On Tuesday night (10), starting at 10 pm (Brasília time), the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, and the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, Kamala Harris, will have their first debate, which may perhaps be the only one – no other meeting between the two has been confirmed for now, other than the one that will be held in Philadelphia by ABC News, which will broadcast it on your YouTube channel.
There are several ingredients that make the debate important. The first, of course, will be to see the solutions that Trump and Kamala propose for the main concerns of the American population, such as immigration, the economy and security.
The second is the unusual factor of there being a replacement of the government candidate from one debate to the next: President Joe Biden performed so poorly in his meeting with Trump on June 27 that a process began within the Democratic Party to replace him with his vice president in the race for the White House.
A third point has gained importance in the past two weeks: how the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration, will be discussed in the debate and what impact it will have on the outcome of the November 5 election.
Trump had already addressed the issue at rallies, interviews and in the debate with Biden, but it gained emphasis starting on August 26. It was on this date in 2021 that, during the American evacuation, a terrorist attack at Kabul airport, claimed by the Islamic State, resulted in the deaths of 182 people, including 13 US military personnel.
On the 26th, Trump was at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, one of the places where American soldiers killed in combat are buried.
The visit sparked a public back-and-forth. The Republican said he went to the cemetery at the invitation of the families of two Marines killed in the 2021 attack. There, Trump took photos and recorded videos criticizing Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan.
According to NPR, a cemetery employee tried to remove Trump and his staff, claiming that political activities are prohibited at the site. The employee was allegedly insulted and shoved, according to reports to the public broadcaster — but did not file a complaint about the incident.
The following day, the United States Army released a statement saying that “federal law prohibits political campaigning or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries.”
Trump said the incident was nothing more than a “made-up story by Comrade Kamala and her disinformation squad.”
On Tuesday night, the Republican and Kamala are expected to exchange accusations of responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, judging by two reports released on Monday (9).
According to CNN, Republican members of the United States House of Representatives pointed out in their document that Kamala worked “in concert with President Biden behind the scenes to withdraw all US troops.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has deceived and, in some cases, outright lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal, from before the zero-sum order [o contingente no Afeganistão] to this day,” argued the lawmakers, who recommended the approval of resolutions condemning Biden, Kamala and other senior Democratic administration officials for the withdrawal.
The report by Democratic lawmakers, in turn, claims that the withdrawal began to be implemented under the Trump administration, which “failed to plan its execution.”
The document argues that the Taliban’s return to Kabul, just days before the US withdrawal, “precipitately changed the situation in Kabul and provoked an unprecedented and dynamic response from the US government that protected Americans, our allies and our interests.”
Reality, however, contradicts this “protection” narrative – the 2021 embarrassment is compared to the equally disastrous American withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s – and the question remains whether the ghost of three years ago will be decisive for the Democratic performance at the polls in November.
#Afghanistan #central #topic #Trump #Kamala #debate
