Harris prepares for the showdown she’s long sought with Trump as he
takes more informal approach
By Eric Bradner, Jeff Zeleny, Alayna Treene and Arit John, CNN
Published 5:45 PM EDT, Sun September 8, 2024
CNN
—
The most important moment in the race between Kamala Harris and
Donald Trump comes this week, as the vice president prepares for what
could be her only opportunity to directly confront a former president
whose political dominance she is pledging to end.
Their Tuesday night debate is particularly important for Harris, who is
battling to define herself in voters’ eyes and keep up the positive
momentum she’s enjoyed since becoming the Democratic Party’s new
nominee this summer.
The debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia will be the
first face-to-face encounter between Harris and Trump, who are locked in
a tight race.
For Harris, it’s a marquee moment to show Americans that she is ready to
assume the presidency, a question very much on the minds of voters as
the fall campaign intensifies.
“Look, it’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said during a
weekend stop in Pittsburgh, taking a break from her debate preparations.
“It’s time to bring our country together, chart a new way forward.”
Trump, meanwhile, is eager to negatively shape voters’ perceptions of his
Democratic rival and halt the gains she has made since ascending to the
top of the Democratic ticket in July. Harris has eliminated what for much
of the year had been Trump’s lead over Biden in presidential polling.
Both Harris and Trump are offering themselves as change agents of sorts.
Harris has pitched herself as a clean break from a bitterly divisive era of
politics dominated by Trump. The former president, though, points to
Harris’ time in the Biden administration and says she bears the blame for
inflation, higher mortgage rates and more.
Trump’s campaign and his allies have accused Harris of avoiding policy
particulars. But Trump’s incoherent answer last week to a question about
how he would make child care more affordable was a vivid reminder that
the former president has long brushed aside policy details and questions
about the practicality of his proposals.
Trump has also lobbed racist and lewd attacks against Harris, including
falsely claiming in July that she “happened to turn Black” a few years ago
(she’s the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants) and sharing on
social media references to her former relationship with onetime San
Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Whether Trump makes similar comments — and how Harris responds —
could shape voters’ perceptions of their clash Tuesday.
The debate, moderated by ABC anchors Linsey Davis and David Muir, is
scheduled to last 90 minutes. Like the CNN debate between Trump and
Biden in June, candidates’ microphones will be turned on when it’s their
turn to speak and muted otherwise.
Those rules — agreed to by the Biden and Trump campaigns — have
frustrated Harris, who hoped to tap into her skills as a former prosecutor
during any onstage engagements with Trump.
“Vice President Harris, a former prosecutor, will be fundamentally
disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump
from direct exchanges with the Vice President. We suspect this is the
primary reason for his campaign’s insistence on muted microphones,” the
Harris campaign said Wednesday in a letter to ABC News agreeing to the
debate.
Tight race in key swing states
The debate comes just before early voting begins in several key states.
Polls have shown a tight race nationally and in key battlegrounds —
including the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well
as the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
Both campaigns have paid particular attention to Pennsylvania and
Georgia, where recent CNN polling found no clear leader between the
candidates. Should Trump hold North Carolina, a state he’s won twice,
victories in Pennsylvania and Georgia could push him past the 270
electoral vote threshold even if he does not win any of the other
battleground states.
Harris got a jolt of good news late last week, when her campaign
announced it had pulled in almost triple her Republican rival’s fundraising
haul in August — $361 million to Trump’s $130 million — entering
September with $404 million in cash reserves for the final two-month
sprint to November. That sum far surpasses the $295 million Trump’s
political operation says it has in the bank.
A Sunday New York Times/Siena College poll, however, underscored the
importance of the fight over defining Harris. The survey, which showed
the two candidates about evenly matched nationally, suggested that a
sizable share of voters still need more information about the vice
president: 28% of likely voters said they feel like they need to learn more
about Harris, while just 9% said the same about Trump.
The poll also offered some potential warnings for Harris. While 61% of
likely voters said they thought the next president should represent a
“major change” from Biden, just 25% said they thought Harris
represented such a change, while 53% said Trump did.
The same poll found that 47% of likely voters found Harris too liberal,
despite her attempts to moderate in recent weeks, compared with 32%
who said Trump is too conservative.
Pittsburgh debate camp
The two candidates have taken drastically different approaches to
preparing for their Tuesday showdown.
No presidential nominee in the modern age has done more televised
general election debates than Trump. Harris and her team have been
carefully studying all six of them — three with Hillary Clinton in 2016, two
with Biden in 2020, and another with Biden in June — as she prepares for
her turn onstage.
