Skip to player
Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Search
Connect
Watch fullscreen
Like
Comments
Bookmark
Share
Add to Playlist
Report
Harris and Trump to clash as America awaits next twist
FRANCE 24 English
Follow
9/10/2024
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
News
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
Ketavan Ghorchistani is with me here, our international affairs editor.
00:03
Ketavan, how on earth have the two men been preparing?
00:06
Very different, two men, man and woman been preparing.
00:08
Very different, isn't it?
00:10
Very, very different.
00:12
For Kamala Harris, it's the traditional preparation.
00:15
She's been doing that for more than a week now.
00:18
Highly choreographed sort of mock debate preparation
00:23
with a mock stage, with TV lights,
00:26
just to really get into the situation of a debate.
00:29
She even has an advisor playing Donald Trump
00:32
down to the boxy suit and the long tie.
00:34
So really to have someone that looks a little bit like Donald Trump,
00:38
the same man who actually was playing Donald Trump back in 2016
00:44
when Hillary Clinton was preparing for her debate.
00:48
The advisors, they're really trying to prepare Kamala Harris.
00:53
And Hillary Clinton had a very clear summary
00:57
of what Kamala Harris needs to do.
00:59
She should not be baited.
01:00
She should bait him.
01:02
So that is how they're really trying to prepare
01:04
to get her to get under Donald Trump's skin.
01:08
For Donald Trump, it's also clear.
01:11
The message is that he does not do debate preps.
01:14
They don't even call it debate prep.
01:16
They call it policy time.
01:18
That's how they've presented it.
01:21
They had a handful of these policy times,
01:23
basically a few advisors gathering with Donald Trump
01:27
for a couple of hours at a time
01:29
and talking about policy,
01:30
trying to give him a refresher on the policy issues
01:34
that they want him to talk about.
01:36
But it seemed to be, according to several reports,
01:40
that he is actually preparing a little bit more
01:42
than he did back in 2016 and 2020.
01:45
He has a representative, Matt Gaetz,
01:47
who's playing the guy asking the tough questions
01:51
to get him to answer those tough questions.
01:53
And he has Tulsi Gabbard.
01:55
She was a Democrat-turned-Trump supporter,
01:57
and she debated Vice President Kamala Harris
02:01
back in 2019 during the Democratic primary,
02:03
and she attacked her pretty well.
02:05
So she is helping Donald Trump.
02:07
And of course, Donald Trump's main preparation
02:09
for any real big political event
02:12
is to say that the rules are rigged against him.
02:15
That's how he has done in the past.
02:18
He's saying that ABC is going to rig the rules against him,
02:20
that they're playing for the Democrats,
02:22
so that if he seems to be winning the debate,
02:25
it will make that win even better.
02:27
And if he doesn't do very well, he'll just say,
02:30
well, these odds were already stacked against me.
02:33
Who's got the most to gain?
02:34
Who's got the most to lose, do you think?
02:35
That clearly is Kamala Harris.
02:38
She has the most to gain,
02:39
simply because people don't know her as well
02:43
as they do Donald Trump.
02:44
A recent poll showed that 90% of voters
02:48
say that they know everything they need to know
02:51
about Donald Trump to make their decision.
02:53
Barely 70% say the same thing about Kamala Harris.
02:56
So she has that extra 20% of people
02:59
that maybe she could convince during that debate.
03:03
She hasn't really been on the campaign trail for that long,
03:07
even if she is the vice president.
03:08
And she's also only done a couple of these big debates,
03:12
the Democratic primary back in 2020,
03:15
and the vice presidential debate against Mike Pence.
03:18
And both times she did pretty well.
03:20
Some of her most memorable lines were against Joe Biden,
03:24
who was running against her,
03:27
and against Mike Pence.
03:28
But with the possibility of a lot of gain
03:31
comes a lot of risk also.
03:34
She's going to have to defense some of her policy switches.
03:38
At the same time, she's going to have to sort of lay out
03:41
her vision for the United States.
03:43
And as I said earlier,
03:45
she's going to have to try to get under Donald Trump's skin,
03:48
throw him off his game.
03:50
For Trump, the biggest challenge is going to be
03:52
stay on message.
03:54
That's what the Republicans have been telling him
03:56
to do.
03:57
Lindsey Graham wrote an op-ed saying
03:59
he should focus on policy, not on barbs.
04:03
That is going to be the trick for him.
04:05
He hasn't been doing great about that in recent weeks.
04:09
He called her stupid.
04:10
He called her incompetent, questioned her race,
04:13
questioned her gender.
04:15
He knows that his base loves it,
04:17
but the problem is that it could sort of throw off
04:21
the independents, the moderate Republican,
04:24
especially the women in those groups.
04:27
And he has a big gap to fill with women voters
04:31
against Kamala Harris,
04:32
who leads him by about 14 points
04:35
when it comes to female voters.
