Vice President Harris answered Republicans' gripes by sitting for her first interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

Our reporters are providing live analysis and fact-checking for the debate in Philadelphia. The Times is streaming the debate from ABC News. Here’s what’s happening: Vice President Kamala Harris has rattled former President Donald J. Trump, attacking him on abortion, immigration and his relationships with dictators. Military leaders, she said, think he’s “a disgrace.” Mr. Trump called Ms. Harris “weak” and insisted Russia would not have invaded Ukraine on his watch. Ms. Harris told Mr. Trump that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, would “eat you for lunch.” Ms. Harris reminded viewers that Mr. Trump is a convicted felon, while he called the cases against him “fake.” He also repeated a bogus claim about immigrants eating dogs. See real-time updates in a single notification. See real-time updates in a single notification. See real-time updates in a single notification. Live Chat Maggie Haberman Harris reminded people that Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David shortly before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She made this point on the eve of yet another anniversary of that day. Muir turns to Afghanistan, Biden and Harris’s worst moment in national security. Harris said she agreed with Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan, and argued that “as of today, there is not one member of the American military” in active combat today. She avoided discussion of how the withdrawal was executed. But she comes back by recalling Trump’s direct negotiations with the Taliban and his desire to invite them — a terrorist group — to Camp David. “He does not again appreciate the role and the responsibility of the president of the United States.” With only 15 minutes left, the debate has stayed on foreign policy, going into depth on the war in Ukraine, then segueing into Afghanistan. Harris hit Trump hard and framed him as a toady to Vladimir Putin, who “would be sitting in Kyiv right now” had Trump been president. But this is an area where Trump has some strength, playing on the war-weariness of the country. Still, Trump refused to say he wanted Ukraine to win. Harris turns to a central difference in national security: whether the United States fights for democracy, or backs authoritarians. Trump has done nothing tonight to talk about American values or principles. Only deal making. These ABC moderators have not been shy about fact-checking Trump’s baseless claims. And Trump’s allies, watching at home, have not been shy about criticizing the ABC moderators for what they perceive as a bias against their candidate. On social media, Trump’s son Donald Jr. used the word “hack” to refer to the moderators. To be clear, Trump’s campaign agreed to the terms of this debate, including the choice of moderators. When Trump speaks, Harris often directs her gaze toward him. When she speaks, Trump typically stares straight ahead. He shrugs and shakes his head. But he is generally not watching her while she speaks. “Everything they said was weak and stupid,’’ Trump says, insisting that Harris was sent in to talk to Putin. She never was. That task was given to William Burns, the C.I.A. chief — and he was there to warn Putin, not to negotiate with him. Harris has spent a lot of her time as vice president building out a portfolio that has included extensive work on foreign policy, which, of course, has been one of Biden’s focuses as president. Most observers believe that Vladimir V. Putin’s comments on Sept. 5 that he supported Vice President Kamala Harris were said in jest. The U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Putin supports the election of Trump. Documents released as part of an indictment against two employees of the Russian state broadcaster show the Kremlin developed a plan to influence swing state voters in favor of Trump. The Kremlin believes Trump will cut back, or end, U.S. military aid to Ukraine. While Trump has claimed that the invasion of Ukraine would not have taken place if he were president, there is little evidence that he would have taken action to deter Russia. Harris says if Trump was president, “he would just give it up” on the world stage. She goes on to describe meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference in the days before the war broke out — though she does not mention that it was a tense and difficult meeting. “If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be in Kyiv now,’’ and would move on to Poland next. This is one of the starkest differences in American foreign policy in a presidential debate since Nixon and Kennedy. Harris suggested that Polish Americans in Pennsylvania, a top battleground state, should be worried that he would allow Russia to invade Poland next and described Putin as a “dictator who would eat you for lunch.” Harris responded to Trump’s attacks on Biden by noting that Trump is running against her. But she is not defending Biden, for the most part, against Trump’s attacks, and she is also not trying to explicitly distance herself from Biden. It is a clear strategic decision on how to deal with the unpopular president. Trump has not said anything tonight that would surprise most people who’ve watched him for the last eight years, with the exception of refusing to rule out signing a national abortion ban, which will almost certainly end up in ads. But he has demonstrated again that it is very, very difficult for him to be disciplined for any sustained period of time. Trump is now back on territory his advisers want to hit Harris and Biden on — the wars around the world unfolding during their administration. Trump can correctly point out that Putin did not seize additional territory during his presidency. He did under Obama in 2014, and then Biden in 2022. Trump, who is trying to steady himself after spending much of the debate’s first hour on defense, returned to territory where he’s been successful in the past: attacking President Biden. Harris had a quick retort. “You’re not running against Joe Biden,” she said. “You’re running against me.” While some of the challenges to the last election were rejected on the basis of standing — that is, on the issue of whether the plaintiffs had the legal right to question the results and assert they had been harmed — there were some cases that were decided on the merits of whether there were improprieties in the race. And none of those cases were decided in Mr. Trump’s favor. One of the merits cases was decided in Wisconsin by Brett H. Ludwig, a federal judge appointed by Mr. Trump. “This court has allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case,” Judge Ludwig wrote in his ruling, “and he has lost on the merits.” Trump’s claims that the Biden administration orchestrated his four criminal cases, including the one in Manhattan that led to his conviction in May on charges of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal, has no basis in fact. The Manhattan investigation began while Trump, not President Biden, was in office. The case was brought by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a local Democrat who does not answer to Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris. The same goes for Trump’s criminal case in Georgia, where a district attorney accused him of trying to overturn the 2020 election results in that state. And Trump’s two federal cases were brought by a special counsel, a semi-independent prosecutor who is accountable to the attorney general. While the attorney general is chosen by the president, the White House has no direct influence over the special counsel. New York University students watching the presidential debate in Philadelphia in New York, on Tuesday.