Donald Trump and Kamala Harris share awkward handshake as they come face-to-face AGAIN and join Biden for 9/11 Ground Zero memorial hours after trading insults at fiery debate

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris shared an awkward handshake at the  9/11 Memorial in New York City on Wednesday morning, just hours after the pair traded insults during their fiery presidential debate.

Trump and Harris appeared cordial at Ground Zero as they met for a second time in 24 hours, with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seemingly having facilitated a handshake between the campaign rivals.

Harris stood alongside President Joe Biden during the ceremony while Bloomberg acted as a buffer separating the current administration from Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

The attendance by both Trump, Biden and Harris is rare and marks one of the few times the former president and current president have been in the same space.

The memorial comes just hours after the two candidates faced off in a heated debate, which saw Harris allegedly try to assert her ‘power’ by directly walking to the former president with an outreached arm and introducing herself by name.

Three planes landed in New York in the early hours of Wednesday morning coming from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Air Force Two was seen sandwiched between Trump Force One and his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance’s plane Trump Force Two. 

Trump and running mate Vance arrived at the trade center site at around 8am and posed for photographs with some in the audience.

Harris arrived with Biden about a half-hour later, to cheers of ‘Kamala!’ from some audience members.

Biden and Trump shook hands, and Bloomberg appeared to facilitate a handshake between Harris and Trump. 

Then the Democratic and Republican nominees stood only a few feet apart, with Biden and Bloomberg seemingly acting as a buffer between them.

The ceremony then began with the tolling of a bell and a moment of silence.

Regardless of the campaign calendar, organizers of anniversary ceremonies have long taken pains to try to keep the focus on victims. For years, politicians have been only observers at ground zero observances, with the microphone going instead to relatives who read victims’ names aloud.

Biden, on the last September 11 of his term and likely his half-century political career, was headed with Harris later to ceremonies in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, the three sites where commercial jets crashed after al-Qaida operatives took them over 23 years ago.

Trump also was due at the Flight 93 National Memorial near rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

Biden, Harris and Trump all being present at the event is an usual occurrence, as the current president and former president are rarely in the same place at the same time.

Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. The last time they were in the same room was during their debate in June, which ultimately led to the demise of Biden’s reelection bid.

Harris and Trump, 78, faced off in a heated debate Tuesday night for the first – and possibly the last – time before the November election.

Harris is walking away from the debate with a new edge over Trump as many conclude she ‘won’ the first showdown with the former president. 

She opened the faceoff with an awkward greeting, which her supporters allege was a power move, marching across the stage to Trump’s lectern to shake his hand.

‘Kamala Harris,’ she said, introducing herself as the pair met for the first time ever. ‘Let´s have a good debate.’

‘Nice to see you. Have fun,’ the former Republican president responded.

The exchange set the tone for the 90-minute debate, which saw Harris bait Trump with jabs at his economic policy, his refusal to concede his 2020 election loss and even his performance at his rallies.

Trump, while measured early on, grew more annoyed as the night went on, but hit back on the Democrats’ record over immigration and inflation, routinely touting the narrative that ‘Harris is Joe Biden’. 

The conversation veered into uncharted territory including allegations of eating pets and executing babies, and saw Harris – who rarely discusses her personal firearms stance – admit that she is a ‘gun owner’ and won’t be confiscating weapons. 

Harris effectively controlled much of the conversation with such attacks and baited Trump into responses that were at times vents, and at others, reminders of his wild rhetoric and fixation on the past.

‘You did in fact lose that election,’ Harris said of the 2020 election. ‘Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people,’ she said, referring to Biden’s winning vote total.

But Harris may have got under her opponent’s skin the most when she went after his performance at his rallies, noting that people often leave early.

Growing visibly irritated, Trump insisted that his rallies were larger than hers.

A smiling Harris frequently shifted her message from Trump back to the American people.

‘You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your needs and your desires,’ Harris said. ‘And I´ll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first.’

Trump was often on defense, but he did drive the core message of his campaign: Inflation and immigration are hammering Americans.

Immigrants, Trump said, have ‘destroyed the fabric of our country.’

He also repeatedly tied Harris to Biden. ‘She is Biden,’ he said.

‘The worst inflation we’ve ever had,’ Trump added. ‘A horrible economy because inflation has made it so bad. And she can´t get away with that.’

Harris responded: ‘Clearly, I am not Joe Biden and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.’

Trump also went after Harris for moving away from some of the progressive positions she took in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, urging voters not to believe the more moderate tone she’s striking in this campaign.

‘She’s going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat,’ he said, referring to the red Make America Great Again baseball caps that many of his supporters wear. ‘But if she ever got elected, she’d change it.’

But Harris came out swinging in defense of abortion rights, perhaps the strongest issue for Democrats since Trump’s nominees created a Supreme Court majority to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. Her sharp arguments provided a vivid contrast to President Joe Biden’s rambling comments on the issue during his June debate with Trump.

‘The government, and Donald Trump, certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,’ Harris said. She painted a vivid picture of women facing medical complications, gut-wrenching decisions and the need to travel out of state for an abortion.

Trump was just as fierce in defense, saying he returned the issue to the states, an outcome he said many Americans wanted. He struggled with accuracy, however, repeating the false claim that Democrats support abortion even after babies are born. He stuck to that even after he was corrected by moderator Linsey Davis.

‘I did a great service in doing that. It took courage to do it,’ Trump said of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its constitutional protections for abortion. ‘And the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it. And I give tremendous credit to those six justices.’

In a divided nation, the election will ultimately be decided by a small slice of swing voters in only a handful of states. And in a nod toward that fact, Harris made an explicit appeal to voters across the political spectrum – including Republicans.

She noted that she is a gun owner. She cited the ‘late, great John McCain,’ a reference to the Arizona Republican senator and war hero whom Trump criticized for being captured by enemy soldiers. And she listed the many Republicans who formerly served in the Trump administration who have now endorsed her campaign.

Trump, meanwhile, offered little outreach to voters in the middle, ignoring the calls for unity that framed his summertime convention speech.

Harris seized on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to make another explicit appeal to undecided voters.

‘It’s time to turn the page,’ she said. ‘And if that was a bridge too far for you, well, there is a place in our campaign for you.’

Democrats hoped and Republicans feared that Trump would lose his cool on stage. At first he didn’t, but as Harris increasingly got under his skin, he went to some dark places.

Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating pets – ABC’s Muir noted that local officials say that is not happening – as he argued that the Biden-Harris administration was admitting dangerous immigrants.

When Harris pressed him on the array of criminal and civil cases against him, Trump similarly fumed. He accused Harris and Biden of planting all the cases.

‘I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they said about me,’ Trump said, referencing the assassination attempt in July by a gunman whose motives are unknown.

When pressed on whether he had any responsibility for Capitol riot, Trump raised his voice, blaming both Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who was the House speaker at the time, and the Democratic mayor of Washington. He said the rioters have ‘been treated so badly’ and once again denied he lost the 2020 election.

Harris replied, ‘Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, let’s be clear about that, and clearly he´s having a very difficult time processing that.’