Run spot run: all the weird highlights from the presidential debate

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris faced off in their first debate on September 10th and it was filled with precisely the type of outlandish remarks the world was expecting. 

Vice President Harris mostly stuck to the facts and tried to present her vision of what the United States could look like under her administration. However, Trump whipped up a few notable quotes from the night. 

If you’re looking for a list of the weirdest highlights from the debate, you could start in order from its beginning, which saw the former president allegedly try to avoid shaking hands with Harris according to The Daily Beast. 

Whatever actually happened between the two candidates was unclear from the footage but what was clear was that they shared an extremely awkward handshake that is sure to make headlines around the world. 

The awkward handshake may have been a result of nerves but it also could have been a product of underlying anger from Trump over the Harris’ debate guests; she invited two former Trump White House staffers to Pennsylvania.  

Trump White House Director of Communications, Anthony Scaramucci, and the national security advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye joined Harris at the debate in a move New Republic noted stuck it to Trump. 

When it comes to the meat and potatoes of the debate, Trump got bogged down with a lot of weird rants about a lot of weird things. The most awkward of moments of the night might have been his insistence that immigrants in Springfield were eating people’s pets. 

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” Trump explained. 

The Independent noted Harris looked on with disbelief. This was a comment the media outlet reported Trump had made before and debate co-moderator David Muir pointed out that ABC reached out to Springfield’s city manager about the situation. 

“ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Muir explained before Trump responded.

“Well I’ve seen people on television. People on television say, ‘my dog was taken and used for food,’ so maybe he said that and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager,” Trump claimed. It was a truly shocking moment, even for Trump. 

Trump also tried to taunt Harris over the size of his rallies after Harris made fun of him because people left his rallies according to The Hill. “She said people start leaving. People don’t go to her rallies,” Trump said. “So she can’t talk about that. People don’t leave my rallies.”

Another awkward moment in the night saw Trump go off about abortion, making claims that Democrats supported “abortion in the ninth month” and even after birth according to Mediate’s reporting on Trump’s comments. This was quickly fact-checked in real-time. 

“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” Muir said after Trump finished speaking. It was an embarrassing moment for the former president but not the only one that he experienced throughout the night. 

CTV News pointed out that Harris said: "World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump," but not before she warned the audience at the beginning of the debate they would “hear a bunch of lies” from Trump, something she called back to through the night.

“It is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because it’s so clear they can manipulate you with flattery and favors,” Harris told Trump at one point in one of her most powerful attacks of the night according to Deadline.

From Trump’s answers to questions about the January 6th Capitol Insurrection to his inability to admit that he had lost the 2020 election, Trump appeared to be off his game—which showed in his rather poor ability to stay on topic. 

While Trump focused on trying to tie Harris to Joe Biden’s policies and her failure on the border, Harris moved deliberately and hit the former president where it hurt: his pride. In one of her best attacks, Harris said Trump was fired by 81 million people in 2020. 

How the debate will change the race has yet to be seen, but it was not a repeat of Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June 2024, though Trump's debate with Harris may have been filled with a lot more quotable moments on Trump’s part. 

Oh yes, and Trump really did say “run spot, run” in the debate as he tried to mock Harris for following Biden’s economic plan near the very beginning of the debate according to The Daily Dot. 

“She doesn’t have a plan. She copied Biden’s plan,” Trump explained during the debate. “And it’s like four sentences. Like ‘run, Spot, run,” Trump said in what is sure to become a major memorable moment from the evening. 

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