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You can be sure that Donald Trump was not prepared for this confrontation.

During his first and possibly only debate against Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the former president went toe-to-toe with none other than Yusef Salaam.

Salaam is a member of the “Central Park Five” — a group of black and Hispanic youth who once called for Trump to be executed for a crime they were later acquitted of.

The confrontation came after Trump’s debate with Harris on Tuesday night, when the former president made a surprise appearance in the spin room of the Pennsylvania Convention Center — a space where his and Harris’ surrogates argued why their respective candidates were the rightful winners of the debate.

Perhaps expecting to have to field another question from a reporter, Trump instead found himself facing Salaam, now a New York City Council member elected, who had joined the throng of reporters surrounding the former president. Salaam, a Democrat, was one of several Harris campaign allies tapped for post-debate interviews.

As the former president turned to Salaam, several reporters, including NBC’s Peter Alexander, asked him if he would apologize or say anything at all to Salaam.

It wasn’t clear whether Trump immediately understood why Salaam was there, but he grinned and pointed at him, joking, “That’s good, you’re on my side!”

Salaam was clearly stunned and laughed along with some of the reporters around him.

“No, no, I’m not on your side!” Salaam shot back.

The former president waved and stepped aside to answer questions from reporters standing nearby.

It was a shocking moment that revealed the small world of American politics, which even at the national level is often smaller than most people realize.

The moment was particularly shocking because Trump had just been criticized by his opponent for calling for the execution of Salaam and four others on false charges. Trump appeared only to acknowledge that the charges had been dropped in a skeptical-sounding response.

In that response, Trump insinuated that Democrats were digging up old baggage to hit him with, and he dismissed Salaam’s relevance to his campaign, since, he claimed, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg “agreed” with his assessment of the case. Bloomberg, a Democrat, blocked a multimillion-dollar settlement over Salaam’s prosecution.

“A lot of people, including Mayor Bloomberg, agreed with me on the Central Park Five,” Trump had said during his debate with Harris.

The vice president, meanwhile, argued that it is “a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently tried to use race to divide the American people” over the course of his career.