Trump and Harris presidential debate on ABC: Follow all the updates from the high-stakes showdown

Margo Martin was accompanied by top Trump allies Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Tulsi Gabbard.

Lara Trump and her husband Eric Trump, and Trump aides Alina Habba, Stephen Miller and Corey Lewandowski also stepped off the aircraft in Philadelphia.

Melania Trump was not immediately spotted, and it remains unclear if she will be attending the debate Tuesday evening.

ABC News is tapping some of its biggest stars to moderate the presidential debate in Philadelphia Tuesday night, and they’re not ones that have been in Donald Trump’s line of fire.

David Muir, 50, is the host and managing editor of ‘ABC World News Tonight’ and co-anchor of 20/20. He has been at ABC News since 2003.

Linsey Davis, 46, is the host of ABC’s nightly streaming news broadcast ‘ABC News Live Prime’ and the anchor of the Sunday edition of ‘World News Tonight.’ She moderated two 2020 Democratic primary debates.

The gaffe-prone 81-year-old was heading to Marine One on the White House lawn when he made the comments just one day before the 23rd anniversary of the terror attacks.

‘I’m going up to my granddaughter’s birthday in New York,’ Biden began. ‘Then we’re gonna watch the debate, then tomorrow I’m doing 9/11.’

On social media platform X, one person commented: ‘Biden’s slip-ups are endless. You’d think someone would double-check his scripts by now.’

Another posted: ‘Yup… He done’, while someone added: ‘Gotta be honest until I saw that ‘tomorrow I’m doing 9/11′ clip just now I kind of forget Joe Biden was even alive.’

A Trump campaign associated X account shared the clip, saying: ‘This is the humiliating cognitive decline Kamala Harris COVERED UP.’

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

If Kamala Harris or the moderators want to put the focus back on January 6th at the debate, Donald Trump running mate JD Vance has given them some fresh material to ask about.

Vance told the All-in Podcast Monday that he would have asked states to send in ‘alternative slates of electors’ when Congress met to count the electoral votes.

He refused to say outright that he would do what former Vice President Mike Pence did – accept the votes certified by states, infuriating Trump and rupturing their relationship. But his comments implied he would not have, and he repeated some of his running mate’s claims about election fraud, despite those claims being tossed out of court.

‘I would have asked states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what actually matters and what kind of an election that we have’ he said.

‘We would have had a big debate,’ he said. Special Counsel Jack Smith included the scheme to have contested states send fake electors to Washington as part of his superseding indictment against Trump. Vance is set to be in the ‘spin room’ after the debate.

Fred C. Trump III, who is estranged from the former president, unleashed on his relative ahead of the first head-to-head matchup between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

He claimed that Trump is privately mad about Kamala Harris’ recent rise in the polls.

Fred told People in an interview on debate day:

I don’t pretend to be an armchair psychologist, I just know him. It’s ‘win at all costs’ and he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the wake of what he’s trying to get accomplished, which is to benefit himself.

I wouldn’t want to be around him right now because it’s never his fault. All bets are off now, he is going to go nuts on people.

It’s going to get nasty. The race is going to come up in a big ugly way.

Trump demeans people on a regular basis. … Everybody’s a loser. Everybody is stupider than him. You’ve seen it already.

The Democrat and the Republican will participate in the second 2024 general election debate, but with some major changes since the Atlanta showdown in late June between Trump and President Joe Biden.

The biggest change – obviously – is that Biden has bowed out of the race, with Harris now topping the Democratic ticket, picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate.

It was his disastrous June debate performance – and pleas from a number of top Democrats – that compelled the 81-year-old president to do so, in late July.

Also since the last debate, Trump survived a July 13 assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in the most important political debate of her career on Tuesday evening, but she has a very mixed record on the stage.

Harris participated in multiple presidential debates with a gaggle of aspirational Democrats during her failed 2020 presidential campaign, as she struggled to break free of the pack and go viral.

Tuesday’s debate with Harris marks Trump’s seventh general election debate since 2016, while this is Harris’ first with a Republican presidential candidate.

Political strategists who have prepared Republican candidates spoke to the DailyMail about her strengths and weaknesses in debates.

Harris is very good about preparing, rehearsing, and deploying prepared lines, even though her attempts to go viral do not always come off with a hit.

