Dueling Debate Prep
A microcosm of the campaigns and the candidates.
Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Katie Rogers, and Reid J. Epstein reporting for NYT (“Inside the Trump-Harris Debate Prep: Method Acting, Insults, Tough Questions“):
Vice President Kamala Harris is holed up for five days in a Pittsburgh hotel, doing highly choreographed debate practice sessions ahead of Tuesday night’s clash. There’s a stage and replica TV lighting and an adviser in full Lee Strasberg method-acting mode, not just playing Donald J. Trump but inhabiting him, wearing a boxy suit and a long tie.
The former president’s preparations are more improv. They are pointedly called not “debate prep” but “policy time,” meant to refresh him on his record. Nobody is playing Ms. Harris; sometimes his aides sit at a long table opposite him and bat questions back and forth, or other times he pulls up a chair closer to them. Mr. Trump has held just a handful of sessions so far, interrupting one at his Las Vegas hotel so he and his advisers could go up to his suite to watch Ms. Harris’s convention speech.
While the two camps’ preparations for the big night in Philadelphia could not be more different, both sides view the debate the same way, according to interviews with nearly two dozen people close to the candidates, many of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss the private preparations. The Harris and Trump teams see it as a crucial moment to define Ms. Harris for millions of swing voters who know what they think about Mr. Trump but are still curious about her.
Bringing out Mr. Trump’s most self-destructive instincts is a priority for Ms. Harris, as is coming across as coolheaded and presidential.
“She should not be baited, she should bait him,” Hillary Clinton, the last woman to debate Mr. Trump, said in an interview on Thursday. “When I said he was a Russian puppet, he just sputtered onstage. I think that’s an example of how you get out a fact about him that really unnerves him.”
In Mr. Trump’s debate prep sessions, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida has embraced the role of posing tough questions to Mr. Trump, including on uncomfortable subjects like his criminal convictions, according to a person with knowledge of the gatherings. Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who memorably attacked Ms. Harris in a 2019 presidential primary debate, has also been helping Mr. Trump prepare.
Mr. Trump’s advisers are acutely aware of the risk that he could appear overly aggressive, as he did in his first, disastrous debate with Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, when the Covid-infected Mr. Trump sweated profusely and incessantly interrupted his rival.
Trump advisers worry that he will not be able to stop himself from showing his deep contempt for Ms. Harris or from seeming to lecture a female opponent.
While he respected Ms. Clinton as “smart” and a hard worker, Mr. Trump plainly believes that Ms. Harris is unintelligent, advisers and allies say. In private, he uses misogynistic language to describe her and gossips about her past romantic relationships, including with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco.
The former president’s allies and advisers have urged him to be “happy Trump” in the debate rather than “mean, bully Trump,” as one close ally put it, while pressing a policy-based case against Ms. Harris. There are risks to that approach as well: One ally warned that if Mr. Trump tried to stay on his best behavior, he could overcorrect and come across as “low energy.”
The degree to which campaign staffers are willing to spill this information to reporters never ceases to amaze me, despite having read these sort of reports for over four decades now. Why you’d want to tip your hand in this way, I’ll never understand.
But what most stands out to me here is how much the nature of the prep reflects the candidates and the campaigns.
While my impression of Harris remains very much tied to her failed 2019 campaign, her overall CV indicates a woman who prepares for every contingency and surrounds herself with competent staffers who help her to that end. One simply can’t be a successful prosecutor—or get anything done in the Senate—otherwise. So, she and her team have mapped out the various ways Trump might come across in the debate and has contingencies for each—as well as strategies for getting him to drop any charade of self-discipline.
Trump, on the other hand, likes to wing it. So, the debate prep is mostly focused on cramming for the exam. Almost all of this is stuff that someone who has been either running for President or serving as President for the past nine years should already know inside and out. And the staff is desperately trying to get Trump to pretend, for at least one evening, to be the sort of person people could trust with the nuclear codes.
This is also interesting and comports with my longstanding view of the race:
Ms. Harris has also telegraphed how she plans to go after Mr. Trump.
Unlike Mr. Biden, she has not focused squarely on portraying the former president as a fundamental threat to American democracy. She has tried to minimize him as a stale old act who is repeating his same tired playbook. And she has painted him as a rich guy who cares only about helping other rich guys — a populist line of attack that resonates with voters in focus groups.
Ms. Harris has also ditched Mrs. Clinton’s unsuccessful strategy of denouncing Mr. Trump as a racist and a misogynist. The vice president’s aides believe it’s a waste of time to tell voters what a terrible person Mr. Trump is, given how hard it is to find a voter who does not already have a fixed view of his character — good or bad. Instead, Ms. Harris is trying to connect with the thin slice of undecided voters who feel sour about the economy and worried about the future, and who want to hear what each candidate will do to improve their lives.
