Trump botches debate question on Harris' race and revisits the Central Park Five | US elections 2024

During Tuesday's presidential debate, Donald Trump appeared to defend his decades-old call to reinstate the death penalty after five black and Latino teenagers – known as the “Central Park Five” – ​​were wrongfully convicted of rape in New York.

When moderators asked the former president and Kamala Harris to speak on the topic of “race in America,” Trump struggled to explain his previous comments questioning Harris' ethnic identity – and to confront his troubled past on the issue.

“I don't care what she is. I don't care,” Trump said. “You make a big deal out of something, I don't care. Whatever she wants to be is fine with me.”

In her response, Harris called it “a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president when he has spent his career trying to divide the American people over racial issues.” She reminded viewers that Trump had called for the reinstatement of the death penalty after five young men of color were wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in 1989.

Harris was referring to an ad Trump bought in the New York Times after the brutal attack on a woman in Central Park, which called on New York State to “reinstate the death penalty.” Police took five black and Latino teenagers from the park and questioned them. They later said they were forced to do so.

Then, in 2002, a convicted serial rapist named Matias Reyes confessed to the crime in prison and a DNA test confirmed that he was the perpetrator.

But more than two decades after the teenagers were exonerated, Trump remained stubborn on the debate stage.

“They pleaded guilty,” said Trump, who also claimed that Mike Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, agreed with him on the point. “At the end of the day, they killed a human being,” Trump said.

Yusef Salaam, one of the five exonerated men who is now a member of the New York City Council, watched the debate live in Philadelphia. Salaam appeared in the Spin Room after the debate, where he told the Washington Post in an interview: “Here we are now, full circle, we can participate in this great democracy and we are on the verge of really strongly supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I'm ready for that.”

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