The two candidates vying to become the next us president have finally met and finally debated. Donald Trump And Kamala harris were on stage in the Swing State of pennsylvania, for what turned out to be a fierce clash, with claims, many of them false, hurled in each direction. Topics included the economy, abortion and immigration. It was a prime time show down, which often turned personal. And while Pollsters Crunch their data to work out how the candidates performances went down with voters, both campaigns are claiming they came out best. Moments after the debate, Donald Trump entered the spin room, insisting tojournalists that hed won the night. Our senior North America Correspondent Gary Odonoghue was watching the debate in philadelphia. The abc News President ial debate. Here now, David Muir and linsey davis. Good evening. Im David Muir, and thank you forjoining us for tonights abc News President ial debate. Not just the first debate for these two as president ial candidates, but the first time these two have ever met. That was about as friendly as it got, as they came to debate in philadelphia, the so called city of brotherly love. Not so much. Shes a marxist. Everybody knows shes a marxist. People start leaving his rallies early, out of exhaustion and boredom. But soon, they got on to issues such as immigration, a key concern for voters and one that could be a strength for the former president , though he chose to focus on unsubstantiated claims about migrants eating peoples pets. In springfield, theyre eating the dogs, the people that came in. Theyre eating the cats. Theyre eating. The Vice President could scarcely contain herself. Theyre eating the pets of the people that live there. Moderators attempted to fact check the former president on several occasions during the debate, not least when he had this to say on the contentious issue of abortion. Will she allow abortion in the eighth month . Ninth month . Seventh month . Come on. 0k. Would you do that . There is no state in this Country where it is legal to kill a baby after its born. The economy was always going to be a hugely important issue. Its what most americans really care about. She is biden. You know, shes trying to get away from biden. I dont know the gentleman, she says. And Donald Trump attempted to tie Kamala Harris to her boss. The worst Inflation Weve ever had. The Vice President talked about her economic plans, but not perhaps as much as her supporters would have liked. On international affairs, though, she was scathing. World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say youre a disgrace. Donald trump hit back by attacking the chaotic withdrawal of american troops from afghanistan, and again claimed the ukraine War Wouldnt have happened under him. Were playing with World War iii, and we have a president that we dont even know if hes~~ where is our president . Moments after The End of the debate, Donald Trump himself appearing in the spin room, talking to a whole pack of journalists, hundreds ofjournalists, a sign that he thinks this did not go well. Gary odonoghue, bbc news, philadelphia. Here is more from Gary Odonoghue from the spin room, on how the polls are responding. Well, i think theres been some. I mean, theres been some of these instant polls that some of the networks do here, and some of that is indicating that Kamala Harris may have made some progress amongst independent voters, moderate voters, which are going to be key to this election in certain of these Swing States, including places like pennsylvania, where i am now. She was, you know, going to introduce herself to the american people tonight, despite having been Vice President for four years. Thats a pretty invisible job, to be quite honest, so this will be the first time that a lot of people got to see her at length, facing questions, seeing how she held up to the kinds of attacks that Donald Trump is known for. And i think her team will be pretty pleased. She landed a bunch of blows, Donald Trump seemed a bit riled, he seemed a bit unhappy at times. And then kind of crucially, just after it was all over, a few minutes after, he appears here in the spin room, where i am talking to you from now, for 15 or 20 minutes. Now, the point about Spin Rooms is that is where you send out the people your surrogates, as they call them to do the spin for you. Thats where the campaigns put the gloss on the message or correct any problems that happened in the debate. You dont really see candidates coming out into the spin room. And if you do, that indicates there may be a bit of a problem. So i dont think that will have been something that his campaign will have liked tonight, and it may mean that they are much perhaps more willing to contemplate a second debate in october, which is not agreed at this stage. Us pollster said the debate was not Donald Trumps finest hour. It is not that harris won, it is Donald Trump lost. n is Donald Trump lost. On several is Donald Trump lost. On several occasions is Donald Trump lost. On several occasions he spoke in language and with ideas that people who were watching were simply shocked, the idea that some communities are eating their dogs and cats because they have no food, the idea of who is controlling the media, the concept of the corruption thatis the concept of the corruption that is trump claimed, even going back to the year 2020, and pushing the idea that he was robbed of an election which he won. It was not a good night for him, he was off message. His strongest issue, inflation, he was constantly given the opportunity to speak on it but he chose to talk about other issues. I was shocked, it has been 2008 and Sarah Pei Lin was the last national candidate who could represent them, but the