UCLA students shared mixed reactions to Tuesday’s presidential debate.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump met for their first and potentially only presidential debate Tuesday night, nearly two months since President Joe Biden’s exit from the race. Both candidates shared their positions on immigration, the economy and abortion during the debate, which came 55 days before election day on Nov. 5.

Jahan Raymond, a rising fifth-year music composition student, said the debate was frustrating to watch due to a lack of direct, detailed answers, especially from former President Donald Trump, even though he thought the debate moderators asked compelling questions.

“He’s spewing nonsense, and it drags down the level of discourse because he’s not actually conversing about anything,” he said.

Raymond added that he felt the debate was pointless as neither candidate offered substantive answers to the proposed questions.

He also said Trump claiming that immigrants eat people’s dogs stood out to him because he believed the claim was ridiculous. After witnessing the debate, Raymond added that he felt disappointed with the state of electoral politics in the United States.

“It seems like a joke,” he said. “It’s surreal.”

Tajvir Singh, a member of Bruin Republicans, said he believes Trump narrowly won the debate because he gave ideas on how to change a country in a bad state, but Harris was unable to provide substantive answers on questions about her policies.

He added that the debate did not adequately address problems that are relevant to college students, including education affordability and the job market for recent college graduates.

“I think that both candidates, especially Donald Trump, when he talks about immigration and he talks about the cost of living, home ownership and these sorts of things, have an ability to really cater to the interests of young people,” said Singh, a rising fourth-year political science student. “But I didn’t really see that, and I wish I had because I think that is probably the biggest issue right now, is the job market.”

Singh also said that he believed Trump’s comments about immigrants eating pets were true but more so meant to galvanize and excite his supporters.

Isabella Crone-Baron, the internal vice president of Bruin Democrats, said the debate covered topics that young people care about, including student loans, climate change and the Israel-Hamas war. However, she added that she hopes the candidates spend more time talking about last year’s protests on college campuses across America if there is another debate.

Crone-Baron added that the debate played out as she expected, with Trump spreading misinformation and Harris attacking his policy proposals.

“A lot of what she said was just attacking Trump, and I think she did that well,” added Crone-Baron, a rising fourth-year history and public affairs student. “But then she spent less time on exactly what she was going to do.”

Harris did a good job of distinguishing her campaign from Trump’s, Crone-Baron added.

“She talked about how he was running on a problem, not a solution, and I really liked that point,” she said.

Crone-Baron said she is feeling hopeful after the debate and that she believes Trump dug himself into a hole by sharing misinformation. She also said that she hopes Americans start to realize how senseless Trump’s comments are after Harris called them out in an eloquent way.

Cristhian Lin, a graduate student in public policy, said the debate changed his vote from Harris to Jill Stein, a presidential nominee for the Green Party, particularly because Harris repeated claims about Hamas’ motives for attacks on the Israeli people that he said he believes have been proved false.

“Having her say it as a matter of fact against the people suffering through a genocide was very disgraceful,” he added.

Singh also said that he was disappointed to hear that both candidates support Israel in their foreign policy plans.

The debate revealed a troubling trend of both political parties competing on who can crack down harder on immigration, Lin said. Both parties are not interested in appealing to a majority of the American people, he added, and compete for undecided voters rather than addressing people who never vote.

Eli Vikstrom, a recent political science graduate, said the debate negatively affected Trump more than Harris after Trump made incoherent claims and failed to take advantage of issues that were in his favor.

“If I was a Trump supporter, I would be disappointed,” he said.

Although Vikstrom believes Harris had the better debate performance, he is still unsure on where she stands on a number of issues. He added that Trump did a good job of calling out Harris’ false promises of federally enshrining abortion access, comparing it to Biden’s failure to cancel student debt.

Vikstrom said the debate left him disappointed in American politics, but added that he thought Harris’ answers were more substantive than Trump’s.

“She actually had something to say,” he said. “Trump only attacked Kamala. I thought that was pretty lame.”