
Trump's turn to speak for the first time in the debate, and he goes immediately to the tariffs, which economists say would be disastrous — and then quickly to illegal immigrants, including a name-drop of Aurora's supposed takeover by Venezuelans. Pretty early for him to go to his greatest hits from the campaign trail.

7:08 p.m.
Harris brings up Project 2025 and Trump's alleged ties to it. Trump denies having anything to do with it.

7:15 p.m.
Harris has her hand on her chin, smiling, at Trump as he accuses her of preparing to copy him, that she's a Marxist like her father, and other things unconnected to the question.

7:16 p.m.
Trump gets a question about reproductive rights; he quickly claims that Harris's vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, wants to allow the execution of babies. Harris is looking less amused; Trump isn't finishing a thought. He's repeating that "everyone" wanted Roe vs. Wade returned to the states, which is not true.

7:19 p.m.
First fact-check from the moderators: Linsey Davis quickly corrects Trump that no state allows a baby to be executed, and moves on quickly to Harris for a response. There was much discussion in the last weeks as to how the moderators would fact-check Trump; here's how.

7:23 p.m.
Trump doesn't directly question about whether he'd veto an abortion ban, as his running mate J.D. Vance said Trump would. He then talks about Student Loan forgiveness, and how that was a "catastrophe" the Biden administration.

7:28 p.m.
Harris invites America to attend a Trump rally, saying they're full of talk about fictional characters, like Hannibal Lecter, and windmills causing cancer, and that his crowds leave early because they're bored. Trump retorts by saying he has "the most incredible rallies in the history of politics," and that Harris only has people at her rallies because she buses them in and pays them. Trump then dovetails into illegals eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Another fact-check: David Muir says Springfield's city manager reports no evidence of that.

7:31 p.m.
Harris ticks off a long list of Republicans that have come out in support of her candidacy. Trump dismisses that by saying he fired most of those people.

7:37 p.m.
Trump accuses the FBI of fraud in claiming that violent crime is coming down nationally. Harris follows up by reminding viewers that Trump is a convicted felon.

7:47 p.m.
Trump defends the January 6 riots by blaming an "out of control" policeman for killing Ashli Babbit...and then turning back to illegal immigrants. When asked if he has any regrets, he denies responsibility for the day, and then repeats the untrue claim that he offered Nancy Pelosi 10,000 National Guard members.

Harris recounts her experience as one of the victims of the Insurrection, and then recalls the events of Charlottesville where Trump said there were "fine people on both sides" of an event in which Neo-Nazis were marching. Trump claims the Charlottesville event was "debunked," and then refers to Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters of Fox News.

7:56 p.m.
Trump disavows recent reporting on an interview where he admitted that he lost in 2020 "by a whisker." He claims it was sarcasm, and then claims that no court reviewed the accusations of the election being stolen — a demonstrably untrue statement. Also, the country is dying, according to a very yelly Trump.

8 p.m.
We finish out the first hour of the debate with Harris saying that "81 million people fired Donald Trump" and that he's clearly "having a problem processing that."  Trump claims that if he were president, the recent war and killings in Israel and Palestine "would've never started," and then takes it much, much further by saying that Kamala Harris "hates Israel."

Harris calls for an immediate end to the conflict, and for the hostages to come home. Trump responds by saying Harris hates not only Israel, but also "the Arab area." Lots of hate in Trump's vocabulary as the hour ends.

8:08 p.m.
First commercial break following a tete-a-tete about who's the most weak and effective on the world stage.

8:10 p.m.
Trump is asked if he wants Ukraine to win the war; he doesn't answer, just saying he wants the war to end. Then he calls himself "your President." Which, you know, he's not. He then asks where the president is, and claims that President Joe Biden "doesn't even know he's alive," whatever that means.

Harris says that Trump would finish the war in Ukraine in his first 24 hours because "he'd just give it up" in favor of Putin. "If Donald Trump were president right now, Putin would be sitting in Kiev," she says. It was a strong showing for Harris; Trump appears to be losing it.

8:16 p.m.
The Trump people have to be disappointed in how these two candidates are coming across. Harris seems knowledgeable, responsive, and strong. Trump seems boastful, accusatory — and in a grim, sweaty hunch over his mic.

8:19 p.m.
Harris can't find the words for a moment to describe Trump. She finally settles on referring to him as "this...former president." Assumedly, we're all invited to fill in the blank ourselves.

8:22 p.m.
Trump is asked why he feels he has the right to comment on someone else's racial background. He claims he doesn't care, despite comments he's made to the contrary. Harris seizes the opportunity to remind America of Trump's past cases involving housing discrimination, the Central Park Five and his doubt of former President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

Trump responds by calling the Biden administration the "most divisive in history."

8:28 p.m.
Trump says Obamacare is terrible, but that he saved it, and he has a plan to replace it — but he could have let it rot, and he didn't, and that was the right thing to do. When pressed on what his plan might be to replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump says "I have concepts of a plan."

8:32 p.m.
Harris defends the Affordable Care Act, which she says Trump tried to kill over sixty times, with the invocation of former Republican Senator John McCain, who passed away in 2018.

8:34 p.m.
And we're officially in overtime.

8:41 p.m.
Closing statements begin. Harris talks about the hopes and aspirations of Americans. That we're "not going back," which has become a central rallying cry at her campaign stops. She says that, as a lawyer, she never asked a client if they were a Democrat or a Republican. She just asked if they were okay.

Trump follows up by saying that if Harris had all these plans, she should have already done it. Also, the country is going down the tubes and other countries are calling him and laughing at the Biden administration, there's also going to be World War III because of weapons. And illegal immigrants. And she's the worst vice president in the history of the country.

8:46 p.m.
And that's the way it was. Signing off.