Kamala Harris said Donald Trump had made a "mess" of America and the Republican hit back that she was a "Marxist" in a fiery debate clash that could turn the tide of a tense US presidential election.
The Democratic vice president and former Republican president shook hands -- to the surprise of many -- as they took the podium at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
But the pleasantries soon ended.
Within minutes, Trump, 78, called her a "Marxist" and also falsely claimed that she and President Joe Biden had allowed "millions of people to pour into our country from prisons and detention centers, mental hospitals and insane asylums."
Harris, 59, responded to much of Trump's extreme remarks with a smile and a shake of her head, then fired back by pointing out that he is a convicted felon and calling him "extreme."
Rejecting Trump's boast that he has achieved unprecedented success as president, she said that in reality "what we did was clean up Donald Trump's mess."
"Donald Trump has left us with the worst unemployment since the Great Depression ... the worst public health epidemic in a century (and) the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War," she said, referring to his administration of the Covid-19 pandemic and its incitement to attempts to cancel the 2020 elections.
Their most intense exchange was on the topic of abortion, with Trump insisting that while he has pushed for an end to federal abortion rights, he wants individual states to determine their own policy on the matter.
Harris said he was telling "a bunch of lies" and called his policies "insulting to women in America."
The showdown, live on ABC News and watched by tens of millions of voters, was expected to last about 90 minutes.
The last presidential debate in June doomed Biden's re-election campaign after he performed disastrously against Trump. Harris took the nomination amid Democratic concerns that Biden is too old and infirm to defeat the embattled Republican.
During previous debates and as a senator, Harris earned a reputation as an ice-cold leader who asked tough questions.
But Trump is the most brutal speaker in American politics.
He also enjoys an uncanny ability to survive any scandal - and his fervent constituency if nothing else enjoys his frequent gaffes, fabricated stories and promotion of conspiracy theories.
He was convicted of falsifying business documents to cover up an affair with an adult film star, pleaded guilty to sexual assault and is on trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.
But Harris clearly got under his skin by quizzing him on one of his favorite topics -- the size of trademark collections.
Participants, she said, prompting an angry retort, were leaving early out of "exhaustion and boredom."
In another moment where Trump appeared to lose his temper, he spoke at length about the debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Ohio ate local people's pets.
"They eat the dogs, the people who came in eat the cats," he said, before being corrected by the ABC News anchor that Springfield city officials said that didn't happen.
With the Nov. 5 election just 56 days away, the intense attention has been a rare opportunity for both candidates to shift the balance of nearly evenly split poll support.
A single sentence or gaffe could dominate television screens and social media for days to come.
And the debate was a key chance for Harris to introduce himself to more voters after only entering the race less than eight weeks ago when Biden, 81, abruptly dropped out.
Trump landed his plane - called Trump Force One - just over two hours before the debate, while Harris arrived in the eastern city on Monday.
The tension was likely greater for Harris, America's first female, black and South Asian vice president, as she participated in her first presidential debate.
Both candidates struggle to be seen as advocates for change.
Harris' favorite slogan is "we're not going back" to the chaos of the Trump years, while Trump has sought to pin Harris down for many of the unpopular policies in the Biden administration.
According to the rules, the debate was held without an audience, and the opponents' microphones had to be turned on only when it was their turn to speak, to avoid interruptions. | BGNES
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