Granting that this is a far easier task for Harris than Biden—himself a stale old act even among a lot of Democratic partisans—it’s obviously the right approach. Trump’s racism and misogyny are simply not news to anyone who will cast a vote in November. They’ve either 1) decided he’s an awful human being and decided to therefore vote for the Democrat; 2) decided he’s an awful human being but it’s still better than voting for Democratic policies; 3) decided he’s just like them and therefore would Make America Great Again; or 4) decided he’s an awful human being but so are all politicians and are therefore undecided.
What I am particularly encouraged by is Madame Harris clearly has a ear or eye for how to appeal outside of the Pre Sold which has been badly lacking for the Democrats whose pitches and discourse have been essentially to outsider ears poorly aimed at a reach beyond those who already agree, tone deaf and echo-chambery.
Perhaps as I read in some article it is a mental habit of a trial prosecutor who needed to be able to think about how to appeal and obtain results from a jury. A plausible potential insight.
In any case pivoting away from Democratic activist language and academic infused critiques is giving every sign of efficacity (not to expect magic wands but on a tight razar edge decision, every bit shall count).
Placing his bad character as threats not to abstractions (democracy, identity) but to persona interest, an unreliable weirdo… has an effective sense of connexion.
Ambitious, typically younger, people with fragile but large egoes desiring a sense of importance that a reporter rather enables is a path I believe.
That one would tip one’s hand of course is… indeed somewhat baffling.
The insiders aren’t talking to the press – they’re addressing the insiders in the other camp and trying to plant false expectations.
I doubt that Trump does any practicing at all – he’s just going to spew his normal word vomit and try to suck up all the oxygen in the room. And his campaign team will just cross their fingers and hope he doesn’t foam at the mouth.
And Clinton is trying to position herself as some kind of mentor to Harris by sounding as if she’s in the know about what goes on in the campaign. Is she really saying anything new?
In a saner world, the fact that two of Trump’s debate preppers are Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard would be enough to signal his unfitness for office and cause his polls to cater.
But, alas…
@Steven L. Taylor: don’t be silly, it is pure inside political game…. those persons are of concern only to insiders, not wider electorate. (it is not a defence of them in the least merely the role and even debate prepa subject is only one of politically obsessed)
What one would rather in expect though in healthier circumstances would see Trump crater after peformances like this one yesterday as even if one felt Trump was “right” in some respect, there is nothing about rambling incoherent raising of his personal grievances and blundering reopening of legal jeapordy that says fitness.
No politico insiderism needed, it is well into the drunken ranter at the end of the bar at the corner pub territory.
I’ll just note that as much as “Trump is an awful human being” is widely known (or even fully known), “Trump is losing his sh!t over his legal troubles and the Democratic shift from Biden” is still under-covered in my opinion. (See also the long thread on Sanewashing yesterday.)
Trump is also 4 years older than the last time he was the focus of “tune-in just in time for the election” voters and he is showing every day of it. Harris is smart to refuse the bait on the racism/misogyny and to goad TFG to show his decline into madness and decrepitude.
Given who Trump is, it not only doesn’t amaze me, I feel like it’s expected. There’s a saying in business that A level people hire other A levels, while B’s hire C’s. Trump is at best a C and the type of person he hires has remained consistent throughout his entire life: damaged climbers who know they can’t get in with a quality organization and so convince themselves that Trump is their only chance to get a glimpse at the top. But they aren’t grateful to him – far from it, because Trump also further damages those who work for him, deliberately, so they can’t use him as a springboard for something better. So what does a mediocrity full of resentment do when a reporter calls them and butters them up? Seeks to magnify their “importance” by spilling the deets.
And let’s not forget, Dr. J, that if the Orange One wins, the Hatch Act will only apply to Demonrats, for whom capital punishment will apply. Righteous Trumplicans will, of course, be exempt, as is only right and proper.
@Scott F.: Entirely agree- the strategy of Harris seems spot on – and there is opportunity to bring out Trump’s decline further – his bizarre rambling on yesterday
One has to hope that rather than there be any court results from here to 4 November, the contrary, that nothing provides Trump a lifeline to revive his martyr game while rather perhaps Ms Carrol announcing a new libel demarche has potential to send him nicely into ranter territory, sucking air away from any attacks on Harris-as-Harris.
and to play and exploit the structural incentives in the media, Harris making Trump the confused bungler seems a fine strategy to continue the acid bath
@MarkedMan:
That’s a gross insult to the letter C.