more they talk, they more they lose. Sarah palin. In the minutes after the debate, Pop Superstar Taylor swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president , writing in a post to her 283 Million instagram followers, i will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 president ial election. She signed the post childless cat lady, a reference to comments made byjd vance. Donald trump last month posted Ai Photos that gave the false impression that she had already endorsed him. And weve also heard from the owner of x, formerly twitter, elon musk. He said, while i dont think the Debate Hosts were fair to Donald Trump, Kamala Harris exceeded most peoples expectations. That said, when it comes to getting things done, notjust saying nice sounding words, i strongly believe that trump will do a far betterjob. Reaction coming in thick and fast. If you want to hear more analysis on the president ial debate, you can listen to a special episode of americast, which is available on bbc sounds now. Here, the Chancellor Of The Exchequer has told the bbc that next Months Budget will require difficult decisions on tax, spending and welfare. Rachel reeves was speaking as official Gdp Figures for july showed that the economy failed to grow for the second month in a row. We are confident that Pensioner Incomes will continue to increase, even after the changes that weve had to make. But when you face a situation where theres a 22 billion in Year Gap in the public finances, you have to make decisions. Taking no option. Taking no steps is not an option in those circumstances. But more pain to come, more means testing perhaps of public services . Ive been really clear that the budget on the 30th Of October will require difficult decisions on tax, on spending, and on welfare. But the prize, if we can bring stability back to our economy, if we can bring investment back to britain, is economic growth, good jobs, paying decent wages in all parts of our Country to realise the huge potential that we have. Im in this job to make britain better off, and we are just getting started on what is needed to turn our economy around. The Chancellor Of The Exchequer by speaking to our Economics Editor. Our Economics Editor Faisal Islam said todays data gave a flavour of the political challenges facing the chancellor. Mixed message from the chancellor. That interview coming on the day that we got those gdp, the economic growth figures forjuly, showing that the economy didnt grow now for two months on the trot, although if you take a longer term measure, its up 0. 5 . And the sort of mixed messages in the data reflected in the mixed messages from the chancellor, that, on The One hand, that she went on again about how bad the inheritance was from the previous government, a very consistent message, very singular message were hearing from the Prime Minister and the chancellor on that. But, on the other hand, she is lauding. The reason why shes here at the Silverstone Circuit is to laud the investment in Data Centres from Amazon Web services, an 8 billion investment, and theyll be training some of their apprentices at a college on this site. So you have this sort of duality that shes trying to make this political case that the economy was terrible, that she inherited from the government, from the previous government. But now is a perfect time, she will argue, for The Worlds biggest companies to invest in the uk. And there is a danger there. And the danger is this, which is in trying to get investment going, and if there are green shoots in the economy, she has to persuade people to feel confident. Businesses and people in the property market, for example. So there is a, if you like, a Balancing Act for the chancellor. And i think you saw that in the interview in, yes, making this political case that shes had a bad inheritance and some corrective action will be required at the budget, but at the same time not scaring the horses too much in what is clearly a delicate recovery. A recovery where, yes, in the first couple of quarters of this year, weve seen the Uk Economy sort of bounce back, but its looking a little bit fragile as we see the very latest months figures. So that is the Balancing Act. And you heard a very clear exposition that we have had that controversial decision on Winter Fuel payments, and that there is more to come at the budget at The End of next month. More on tax, in terms of tax rises, more on spending in terms of squeezes, and more on welfare cuts, too so not more on tax, in terms of tax rises, more on spending in terms of squeezes, and more on welfare cuts, too. So not an overwhelmingly sunny message as the economy appears to be stuck in neutral, at least in the month ofjuly, when there were big hopes that it would start growing again, but also making that clear political message about the inheritance, the economic inheritance from the previous government. The uk has given ukraine missiles that have a range of around 150 miles but so far they have only been used against russian targets inside occupied ukrainian territory. Our Europe Correspondent gave us an update from kyiv. The americans and the british are making the point that this is the first visit overseas from the british Foreign Secretary and their american counterpart. They are travelling together from poland, getting the train here to the ukrainian capital, kyiv. They will meet president zelensky, and he is hoping that this visit is notjust symbolic but actually leads to a Policy Change from both countries. Because president zelensky is hoping permission will be given to the ukrainians to use american made and british made long range missiles, that they have already got here, on the battlefield, and specifically hitting