WSJ What’s News - Harris Puts Trump on the Defensive in Debate

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

A.M. Edition for Sept. 11. The WSJ’s Catherine Lucey says Democrats are feeling good after last night’s face-off between Vice President Harris and former President Trump. Plus, Mexico approves an overhaul of the judiciary that has rattled investors and raised fears about trade with the U.S. And, Canada considers slapping tariffs on more Chinese imports. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash wall street. Harris and Trump face off in Philly. Harris really came to play. She was on offense a lot. Trump honestly spent a lot of time responding to her. Plus Mexico passes a judicial overhaul that's ringing alarm bells for U.S. businesses, and

Canada considers slapping tariffs on more Chinese goods. It's Wednesday, September 11th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The first and potentially only head-to-head debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is in the books. And with just 54 days left now until the election and early voting already underway in select states. If that was the last chance that voters have to see the candidates on the same stage, what if anything new did it tell us?

Well here to help answer that question is Wall Street Journal White House reporter Katherine Lucy who was covering the ABC presidential debate last night. Katherine, the first debate of this election cycle saw President Biden's performance essentially compel a number of Democrats to work to push him out of the race. I take it that nothing quite so dramatic transpired here. No, Democrats are feeling pretty good. The thing you really saw here was just how dramatically the race has changed since Biden got out and how competitive it is.

Vice President Kamala Harris really came to play. She was on offense a lot. She went after the former president Trump on issues like the economy, abortion, foreign policy. She even tried to get under his skin about the size of their crowds at their respective rallies. There was lots of back and forth. They both at various points in time tried to jump in or comment. Catherine, those sort of unscripted moments can sometimes become the defining moments of a debate. Did any of that crosstalk kind of manifest into that? Well, there was definitely some sharp exchanges. One comment I really think did kind of sum up the evening was at one point Harris

made a point of saying, well, first of all, it's important to remind the former president, you're not running against Joe Biden, you're running against me. That did really kind of make clear there was a new candidate here and this was a different kind of debate. All right, so Harris making an impression. As for Trump, we've been reporting in advance of this debate that his prep team had been urging him to steer this towards being a policy debate instead of it becoming personal. Is that what we saw from him? He clearly was trying, I think, at times to stay calm. He did try and provide policy answers.

He honestly spent a lot of time responding to her though. She spoke at length about how he'd been prosecuted for quote, national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, found liable for sexual assault. So he definitely was responding to her quite a bit on some of those fronts. But those are cases, it's called weaponization. All right, let's start digging into some of the substance here and starting with the economy. We'd reported that Trump was going into this debate to try and hammer Harris on inflation that had occurred in the last few years, whereas Harris was trying to put the emphasis on the future and her vision for it. Is that kind of what we got?

Yes, he absolutely blasted her over inflation. Obviously inflation has eased some, but it is a huge issue for many Americans. And while Harris has improved in the polling compared with Joe Biden, Trump still generally leads her in the polls on the handling of the economy. So one of the things that she has been working very hard to try and do since she entered the race is to try and convince the public that she understands their concerns and that she has specific plans to deal with things like prices, the cost of housing. She tried to cast herself as somebody who was a champion of the middle class, that she

was going to promote policies that would help small business owners and families. In his closing statements, Donald Trump criticized Harris, but he specifically tried to make an argument about what this current administration has done. So she just started by saying she's going to do this, she's going to do that, she's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for three and a half years. And that's really trying to tie her to perceptions of President Biden and his handling of the economy, which have been pretty negative. Let's look at another topic, Katherine, which is abortion. This is an issue the Harris team was really trying to steer the discussion towards, an

issue also where she's viewed more favorably than Trump. Yes, absolutely. She's viewed more favorably on abortion rights. And also in our polling, it shows up as the issue that the most voters say that they won't vote for someone they disagree with on it. Trump was pushed on the positions he has taken. He tried to repeat that he thinks the issue should be left to the states, but he was pressed on whether he would veto a national ban on abortion or he president and he wouldn't answer.

