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ABC News debate dominated the week's Presidential campaign

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

The presidential race was dominated last week by the ABC News debate, where the two candidates faced off for the first and possibly final time.

(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: It's important to remind the former president, you're not running against Joe Biden. You're running against me. I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is 'cause he would just give it up, and that's not who we are as Americans. Let's understand what happened here. I actually met with Zelenskyy a few days before Russia invaded, tried through...

DAVID MUIR: President Trump, on that point, I want to get your response.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I would like to respond.

MUIR: Let me just ask though, why did you try to kill that bill, and successfully so, that would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the border?

TRUMP: First, let me respond this to the rallies.

MUIR: Please.

TRUMP: She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's bussing them in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light, so she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

HARRIS: So North Carolina, two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our debate.

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: You watched it. Did you watch it?

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: And look, I believe we owe it to have another debate. I...

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: We owe it to the voters because here's the thing. In this election, what's at stake could not be more important. On Tuesday night, I talked about issues that I know matter to the families across America, like bringing down the cost of living, investing in America's small businesses, protecting reproductive freedom.

TRUMP: As everyone saw two nights ago, we had a monumental victory over comrade Kamala Harris in the presidential debate.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: We won big with independent voters, moderates, Republicans and working people all across this nation, putting forward a clear vision to, very simply, make America great again.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: Meanwhile, Kamala Harris showed up, spewing empty rhetoric, the same old lies, meaningless platitudes, offering no plans, no policies and no details whatsoever, nothing. The two anchors, David Muir and Linsey Davis, sat there and only corrected me on things where I was right.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast.