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of hello and welcome tonight on spotlight we break down the first presidential debate between komala. haris and donald trump. the

highly anticipated face off saw feres exchanges between the candidates issues like climate change, immigration and foreign policy. while the candidates aim to arile each other, trump supporters may have gotten more red meat, but camala harris earned coveted endorsements from influential figures. so who came out top, to find out and to dissect to the debate and analyze. the key moments, we are joined by our guest thea west, political commentator from dallas, texas, and also we are joined by mr. george, in says muly, senior research fellow at the global policy institute from budapest. thank you very much to both of you. gentlemen,

let's begin with our guest from dallas in your opinion, who came out top? well, in this situation, kamla harris, as far as the... performance she performed better now than trump, now she did get help from the the hosts of abc, they helped her out lot, they cut trump off lot, they did not challengela harris generally, for example, in the very beginning, one of the first questions was to kamala, is the economy better than it was 4 years ago, are we better now than we were four years ago?

had the opportunity to respond back to what kamela harris said, but the moderators, they would immediately go to another question, so overall, um, trump did not perform that well in this debate, uh, camela harris, along with the help of the abc moderators, they helped kamela out lot in this particular debate, so uh, trump also, uh when he mentioned uh the cats and the dogs proportedly being eaten in springfield ohio, that was very, very bad move on his part politically. now you you would have uh, let's say maybe 30% of his uh

supporters, they would support all that, but he he lost some of the other voters, some of the independent voters, he would lose them on such comments as that. so that's just one example, but i'll have more to say on that as we go along here, of course we will be discussing all the different aspects of that debate last night, but uh, now that we had the opinion of someone from inside the us, let's bring in our guest from budapest as an international observer, uh, mr. sasmi, how do you think the uh continued political division in the us, because for us sitting outside the us, we clearly... remember the capital attack and we do know that there is huge rift in the society uh as far as the us is concerned so how do you see those divisions playing a part? well just to um go back to the point made by my colleague, i agree with most of uh

what he said, think in that debate, um the two moderators were not in any sense moderators, they were ' essentially um working on the uh the same team as uh carmela harris, um, they fact checked donald trump repeatedly, they didn't fact check camala harris once, even though she told uh one lie after another, lies that had been already many times disproven, and and as my colleague pointed out, whenever uh trump got onto a subject on which he was strong, um would immediately interrupt and move to another subject, the the one part that i didn't agree with, my colleague was the issue of the the dogs and cats in ohio, because that story will have resonance, people feel very

emotional about their pets and what what the ultimate truth of that story is, we we don't as yet know, the point was that the moderators jumped in, and said, oh, this isn't true, well, it's not at all clear at this stage whether it is or isn't true, but it's something that will resonate with people, um, whether they're you know republicans, democrats, independents, you know, moderate, conservatives, um, you know, people who feel strongly about their pets will want to find out, well, what's the truth of this? is it is, is it the case that there are immigrants um in springfield ohio who are eating uh cats, so... that may well be the the most memorable part of the debate. now just to go back to your question, yeah, there's no question, america is deeply divided, it it is a 50/50 country, so it's looking like this will be the third election a row that will be decided by few tens of

thousands of votes, that's was the 2016 election and the uh 2020 election, and it's going to be decided uh... a handful of uh states, it's very hard to see how this um division uh can be overcome um and and and in in particular while trump has obviously very ardent um supporters, he has many ardent opponents on the other side, um, same goes for uh carmela harris and i think the if one has a you know a big takeaway from the debate it will be that neither side um will feel that uh that anything fundamentally has changed those who trump supporters will say yeah trump won. and then he's great and camala harris is terrible and her support will say oh she won and uh and trump is

terrible so i don't think anything very much will change as a result of this debate. okay so uh our guest from dallas here uh please if you could please tell us what you think about some key issues that were raised. we did even see camala harris herself mentioning that two very different viewpoints so we're uh presented. to the people watching the debate, as far as the us economy is concerned, as key issue that uh ripples throughout the world and the effects of us economy can be seen almost everywhere in the world uh, how do you see those two viewpoints differ? well, i want to make two points, i'll start with the economy and then i'll start and then i'll cover uh something that uh kamla harris said and that uh donald trump uh said now. um with the economy here in the united states inflation is high, trump uh repeatedly

