Former US President Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris are shown on screen during a debate watch party at the Cameo Art House Theatre in Fayetteville, North Carolina, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris enter Tuesday’s debate in search of the same goal, a moment that will help them gain the edge in a race polls show is essentially tied. Photographer: Allison Joyce/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, clashed repeatedly over Russia, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine in Tuesday night’s closely watched Presidential Debate.
Harris told Trump, who previously served as U.S. president, that Putin “would eat you for lunch” and said that, if the Republican were to become president, “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now.”
She also accused Trump of being ready to abandon Ukraine after two and a half years of war and an immense military funding effort by the U.S.
“Understand why the European allies and 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,” Harris said during the ABC News Presidential Debate, according to a transcript of the debate.
“What we have done to preserve the ability of 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,” she said, before describing Putin as “a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, debates Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, for the first time during the presidential election campaign at The National Constitution Center on September 10, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Trump rejected Harris’ comments, claiming that the war would not have started if he had been in power in 2022 and telling the audience that Putin “would be sitting in Moscow, and he wouldn’t have lost 300,000 men and women” in the war.
Exact war casualty figures are unknown. Neither Russia nor Ukraine release such sensitive information, but U.S. intelligence estimated last year that around 315,000 Russian soldiers — the vast majority of whom are men — had been killed or wounded in the war up to that time.
Trump has repeatedly insinuated that he could cut military funding for Ukraine and would seek an immediate end to the conflict, with officials in Kyiv concerned that the policy would mean it has to cede occupied territory to Russia as part of a deal.
Then President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki, Finland.
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Trump was asked several times…
Read More: Putin would ‘eat you for lunch’ Harris tells Trump in clash over Russia