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Vice President Kamala Harris laced into former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday over his role in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, blaming him for subsequent state-level abortion bans that, she said, have had painful consequences for many American women and their families. In the first true clash of their debate in Philadelphia, Ms. Harris noted that it was Mr. Trump’s appointees for the Supreme Court who helped eliminate the federal right to an abortion, leading to what she referred to as “Trump abortion bans.” “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree, the government and Donald Trump, certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Ms. Harris said. Mr. Trump reiterated that he supports exceptions for cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk, though some state bans allow for virtually no exceptions. Asked whether he would veto a national abortion ban, Mr. Trump declined to answer. When a moderator noted that his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, had said he would veto it if it came to his desk, Mr. Trump replied, “I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness.” At a different point, though, he said, “I’m not signing a ban and there’s no reason to sign a ban.” Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor who began her career specializing in prosecuting child sexual assault cases, described what she saw as the dangerous outcomes from some of the state bans in place now. “Understand what that means: a survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next,” she said, a reality in some states that she called “immoral.” In some cases, she said, a young victim of incest could be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. In other cases, she said, women who wanted their pregnancies have struggled to receive care when facing serious health complications. Asked if he wants Ukraine to win the war against Russia, Trump says only, “I want the war to stop.” Trump did not answer the question — and instead argued that NATO has to “pay up.” In fact, Europe is paying extraordinarily large amounts for Ukraine — more than the U.S. by some measures. Trump did not say how he would end the war — just that he would “speak to one, speak to the other,’’ arguing that Biden did not negotiate. Trump insists he would “get it done,’’ and never talks about defending Ukraine from an invasion of its borders. Somehow Trump seems to believe that Biden and Harris supported the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In fact, they worked for months to persuade Germany to agree to kill the project if Russia invaded Ukraine — which is exactly what happened. Vice President Kamala Harris talked straight to the camera during the presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Vice President Kamala Harris stood just a few feet from former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, but she often seemed more interested in talking to viewers at home. Ms. Harris’s approach appeared to signal that fighting with Mr. Trump was less important than speaking to voters. And by repeatedly speaking about the former president as if he were not on the same debate stage, she advanced a campaign strategy of portraying the Republican ticket as weird and out-of-touch with everyday Americans. The clearest example of Ms. Harris’s approach came when she invited viewers to attend one of her competitor’s trademark political rallies. “You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter,” Ms. Harris said. “He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your desires, and I’ll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first, and I pledge to you that I will.” Mr. Trump quickly responded — but not to dispute her criticism that he was not tuned into voters’ needs. Instead, he defended the size of his rally crowds. “People don’t leave my rallies,” Mr. Trump said. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.” He concluded his answer by claiming, without evidence, that in Springfield, Ohio, “they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets that live there. This is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.” Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary in December 2019, which came as a surprise given expectations surrounding her candidacy. But her exit was preceded by more than a dozen others, including prominent members of Congress, former and sitting governors and the mayor of New York City. Harris is correct that Trump warned of a “blood bath” if he did not win the 2024 election, but Trump has contended that he was speaking about an economic blood bath and was focused on competition from Chinese electric vehicles. Moving into the final half-hour, the debate has moved into foreign policy, but that has not meant it has become more substantive. Asked specifically how she would end the war in Gaza, Harris could only offer that she “would work around the clock.” She hit out at Trump in the most personal terms, saying world leaders laughed at him and military leaders called him a disgrace. Trump also did not offer a solution in Gaza. He simply repeated his phrase that the war would never have happened had he been president, nor would Russia have invaded Ukraine. Trump leaned on Hungary’s autocratic leader, Viktor Orban, to back him up. Harris pressed her case, calling him a “disgrace.” “Putin endorsed her last week,’’ Trump said. Putin did say he supported Harris because Biden said the world should — a classic piece of trolling. Trump cast it as a serious statement; no one else did, especially given Russia’s disinformation campaign on Trump’s behalf. Trump and his allies spread lies for months about vast fraud that they falsely claimed stole the 2020 election from him. His supporters then organized a large rally near the White House designed to pressure Congress to overturn his loss. Trump encouraged the crowd to attend, promising it would be “wild.” He urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, where the rally turned into a violent riot that injured about 150 police officers. He faces federal felony charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election and similar charges in Georgia. When he debated Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump returned, again and again, to a single core message about Clinton: that she was a fixture of a political establishment that was responsible for the country’s ills. So far tonight, he’s not focusing on a core message against Harris. U.S. crude oil production has indeed risen to record highs this year, though experts say that has little to do with actions taken by the Biden administration. Most oil production has occurred on private and state lands, where the federal government has little oversight. At times, President Biden has actually tried to restrict drilling on federal lands and waters in the name of tackling climate change, but the courts have frequently limited his ability to do so.