mentioned that, now of course the moderators, they tried to step step aside from that, but trump repeated that, so that was good of trump that he kept drilling that point home uh, the inflation is very high in this country, trump also mentioned about um many the manufacturing jobs, they're not here in the united states, many... tries to strike back against that, so uh, trump won in that instance right there, but

however, as i said, kamla harris's performance, especially when you consider the very bad performance of joe biden, comela harris harris's performance was pretty dark gone good, now the other point that i wanted to mention that's not about the economy was when uh uh trump brought well the... has actually brought up this january 6 situation and then trump said, well look, nancy pelosi who was speaker of the house, democrat speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, when i asked her if she needed more security on january the 6th, because there are some some people who are very, very angry, who's going to be very angry in the crowd, nancy pelosi refused trump's uh offer of the national guard, and then she was also caught, a video speaking to her daughter in the in a car that

it was her fault with regards to what happened on january the 6th because she did not adhere to sound and good security for that particular day so trump scored big on that point right there and but in a lot of other areas trump did not score so uh uh uh uh so much i mean he he did drill home about illegal immigration, he drilled that home over and over and over again, but that was not enough with regards to kamla harris who brought up the situation about, oh well uh, you're a convicted criminal, you've been convicted, when trump says, well look, joe biden was uh brought up uh, was investigated for uh taking classified documents and he did, joe biden did.

trump has uh immunity from that, he has presidential or executive immunity from that, but the point that was trump was making was that the corrupt american justice department were carrying out investigation on the part of joe biden and uh vice president kamla harris, but then with joe biden who who had

violated the classified documents far worse, they absolved him. of that, so that is a situation where uh donald trump made very, very good point that the american justice system is corrupt, the fbi is corrupt, and he mentioned with the fbi, you had a situation where they were talking about trump mentioned how crime has risen and partly related to illegal immigration has risen in this country, and then the moderators helping harris out, the moderators says, well the fbi. says and kumla agree, the fbi's said that that is not the case, and then trump said, well, the fbi did not invest, did not take into account all of the cities, especially the cities where you have a large number of of illegal immigrants, so what trump was essentially saying is that you have corruption within the american fbi, and we know that because the fbi went after donald

trump when he was president, the fbi lied and carried out a uh fiser to get fiser warrant. to carry out an illegal spying operation upon a president elect and then president donald trump years ago so um i'll conclude with that part there yeah and of course all of these uh issues are uh quite intriguing for the international community who's watching closely what's happening in the us uh and of course the us as a country advocates democracy uh so uh mr. saysmily one of the most heated policy. discussions came up when trump and harris clashed over how they would handle russia's - the russia ukraine uh war and uh of course their responses revealed very huge differences uh what is your take on that uh by the way just my my name is samueli uh just just as by the by um well i think it

was very interesting um that harris um took a completely belligerant uh stance um on the war in ukraine um basically just continuing with the uh the biden administration uh policy of indefinite war um and um what should have been the proper question from any uh fair uh moderator would have been well what's the strategy here, what's the end game here? how do you plan to defeat russia, which is nuclear superpower? how can you possibly do that? are you not endangering um the world with nuclear holocaus, but instead of that, the uh moderators took entirely the stance of

the bitenistration and of course the uh the foreign policy elite that govern washington. and sort of made trump the bad guy, because trump had said, well, i, i, i intend to bring peace um, really, as soon as i'm elected, even before uh, i'm inaugurated, as i'm going to bring peace, and the moderator asked, what don't you want ukraine to win, and trump reasonably said, i want this war to come to an end, which is what any civilized human being should say, and having... answered that question, then the moderator asked again, even though trump had obviously answered that question, don't you want ukraine to win? i said, no, i want this war to come to an end, and that should should be instructive for the american people, and should be instructive for the world, that you have one side that wants to just continue this war, which means

