Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will hold a major televised debate with the Republican presidential nominee on September 10.
Vice President Kamala Harris has spent days intensively preparing for the upcoming presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported Monday. Harris' team has enlisted a longtime Democratic operative to “play” Trump during the sessions, the report said.
Harris and Trump will meet for the first time Tuesday night at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC News.
According to the Post, Harris has rarely appeared in public in recent days, spending most of his time in intense “debate camp” at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh.
Her aides reportedly created a mock-up to mimic the layout of the debate studio. They also “used a seasoned Donald Trump stand-in to deliver blistering attacks and offensive comments; and forced the vice president to spend hours asking rehearsed questions,” the newspaper wrote.
That stand-in is Philippe Reines, a longtime Hillary Clinton aide. Reines was originally cast as Sen. J.D. Vance when Harris was set to face him at the vice presidential debate before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
“Now that Harris has risen to the top of the ticket and will face Trump, Reines is left to play the former president, reprising the role he played for Clinton during her debate prep in 2016,” the newspaper wrote.
Trump, who will participate in his seventh general election debate since 2016 on Tuesday, appears to have taken a different approach to debate preparation. According to the Post, the former president spent much of the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, choosing “political sessions” with assistants.
The Republican nominee doesn't like the public perception of what he practices, his advisers say, the Post reports. The aides said Trump views rallies and interviews as the best preparation for debates.
Trump’s debate with Biden, 81, in June ended the latter’s campaign on July 21 amid widespread concerns about his age and fitness for office. A clunky debate performance against Trump and multiple gaffes led to Biden’s withdrawal from the race and his endorsement by Harris, who formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the national convention in Chicago last month.
The vice president suffered her first dip in the polls this week since becoming her party’s presidential nominee. A New York Times/Siena poll released Sunday showed Trump leading Harris 48 percent to 47 percent among likely voters nationwide.