Harris has spent the days leading up to the debate hunkered down with
aides at a hotel in Pittsburgh, making only occasional, brief public
appearances. But aides said she has been thinking about a debate with
Trump since the moment Biden ended his bid for reelection in late July.
“I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race
on a debate stage,” Harris told reporters last month. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
She’s been reading briefing papers about Trump’s comments, positions
and even the insults he’s directed at her, aides said, as well as
familiarizing herself with how Trump comported himself with his two
previous Democratic opponents, particularly Clinton.
Harris has spoken extensively to both Clinton and Biden about debating
Trump, hoping to benefit from their experiences.
And she began telegraphing her approach to Trump even before her
nomination became official, telling a crowd in Atlanta in late July: “If
you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.”
A strategy for Harris, aides said, is not only to stand up to the former
president, but to make the case that it’s time for the country to move
beyond the Trump era. Any of his taunts on race are expected to be
diminished and dismissed as the “same old, tired playbook,” as Harris said
during her sit-down interview with CNN last month.
While many candidates have outwardly bristled at debate preparations,
aides said Harris is digging into the practice sessions with mock debates
against a Trump stand-in, longtime Clinton aide Philippe Reines, and
preparing like she did during her years as a prosecutor.
Karen Dunn, a Washington lawyer who has helped Democratic candidates
prepare for debates for more than a decade, is running the practice
sessions for Harris. Dunn, who worked with Clinton ahead of her
encounters with Trump in 2016, got to know Harris when she prepared her
to face Vice President Mike Pence in 2020.
“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking,” Harris said at one point
during that debate, delivering a line that could be reprised on Tuesday if
she is faced with any interruptions. “If you don’t mind letting me finish,
we can have a conversation. OK? OK.”
Trump’s informal approach
In recent days Trump has ribbed Harris over her preparations and claimed
that his debate performance won’t get a fair review.
“If I destroy her in the debate, they’ll say, ‘Trump suffered a humiliating
defeat tonight,’” the former president said at a Saturday campaign rally in
Mosinee, Wisconsin.
Trump, who argued he doesn’t need formal preparation such as mock
debates, has been meeting with senior advisers, policy experts and
outside allies to ready himself for Tuesday.
The “policy discussions” — the Trump campaign’s version of debate prep
— largely mirror those the former president held in the weeks leading up
to his June 27 debate with Biden, sources familiar with the meetings told
CNN.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller has been handling the meetings, which
have included sessions with former Trump administration official Stephen
Miller, Trump campaign policy adviser Vincent Haley, and former
Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, among others.
The sessions have largely focused on helping Trump sharpen his
messaging on a range of issues, from the economy to immigration and
American democracy at large.
The Trump campaign also deliberately scheduled a slate of events in the
days leading up to the debate, such last week’s policy speech to the
Economic Club of New York and his town hall with Fox News, in an effort
to have him hone his messaging in public, his advisers said.
People close to Trump argue one of the most crucial aspects of his
Tuesday matchup with Harris is ensuring the former president does not
appear overly aggressive toward her and strikes the right tone. As with his
June 27 debate with Biden, Trump’s advisers and allies have been
encouraging him to appear more restrained while onstage.
However, many privately acknowledge that will be even more important
this time. Not only is Harris a more popular candidate than Biden was
then, but she is also a woman, and the optics of particular attacks will
resonate differently, they say.
Gabbard, who recently endorsed Trump, has been a key player in that
effort. The Hawaii Independent was among the 2020 Democratic
presidential contenders who challenged Harris on the debate stage. She
has been working with Trump to help him better understand Harris’
debate style.
Trump’s advisers believe Gabbard’s attacks on the then-California senator
— particularly the scrutiny of her record as a prosecutor — helped
undermine Harris’ candidacy in 2019.
The former president’s team has told him to specifically needle Harris on
the issues where she has changed her position.
“We want to keep him steered toward hitting her record. On fracking, on
her flip flops, and show that she is just as responsible for the Biden
administration’s failed policies as Biden is,” one adviser said.
Those helping Trump prepare have also directed him to focus his answers
on the core policy issues where he polls higher than Harris, such as the
economy, immigration and crime, sources familiar with the meetings said.
“The most important part is finding pivots, finding ways to be critical of
her, deflecting attacks from her,” a senior Trump adviser told CNN. “It’s
not about her interrupting him or how she’ll act. It’s about him being on
target on his responses on policy. That’s been the main focus.”
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