continue this fighting, which hundreds of thousands have already died, and the... you continue it and then hundred thousands more will continue to die, it's it's already cost 200 billion dollars for the united states, enormous amount in europe, it's led to economic downturn in europe, and harris's views, well let's just continue without any idea of how you are you planning to bring this to any conclusion, i think that was a... very striking uh moment um in that debate, and it should, if if trump i think had had been a more effective debater, he he's never been a particularly effective debate, it had been a more effective debater, 'then he should have just drawn a contrast, i am the candidate who intends to bring peace uh to ukraine, whether he does it or not, that's a different issue, but he at least he intends

to bring this war to an end as opposed to the uh other side um, which just simply plans to go on, you know, for year after year with hundreds of thousands uh getting killed, and i think that that's was an important uh contrast between the two candidates, okay, i can see mr. west'. nodding uh obviously he agrees with you, so mr. west, despite the differing rhetoric and the strategies of the two candidates, uh, is there a meaningful meaningful difference on how they would conduct foreign policy if they become president, or uh, let's put it this way, basically do you believe does it make a difference who sits in the white house when it comes to foreign policy? well, the answer is, yes, it does make a difference, but uh... i think i think the question could be asked how much of a difference now um whether it is donald trump or comela harris, let's not be

confused about this reality, here in the united states, there are certain people, especially within the military industrial complex who are in control of much of this. years ago when donald trump said i'm going to in the... fighting, i'm going to bring the troops home from syria when he was president, when the pentagon spoke against that, donald trump backed off and he said, well we we're going to take their oil, okay, he backed away from that, so now with kamla harris, it wouldn't have ever been a question of we're going to remove our troops from syria, oh no, no, no, it would have never been that, because kamela is a person who is controlled. right now and will be controlled if she becomes president by the military industrial complex. now donald trump to some extent, as

i gave that one example, he is controlled also to some extent by the military industrial complex, and the way they do that, they put pressure on you as an individual, you as a president, pressure such as well, we have you under investigation for this or that? with donald trump, you saw all of that during his presidency, you would see the same thing with kamela harris uh, if she tried to uh remove herself from the objectives and goals of the military industrial complex, so but in some ation i would say this, with donald trump there is more control in the presidency, less control for the likes of the milit. industrial complex or what some call the deep state, okay, career, career politicians, career uh bureaucrats within the government, that's the deep state, there's

less control with donald trump, there's far far more control if comela harris was to become president, and in fact i would say, i would venture to say that if camela harris was to become president, she would be a president under which the deep state... and the military industrial complex had the maximum amount of control with. okay, so uh, we're running out of time, mr. zamuli, if you could please answer that quickly. was there any particular moment or issue that you feel was the most important or the defining moment the debate? moment of the debate was um on uh on ukraine, the the fact that trump said, i intend to bring it to an end, and... elicited this response, well don't you want ukraine to win? i think that the it will be absolutely up in the air, if trump does become

president, whether he will be able to follow through on his policy, i think to end these uh conflicts, i think trump does believe and has done since 2015, 2016, that these wars are weakening america, that they're debilitating america, it's it's leading to deindustrial. ation of america, financialization of the economy, and he thinks that that's the way forward, which is to bring this these wars to an end. now, he tried that in his first term, he made very bad appointments, mike pompeo, secretary of state, john bolton, national security advisor, he twice tried to move, bring american forces out of syria, twice he was sabotaged by uh, the the the deep state, um, so it's it's a real question, i mean, we just don't know the answer. whether he will be able to uh fulfill that agenda of bringing american involvement in ukraine to an end, he will encounter massive resistance um if it

went down that path. including and my colleague suggested that, including impeachment, you know, we know 100% of the democrats will vote both in in the house and in the senate to impeach trump for anything, so all all of those votes already lined up against trump, he only has to lose few republicans in in the senate to be in danger of getting convicted and thrown out of office. thank you very much, mr. george zamuli, senior research. at the global policy institute of budapest, and mr. thea west, political commentator from dallas, texas. thank you very much to both of you for sharing your thoughts and views with us on this edition of spotlight, and thanks to all of you viewers for watching this edition.

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