04:36
It's going to be fascinating to see
04:38
what topics come up as well
04:39
and whether they're really going to get into
04:41
a nitty gritty policy discussion
04:43
between the two of them, isn't it?
04:44
Absolutely.
04:45
And that will be again,
04:47
whether Kamala Harris manages to get on the policy
04:50
and whether Donald Trump sticks to policy.
04:53
If he does, there are basically three words
04:56
for Donald Trump.
04:57
The economy, immigration, crime.
04:59
These are the three issues that Republicans believe
05:02
they have an advantage over Democrats on.
05:05
So he's going to try to sort of tie her
05:08
to some of the failed policies of Joe Biden,
05:12
while at the same time doing what he's done
05:15
in the past couple of weeks,
05:16
which is say basically she's going to be Joe Biden,
05:18
only she's going to be worse than him
05:21
because she's incompetent,
05:23
because she is stupid.
05:26
For Kamala Harris, there's going to be a mix of substance
05:29
and style on substance.
05:31
There's one big issue that she knows
05:33
is her real weapon, abortion.
05:36
She knows that it's a weakness for Republicans
05:39
and especially for Donald Trump,
05:40
who has himself been wavering
05:42
about where really he stands on abortion.
05:45
And she's going to have to use those prosecutorial skills
05:49
that we've been talking about to, again,
05:52
try to throw him off of his game.
05:55
That is why her team wanted those microphones
05:58
to be on the whole time.
05:59
They didn't win on that.
06:01
The mics will be off when the candidate is not speaking.
06:04
So she's going to have to sort of get him
06:06
to show his unruly self
06:09
without the help of those open mics.
06:12
And it's going to be crucial, this debate,
06:14
because, and we have to repeat it multiple times now,
06:17
we always talk about election day, November 5th.
06:20
Don't forget that millions of Americans
06:23
are going to start voting, especially in Pennsylvania.
06:25
They're going to start voting on Monday.
06:28
And in 24 hours time, we will be here once again,
06:30
Ketavan, and me to digest that debate
06:32
for you here on France 24.
Recommended
1:10
|
Up next
John F. Kennedy Assassination 16mm Original - Driver shooting at Kennedy!
Jelani Trent
9/7/2015
3:16
Harris says in first interview US ready to turn page on Trump
FRANCE 24 English
8/30/2024
1:53
Trump, Harris tied on eve of televised presidential debate
FRANCE 24 English
9/9/2024
0:54
Voters react to fiery presidential debate between Trump and Harris
FRANCE 24 English
9/11/2024
6:12
Trump refuses Harris call for October debate
FRANCE 24 English
9/23/2024
1:41
Harris slams Trump in final Georgia rally, urges voters to vote
FRANCE 24 English
11/3/2024
1:44
Last stretch: Trump and Harris in final push to win Wisconsin
FRANCE 24 English
11/2/2024
1:46
Row between Trump and Zelensky erupts at White House
FRANCE 24 English
3/1/2025
1:36
Social media: New battlefield for Harris and Trump in race to White House
FRANCE 24 English
11/3/2024
1:47
Harris and Trump end campaigns with final pitch, cede stage to voters
FRANCE 24 English
11/5/2024
1:55
US debate 2024: Harris and Trump showcase starkly different visions for America
FRANCE 24 English
9/11/2024
1:39
Harris and Oprah hold star-studded US election rally
FRANCE 24 English
9/20/2024
1:37
Putin backs Harris for US president in mocking endorsement
FRANCE 24 English
9/6/2024
4:26
US presidential debate: 'Bombast and lies' from Trump
FRANCE 24 English
6/28/2024
3:25
Teamsters union says not endorsing US presidential candidate in blow for Harris
FRANCE 24 English
9/19/2024
6:14
Violence, threats hang over Trump-Harris race after turbulent weekend
FRANCE 24 English
9/16/2024
6:20
USA 2024: Key takeaways from the Harris-Trump debate
FRANCE 24 English
9/11/2024
1:53
Harris vows 'new way forward' for America as she accepts nomination
FRANCE 24 English
8/23/2024
1:47
Zelensky in US to explain war plan to Biden, Harris, Trump
FRANCE 24 English
9/23/2024
8:15
USA 2024: Vastly different strategies as Harris, Trump prepare for TV debate
FRANCE 24 English
9/9/2024
3:03
Harris-Trump debate becomes US 2024 election's latest landmark event
FRANCE 24 English
9/10/2024
1:54
Teamster say won’t back presidential candidate, but prefer Trump in poll
FRANCE 24 English
9/19/2024
2:46
A look at Trump's controversial nominations for cabinet
FRANCE 24 English
1/18/2025
12:10
'Dangerously simplistic' view of int'l relations: Trump 'unfit' to handle global threats, challenges
FRANCE 24 English
11/8/2024
2:23
Trump outburst 'will be very disconcerting for Israelis'
FRANCE 24 English
6 days ago