If El Weirdo has to be associated with a letter, then it should be X. After all, Xlon already ruined it. Besides, all it’s used for in most western languages can be replaced with KS, CS, SH, H, and J. Sure, Ekcs-Rays* and EKCSMass look funny at first, but you get used to it.
*And Roentgen dispelled the Ekcs in Ekcs-rays in only a few weeks of intensive research. He knew perfectly well what they are, but the name stuck.
@Steven L. Taylor:
In a saner world, Clinton would have won 538-0, and El Weirdo Felon would either be in prison, or a pitiful grifter past his prime, hawking overpriced junk nobody wants.
Ok, that last is true. But not because we’re in a saner world.
It’s a clumsy attempt to manage expectations. Having been directly involved in campaigns, I think it’s silly.
I think I’d add a 5) their not really paying attention but think the media is untrustworthy and his negatives are highly exaggerated by the woke left wing exc..based on my extended family this is the largest group. Few of them at least acknowledge his negatives. It’s either look the other way or ignore it as media lies, or some combination of the two.
@Tad:
There’s a 6, too. Some MAGAS think Trump is wonderful: not just our greatest prez, but a faithful husband, a loving father, and an observant Christian. Anything contrary to that is fake news spread by evil America-haters.
@Lounsbury:
I would love Harris to say “he wasn’t like this four years ago, he’s really declined” about Trump, even though he mostly was like this four years ago. Just make the insanity an issue. Or call it low energy, if he’s holding in the rants.
Really invite him to be a loon, and cause rambling answers to be viewed through a framework of decline.
The last time I watched a debate involving candidates for President USA was Kennedy and Nixon. I was in the 7th grade. I think it was an assignment from history class.
No debate is going to change my vote. What’s the point of watching?
I have always been a one issue voter for the Democratic Presidential candidate. I never wanted a Republican president as I figured they would appoint Justices to the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v Wade. Look what happened.
I am still undecided about next Tuesday. I am so revolted by Trump that I don’t see any reason to watch the show. However I am intrigued by Vice President Harris and it would be good to see her beat him to a pulp with the microphone stand.
I’ll likely just follow whatever reports are on OTB and watch my new Fargo DVD…again.
I rarely watch the so-called “debates”, and never read the massaged pre-event leaks trying to influence expectations on the part of the TV audience. Remember how Trump and his minions told us over and over that Biden would be “jacked up” for his July event? A transparently obvious ploy in case Biden did come out sharp and articulate.
Unfortunately, I expect pundits to devote lots of attention to any false steps by Harris, noting the questions they raise about her readiness for the Oval Office, with a throwaway line that Trump performed as Americans have come to expect since he first rode down that golden escalator.
@Mister Bluster:
Any time I watch Trump speak, it simply refreshes my depression that any sane adult can take him seriously as a candidate for high office. Thirty seconds to a minute is as much as I can stomach.
@Gustopher: I think a direct stateent would be a mistake, probably but an indirect leading baiting to provoke him yes.
@Scott F.:
Democrats should avoid directly bringing up the legal troubles – it hasn’t convinced anyone but yourselves and conveys to people who are not you lot a sense that indeed Trump is right that he is being persecuted. It is an error (like Biden’s positioning error on Trump as threat to democracy – correct or not, it only is convincing to the already convinced and you do not need that now with Harris).
Trump is losing it, Trump only cares about himself – Trump is a weirdo, etc. w/o touching on the legal issues – those will eat at him all by themselves, his ego over general dominance if Kamala can cleverly bait it seems a very plausible opening to melt-downish ranting that will play poorly to the flaoters – not just pleasing to you all but play poorly outside those already anti-Trump.
That is, as Gustopher
@Jen: I feel like, at least in Harris’ case, the debate prep releases are for an audience of one. They know he is incapable of the level of study a professional like Harris will perform, so they want to make him jittery and nervous – perhaps even hoping that he’ll take a double dose of Adderal that evening (or whatever he normally sniffs, gawd the sniffing….)
My sense is that Harris is doing far, far more debate prep with far more detailed research than anybody is talking about. There will be accusations brought forth, and the normal gish-gallop will not get him off the hook. She will press for answers, and when the answers don’t come – she’ll characterize him as a 3rd grader who didn’t read the book doing his book report.
I’m making popcorn.
@Ken_L: Any time I watch Trump speak, it simply refreshes my depression that any sane adult can take him seriously as a candidate for high office.
That’s why it’s hard for me to have any respect for people I know voting for Trump. I don’t want to be around them because every moment I’m with them I want to scream “WTF is wrong with you? He’s a rapist, thief and a liar who has trouble stringing two sentences together or expressing a coherent thought. If you owned a company you wouldn’t hire him to shovel shit, but you’re willing to elect him president of the United States.”