further into russia. What Mr Zelensky says is that if they have the ability to hit russian airfields, to take out russian bombers before they even take off and wreak havoc over the skies of this Country, that will put ukraine at a huge advantage. So he is very much hoping there will be this change in policy and that maybe it is crystallised on this visit. Around The World and across the uk, this is bbc news. Palestinian paramedics say at least five people have been killed in an israeli Military Operation in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli Military said it was carrying out a Counter Terrorism Operation in the area, and struck an armed terrorist cell. The Palestinian Red Crescent said a drone had been used. Its just days after the largest israeli Military Operation in the West Bank since the hamas attacks on October 7th. Our correspondent Daniel De Simone Is Injersualem and told us more about the overnight operation. This took place overnight, and the Palestinian Red Crescent say that five people were killed, various palestinian channels are naming the dead, saying they are all men. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it has recovered the bodies and taken them to hospital. It described them dying in an israeli drone strike. The israeli defense forces confirmed it conducted a Military Operation overnight, described it as a counterterrorist operation, and said an aircraft had struck what it described as an armed terrorist cell. This all comes as part of a context of a large operation by the Israeli Military in the West Bank that started quite recently. It is the largest operation in the occupied West Bank since the October 7th attacks by hamas last year. A previous statement by the palestinian Health Ministry said in this recent operation, at least 39 people had been killed, including some children. Given that five people have died overnight, i think that number will rise. And certainly since the attacks of the 7th Of October last year, the palestinian Health Ministry says over 690 palestinians have been killed. And in a separate incident, this one in gaza, Israels Army is saying one of its helicopters crashed in gaza. What more do we know about that . This has just been announced by the israeli defense forces within the last hour. They say that overnight they had a helicopter that was taking part in an operation to evacuate an injured soldier, but the helicopter crashed in the Rafah Area of the gaza strip. And during this crash, two soldiers were killed and seven others were injured to varying degrees. And those seven were taken to hospital. The Israeli Military say the indication so far is that the helicopter did not crash as a result of enemy fire, but they say an investigation, an inquiry will take place into how this happened and how the crash occurred. Healthcare workers in the democratic republic of congo, who are at the Front Line of the Mpox Outbreak in the east of the Country, have told the bbc they are desperate. Our team was given rare access to an Mpox Treatment Centre in South Kivu, the worst affected region in The World, where infections are rising, yet medical staff there say they have no information about when theyll get vaccines, are running out of supplies and are demotivated. Simijolaoso sent this report from South Kivu a warning, it starts with pictures of a baby in distress. As the number of infections rise, the age of the patients gets younger. This child is the youngest Mpox Case at Lwiros Community Hospital at only four weeks old. Its an agonising ordeal for first time mother faraja. Translation its sad to see my firstborn suffering from this strange disease. I have a lot of pain in my heart. Its a very bad and dangerous disease. The cries of babies are resounding here. Many are malnourished. As babies pass on the disease to their parents, there is fear of a new wave of infections. This is the first time many here have encountered mpox. I just saw the child get sick. I didnt even know the name of the disease. We Cant Sit and wait for the children, and even adults, to die. Bring on the vaccines. Just over three weeks ago, this hospital was used to treat all sorts of diseases and conditions, and are used to get around 80 patients a month. But the outbreak got so bad here they had to convert it into an mpox only Treatment Centre. And within three weeks, theyve had nearly 200 patients. Remaining motivated is difficult for nurses like emmanuel, who has worked here for four years. Every day he fears catching and Passing Mpox on his own children, who are only seven, five, and one. Its a sentiment shared by his colleague. Translation you will see that the patients i are sleeping on the floor. There is still no staff motivation. Personal protective equipment, there isnt enough of it. We try to do what we can to look after the sick and not to put ourselves at risk either. This region of the Dr Congo has experienced a battle of control over its mineral rich land for nearly 30 years. The government says it is doing its best to get medics what they need and the vaccines are coming, but the conflict is making things harder. Translation because of war, we have over 5 Million people who are displaced. The disease can be controlled by good sanitation and good living conditions. Now that people are in camps, the spread will be dangerous. The dedication of the staff at this mpox a Treatment Centre has ensured there have been no deaths here. They have vowed to keep showing up despite the bleakness of what lies ahead. Simijoloaso, bbc news, South Kivu. And earlier i asked simi how important those vaccines are to local people. People are desperate for them, especially those who have witnessed the suffering that mpox causes. The painful,