'I want to save lives': Trump vows to bring Putin, Zelensky together to end Ukraine War

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday stood by his campaign pledge to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, saying he would bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin together to negotiate.

"I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being uselessly, people being killed by the millions," Trump said. "I want to get the war settled. I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well. I have a good relationship, and they respect your president. Okay? They respect me. They don't respect Biden."

"How would you respect him? Why? For what reason he hasn't even made a phone call in two years to Putin hasn't spoken to anybody. They don't even try and get it," he insisted. "That is a war that's dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president. If I win, when I'm president-elect and is, I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other. I'll get them together."

Harris, for her part, insisted that American aid to Ukraine had proved decisive to helping the Ukrainians preserve their independence and that Europe was thrilled Trump was not in power.

"And because of our support, because of the air defense, the ammunition, the artillery, the javelins, the Abrams, tanks that we have provided Ukraine stand independent and free country," he went on. "If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now and understand what that would mean, because Putin's agenda is not just about Ukraine. Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president, and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO, and what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelensky and the Ukrainians to fight."

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Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday expressed concerns over former President Donald Trump's temperament and his "deeply troubling" unwillingness to concede the 2020 election.

"Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So let's be clear about that, and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that," Harris insisted. "But we cannot afford to have a President of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters and election.

"I have traveled the world as vice president of the United States and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say you're a disgrace," she contended. "And when you then talk in this way in a presidential debate and deny what over and over again are court cases you have lost because you did, in fact lose that election, it leads one to believe that perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right, the temperament or or the ability to not be confused about facts. That's deeply troubling, and the American people deserve better."

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Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday excoriated Vice President Kamala Harris on illegal immigration, claiming that foreign nations had sent their criminals into the U.S., counting on the current administration to admit them.

"They allowed criminals, many, many millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals," he went on. "They allowed people to come in, drug dealers to come into our country, and they're now in the United States and told by their countries like Venezuela, 'don't ever come back, or we're going to kill you.'"

"Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down? You know why?" he went on. "Because they've taken their criminals off the street, and they've given them to her to put into our country, and this will be one of the greatest mistakes in history for them to allow and I think they probably did it because they think they're going to get votes, but it's not worth it because they're destroying the fabric of our country."

"All over the world, except here, crime here is up and through the roof, despite their fraudulent statements that they made, crime in this country is through the roof, and we have a new form of crime," Trump continued. "It's called migrant crime, and it's happening at levels that nobody thought possible."

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Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening celebrated the "courage" of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, insisting that the development returned the issue to the states.

Trump insisted that Democrats support abortion through nine months of pregnancy and insisted that Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., supported permitting abortion after birth, calling such a move "execution."

"The Democrats are radical in that... But her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it's execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born is okay, and that's not okay with me," Trump said. "But what I did is something, for 52 years, they've been trying to get Roe v Wade into the states, and through the genius and heart and strength of six Supreme Court justices, we were able to do that."

"Now, I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I believe strongly in it," he went on.

"Donald Trump hand selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v Wade, and they did exactly as he intended," Harris insisted. "And now, in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans, which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care in one state, it provides prison for life... Trump abortion bans that make no exception, even for rape and incest," she insisted. 

"A survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body," she went on. "And 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."

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Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday rebutted Vice President Kamala Harris's assertion that she and President Joe Biden had to "clean up Donald Trump's mess" from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression," Harris said. "Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century. Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War, and what we have done is clean up Donald Trump's mess."

Trump, for his part, contended that he had handled the pandemic

"Before we had the greatest economy, we got hit with a pandemic... We did a phenomenal job with the pandemic," he went on. "We handed them over a country where the economy and where the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in."

"But the only jobs they got were bounce back jobs. These were jobs bounce back, and it bounced back and it went to their benefit, but I was the one that created them," he insisted.

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Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have taken the stage in the ABC News presidential debate.

The contest marks the pair's first-ever meeting and could prove their sole matchup prior to the November election. While the Trump campaign has proposed two additional debates, the Harris campaign has not agreed.

The pressure is on for Harris, who replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard bearer in the wake of the last debate. That contest saw Trump walk away the clear winner as Biden often appeared lost on stage and stumbled over his answers.

His disastrous performance ultimately prompted enough pressure from within the Democratic ranks to force him to abandon his own reelection campaign and endorse Harris.

Trump, for his part, is hoping to land a major blow against his new opponent and has reportedly brought in former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, to help him prepare. Gabbard, a former 2020 presidential rival of Harris, proved one of her more formidable on-stage opponents and made several viral moments attacking her record as a prosecutor.