news

I spoke to people who debated Harris and Trump. Here’s what they told me

Vaseline September 10, 2024

IIt all boils down to this. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will face off tonight in Philadelphia for what will be their only scheduled debate thus far.

Harris will abide by rules set when President Joe Biden was the nominee. That means the microphones will be muted when it’s the other candidate’s turn to speak. There will be no live audience, no pre-written notes, no pre-recorded sessions.

Even as she must play by the rules Biden has set, Harris must, to borrow a phrase, not be burdened by what has been. As Susan Estrich, who managed Michael Dukakis’s 1988 campaign, said The Independent“It can’t just be Biden 2.0 — it has to be Harris 1.0.”

What does Harris 1.0 look like? She’s had just one major one-on-one debate on the national stage in 2020, when she went up against the unflappable Mike Pence. Otherwise, she’s mostly participated in the TV game show that was the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, though she famously took a good swipe at Biden over busing.

To be fair, Trump has some work to prove, too. He went through the ringside of Republican debates in 2016. But he largely avoided direct blows as his opponents attacked each other. He skipped all of the Republican primary debates this year, and very few people remember his performance against Biden thanks to the president’s meltdown (other than that infamous “black jobs” joke).

The Independent several senators spoke who to have I’ve been in the ring with Harris and Trump to talk about what that experience has been like and where their respective strengths and weaknesses lie.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Harris clashed onstage once, specifically over whether to ban Trump from using Twitter. Warren’s campaign began to surpass Harris’s in popularity.

“Donald Trump should be concerned about meeting a tough woman who won’t get bullied,” Warren said The Independent in August. “She’s smart. She’s always well prepared. And she just doesn’t take any nonsense.”

Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado also debated Harris in what he called his “not very well-noticed presidential campaign.” But he is also friends with Harris, and together they drafted one of her signature policies: an expanded child tax credit.

When asked about Harris’ expected performance, he had just one line: “I think she’s going to crush Trump on the debate stage.”

Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Harris were two of the first senators to call on Al Franken to resign after multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct. Gillibrand was also part of those 2020 Democratic primary debates.

“I think she’ll be able to question Trump very effectively, especially if he says things that aren’t true,” Gillibrand said. The Independent“And I think she can share a vision very clearly.”

The final stretch of the 2016 primaries became a showdown between Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Trump, with former Ohio Gov. John Kasich as a third wheel. Cruz famously defeated Trump in the Iowa caucuses, leading Trump to accuse him of dishonesty and nickname him “Lyin’ Ted.”

Cruz, for his part, has an Ivy League debating background, having worked the competitive debate circuit while an undergraduate at Princeton. Speaking to The Independenthe showed off his special debating skill that he had developed there: Gish-galloping.

“Look, they’re both effective debaters,” he said The Independent“Kamala’s weakness is her horrendous record. This is a very different election.” Cruz — who is running for Senate in a tighter race than expected — then went on to monologue about Harris’ record on the U.S.-Mexico border and Trump’s own presidential record.

“I thought the last debate against Joe Biden was by far the most effective debate Trump has ever had and I think that bodes well for the next debate,” he concluded.

Of course, Trump didn’t just steamroll Cruz. He did the same with Cruz’s Florida counterpart, Sen. Marco Rubio. The telegenic and charismatic Rubio was once seen as “the savior” of the Republican Party. But Trump consistently belittled him, famously calling him “Little Marco.”

Rubio tried to respond by calling him “Big Don” and mocking the size of Trump’s hands. It could be an example of mud wrestling with a pig: Rubio got dirty and Trump liked it.

“There were 12 other people there and eight other people on stage, but he’s a very good debater because he’s a very good communicator,” Rubio said. The Independent, when asked about the secret to Trump’s effectiveness. “He knows how to play to the TV audience and get his message across. He’s unorthodox. You can’t really practice a debate against him.”

Of course, Tuesday night’s debate won’t have a live audience, making it harder for Trump to play to the crowd the way he did in the GOP primary debates. And Harris has never debated at the top of the ticket, let alone against someone like Trump. There’s a good chance that, as a woman, she would face sexist backlash if she tried to say, “Will you shut up, man?” as Biden did in 2020.

Trump won’t be able to swat Harris away like he did Cruz or Rubio. And he’d better forget about calling her “low energy,” like Jeb Bush. And he won’t get away with calling Harris ugly, like he did Carly Fiorina (before backtracking on his comments when confronted and calling her “beautiful.”)

That kind of behavior just won’t work this time. And we’re not talking about the behavior that landed on Pence.