With eight weeks remaining until Election Day, and early voting beginning this month in some key battleground states, it’s hard not to underscore the importance of Tuesday’s debate. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
“It will frame the race in people’s minds and that will have a decisive impact,” Matt Brooks, a veteran Republican strategist and CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told Fox News Digital.
Republican consultant and Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer emphasized that “there’s a lot at stake in this debate.”
while trumpAmerican voters have a good idea of Harris, but they are less familiar with her.
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“For the first time, people will really be able to see her and see if she can stand on her own two feet,” said Fleischer, who was White House press secretary under then-President George W. Bush.
Harris and Trump will share the same stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. ABC News debate This was their first and possibly only face-to-face meeting before the presidential election.
Harris has enjoyed a wave of momentum in both polling and fundraising since dropping out of the presidential race. President Biden to top the Democrats’ 2024 ticket in July, but Republicans argue Americans’ honeymoon with the vice president is ending.
Click here for the latest Fox News reporting on the Harris-Trump debate
Flesher’s advice for Trump is, “Hit him on policy. Just like you did on Biden in the first debate. That was a disciplined, tough, policy-oriented Donald Trump. I would love to see that same Donald Trump against Kamala Harris.”
Brooks highlighted that “the differences in policy are clear and sharp. If we stick to the policy, the American people will know it. That’s what they want and that’s what they want to hear.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris addresses a campaign rally at the Enmarket Arena on August 29, 2024 in Savannah, Georgia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Senator Tim Scott The South Carolina mayor, who was being seriously considered as Trump’s 2024 vice presidential candidate, told Fox News that the former president “doesn’t need my advice. He just needs to be himself.”
Scott said that “I think the American people have mostly made up their minds. Those independent voters, those uncommitted voters, this debate will show why Donald Trump is the only choice in 2024.”
Senator Tom Cotton Another Trump ally and representative, of Arkansas, emphasized that “the American people know where President Trump stands. They know what they got while President Trump was president.”
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Referring to the vice president, Cotton charged that “Kamala Harris has tried to run as a blank slate.”
When asked what advice he would give the former president, Cotton agreed with Scott, saying, “I don’t think President Trump needs my advice.”
“The last time he debated, he ended a presidential campaign. That’s what I expect him to do … by exposing Kamala Harris’s radical record,” Cotton said.
MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki was concerned about President Biden during his infamous debate against former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
Biden’s poor performance in a late June debate against Trump raised questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House — and prompted calls from within his own party for the 81-year-old president to end his bid for a second term. Facing mounting pressure from fellow Democrats, Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed his vice president in a blockbuster announcement on July 21.
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Harris and Trump are taking starkly different approaches to preparing for Tuesday’s contest.
Harris spent most of the past four days at a hotel in Pittsburgh, where she participated in an intensive “debate camp” that included multiple mock debate sessions.
Trump spent most of last weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he attended less formal “policy sessions” with aides and allies. However, Trump also traveled to swing state Wisconsin to address a campaign rally on Saturday.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump departs for a campaign event at the Central Wisconsin Airport on September 7, 2024 in Mosinee, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“It’s really important for Donald Trump to know the playbook,” Fleischer stressed. “He needs to know Kamala Harris’ stances in 2019 and 2020 on confiscating guns, comparing the Border Patrol to the KKK, ending fracking, ending offshore oil drilling. He needs to know her stances, and that requires studying up in advance.”
When asked about the former president’s preparations, Trump campaign national press secretary Caroline Levitt said in an interview with Fox News, “Let me tell you, President Trump is ready.”
Biden’s halting speech and uneven responses in the first debate gave Trump a nearly uninterrupted ability to make his case.
However, it is unlikely that Trump, 78, will have such a free hand against Harris, 59, who is an experienced prosecutor and served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before winning the Senate election in 2016.
A big question heading into Tuesday’s debate is how Trump will react if Harris angers the former president, and takes him to task for his potential insults and misstatements.
“With President Trump, you never know what you’re going to get. There’s always an element of surprise, which is what makes him so authentic and real. But there can also be risks,” Fleischer said. “I expect him to be the same guy he was in that disciplined debate against Joe Biden. He’s already knocked one Democrat out of the race — Joe Biden. Maybe he can do it again.”
