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.