Harris Put Trump on Defense Over Abortion — and Kept Him There

Debating Hillary Clinton in 2016, former President Donald Trump said that if he were elected president, he would appoint two or three anti-abortion Supreme Court justices who would “automatically” overturn Roe v. Wade.

On Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris pressed him to answer for it.

“They did exactly as he intended,” she said, referring to the justices, before laying out the consequences of the post-Roe rollback of abortion rights in searing and painful detail.

“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,” Harris said.

It was the first big confrontation of their first and only scheduled debate, which unfolded on a small stage in Philadelphia where Trump seemed to do his best to avoid so much as looking at his opponent.

And it set the tone for a night in which Harris repeatedly pushed Trump onto turf where he was deeply uncomfortable, leaving him defensive as she pressed her case.

As Harris drew on emotion by talking about women suffering miscarriages or young incest victims being denied care, Trump grew emotional — although it was anger that seemed, for him, to be the feeling of the night.