From Rob Crilly, Chief U.S. Political Correspondent

Trump aides say their man has a clear three-point plan for defining Kamala Harris in viewers’ minds tonight:

1. Paint her as a San Francisco liberal – drawing on her history as a prosecutor
2. Tie her to Biden – the candidate may have switched but the attack lines haven’t
3. ‘Values haven’t changed’ – use her own words against her (see point 1)

The whole thing will be framed with another question: Every time she talks about a problem the country faces and her plan to fix it, she will be asked why haven’t you done it already?

Or at least that’s the idea. As ever with Trump, he may find it hard to keep the focus on his opponent

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Body language expert Darren Stanton predicts that Donald Trump will ‘absolutely smash’ Kamala Harris in their first debate.

The two are meeting on stage for the first time for the faceoff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening and many are speculating over how the debate will turn out.

Speaking with BonusCodeBets, Stanton said:

My prediction is that Trump will absolutely smash the debate because he speaks without autocues and notes, he speaks from the heart. A lot of what Trump says is what he believes so he is sincere in what he says.

He said while microexpressions will be important to watch in the debate, one of the most telling could in their handshake – if they do one.

In 2017, Donald Trump was first seen doing his ‘bone-crusher’ handshake with the Japanese Prime Minister. The shaking of hands is important, when Kamala Harris and Trump both come on stage, will he do the same ‘bone-crusher’ handshake to Harris even though she’s a female?

Some aren’t even sure that the two will shake hands, and betting has commenced on whether they will put aside their differences for the show of sportsmanship.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is rolling out a debate day ad to get under former President Donald Trump’s skin.

It features former President Barack Obama – who Trump despises – suggesting that the Republican’s ‘obsession with crowd size’ has a deeper meaning.

The campaign spot uses a clip from Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech in which the former president made a hand gesture insinuating there was a size issue with Trump’s you-know-what.

From Rob Crilly, Chief U.S. Political Correspondent for DailyMail.com

When Donald Trump takes to the debate stage tonight he will have one clear advantage. At 6ft 3in he will tower over 5ft 4in Kamala Harris.

He has already used the issue as a wedge.

‘No boxes or artificial lifts will be allowed to stand on during my upcoming debate with Comrade Kamala Harris,’ he posted on his Truth Social platform. Any such allowance would be ‘a form of cheating.’

It seems the Harris campaign has come up with a workaround. Images of the debate stage show clearly that her lectern is considerably shorter than Trump’s, avoiding the appearance that she is dwarfed by the apparatus of politics.

It is not the first time she has done this. Her aides bought new chairs when she moved into the VP’s office, reflecting the fact that it was now in use by a more petite figure than previous occupants.

But Trump’s campaign staff say the visuals will be jarring.

Malpractice mistake by the Harris team. Somebody is going to get fired.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Multiple betting companies have Kamala Harris at huge odds of winning the debate against Donald Trump on Tuesday evening.

Star Sports and Action Network are offering odds of 1/3 – or 75 percent – on Harris winning the debate versus the 2/1 – or 33.3 percent – for Trump.

One bookmaker based it on the Ipsos/538’s poll and another is on ABC News’ snap poll.

According to BetOnline, Harris is a clear -250 favorite over Trump (+170) at BetOnline.

A negative number represents how much a person needs to bet to win $100, meaning in this case, a bettor would have to wager $250 just to win $100.

Action Network says that the candidates will likely mention world leaders and influential individuals like Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk.

And the policies it says will likely be discussed on stage include abortion, healthcare and taxes.

Bookmakers put it two to one odds that the country mentioned most during the 90-minute debate besides the U.S. will be Israel.

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

President Joe Biden wouldn’t reveal what advice he gave Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of tonight’s debate in Philadelphia.

‘I’ve spoken to the vice president. She seems calm, cool and collected. I think she’s going to do great,’ the president said ahead of boarding Marine One early Tuesday evening. ‘And I’m not going to tell you what advice I gave her,’ he told the hoard of reporters.

The 81-year-old has faced off against former President Donald Trump three times on the debate stage – with the final one prompting his decision to drop out of the 2024 race.

Biden also explained why he was traveling up to New York City early.

‘I’m going up to my granddaughter’s birthday in New York, then we’re going to watch the debate and tomorrow I’m doing 9/11,’ the president said.

He’s likely celebrating the birthday of Finnegan Biden, who turned 24 on Monday. She’s one of Hunter Biden’s three daughters with his first wife Kathleen Buhle.

Harris will join Biden in New York to mark the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.

They’ll also travel to Shanksville, Pennsylvania and Arlington, Virginia for ceremonies at the Flight 93 Memorial and the Pentagon respectively on Wednesday.