He said that that would never get to that point. And Harris spoke at length and with some emotion about what has happened in the United States since Roe versus Wade was overturned in 2022. She spoke about women who could not receive care for miscarriages, women who could not receive care that they needed. And 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. Katherine, were there any other moments you'd highlight from this debate? You'd said earlier that Harris had gone after Trump on foreign policy, for example. You know, at one point they were talking about Ukraine.

Trump was not clear on whether he wanted Ukraine to win in the war against Russia. Do you want Ukraine to win this war? I want the war to stop. And let's listen to what Harris had to say about that. If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kiev right now. All right, Katherine, one debate here between Harris and Trump. Is that the one and only chance we're going to get to see them? And what else should we be paying attention for next in the campaign?

I think TBD. The Harris campaign has been calling for a second debate. Donald Trump came out to the spin room after the debate where reporters were talking to various campaign surrogates. And he said that Harris wants to, quote, do another one because she got beaten tonight. And then he said, we'll think about it. Looking forward, the other big thing that dropped

is that the long anticipated Taylor Swift endorsement dropped. She posted on social media saying that she will be casting her vote for Kamala Harris. I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal White House reporter Katherine Lucy. Katherine, thanks for staying up for us. Sure thing. Coming up, the rest of the day's news, including a sweeping judicial overhaul in Mexico and another twist in the fight over funding the government.

Those stories and more after the break. database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash Wall Street, oracle.com slash Wall Street. Former President Donald Trump has called on Republican lawmakers not to pass a short-term bill to avert a government shutdown if they can't win support for a measure that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Those comments follow House Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to attach the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act to a bill funding the government through March.

Few if any House Democrats are expected to support the measure, which is expected to go nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate even if it passes the House. Congress has until September 30th to avoid a partial government shutdown. Let's turn to Mexico now, where the country Senate overnight approved a contentious judicial overhaul that will see all federal judges, including its Supreme Court, replaced in elections to be held next year and in 2027. Journal correspondent Jose de Córdova is in Mexico City and said the constitutional amendment has stirred fears it could endanger the independence of Mexico's courts and

there are signs it's already imperiling trade and investment with the U.S., which has strongly criticized the reform. The judicial shakeup has frightened foreign investors and also Mexican business people as well. They're afraid that they won't be able to get a fair shake in Mexican courts if they have a business dispute under the new regime. According to the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico, the judicial changes could also endanger the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact, which is up for revision in 2026 by violating provisions that

call for independent magistrates. Well, speaking of trade, Canada says it's thinking of imposing more tariffs on Chinese goods including minerals, batteries, and semiconductors. That is, after the country imposed tariffs on all Chinese-made EVs as well as steel and aluminum products from China last month matching measures introduced by the U.S. earlier this year. Journal Markets reporter Caitlin McCabe says Canada wants to protect its economy as tensions grow between Beijing and the West.

So officials say, first of all, that they're trying to protect Canadian workers from unfair trade practices. But there is also a climate angle here too. Canadian Finance Ministry documents said China's dominance in critical minerals threatens the country's push to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. These measures that we've seen from Canada could prompt retaliation from China. Already Beijing has launched investigations into some agricultural and chemical imports from Canada and China had more to say also after the measures

unveiled Tuesday with a spokesperson for China's embassy saying in comments that Canada's measures could disrupt global supply chains. And in markets news today shares in the parent company of Donald Trump's Truth Social platform have slid more than 11% in off-hours trading after last night's debate. The stock trades under the ticker DJT. Also down about 11% off-hours are shares in GameStop after the video game retailer posted a sharp drop in sales. The Japanese yen has hit its highest level in eight months against the dollar after a Bank of Japan policy board member doubled down on the central bank's stance on pursuing

more rate increases. The UK's largest property listings company, Rightmove, has rejected a takeover bid from Australia's REA Group, which valued the company at about $7.3 billion. REA is 61% owned by News Corp, which owns Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Rightmove shares are little changed this morning, having gained around 20% since REA's interest was first made public. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the Consumer Price Index for August at 8.30

AM Eastern, data that could inform a Fed decision on the size of a rate cut when policymakers meet next week. And that's it for What's News for Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach with supervising producer Christina Rocca, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening. signals to prevent ransomware and AI attacks that target business. Zscaler Zero Trust plus AI. Learn more at zscaler.com slash zero trust AI.