Harris and Trump to clash as America awaits next twist

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00:00Ketavan Ghorchistani is with me here, our international affairs editor.

00:03Ketavan, how on earth have the two men been preparing?

00:06Very different, two men, man and woman been preparing.

00:08Very different, isn't it?

00:10Very, very different.

00:12For Kamala Harris, it's the traditional preparation.

00:15She's been doing that for more than a week now.

00:18Highly choreographed sort of mock debate preparation

00:23with a mock stage, with TV lights,

00:26just to really get into the situation of a debate.

00:29She even has an advisor playing Donald Trump

00:32down to the boxy suit and the long tie.

00:34So really to have someone that looks a little bit like Donald Trump,

00:38the same man who actually was playing Donald Trump back in 2016

00:44when Hillary Clinton was preparing for her debate.

00:48The advisors, they're really trying to prepare Kamala Harris.

00:53And Hillary Clinton had a very clear summary

00:57of what Kamala Harris needs to do.

00:59She should not be baited.

01:00She should bait him.

01:02So that is how they're really trying to prepare

01:04to get her to get under Donald Trump's skin.

01:08For Donald Trump, it's also clear.

01:11The message is that he does not do debate preps.

01:14They don't even call it debate prep.

01:16They call it policy time.

01:18That's how they've presented it.

01:21They had a handful of these policy times,

01:23basically a few advisors gathering with Donald Trump

01:27for a couple of hours at a time

01:29and talking about policy,

01:30trying to give him a refresher on the policy issues

01:34that they want him to talk about.

01:36But it seemed to be, according to several reports,

01:40that he is actually preparing a little bit more

01:42than he did back in 2016 and 2020.

01:45He has a representative, Matt Gaetz,

01:47who's playing the guy asking the tough questions

01:51to get him to answer those tough questions.

01:53And he has Tulsi Gabbard.

01:55She was a Democrat-turned-Trump supporter,

01:57and she debated Vice President Kamala Harris

02:01back in 2019 during the Democratic primary,

02:03and she attacked her pretty well.

02:05So she is helping Donald Trump.

02:07And of course, Donald Trump's main preparation

02:09for any real big political event

02:12is to say that the rules are rigged against him.

02:15That's how he has done in the past.

02:18He's saying that ABC is going to rig the rules against him,

02:20that they're playing for the Democrats,

02:22so that if he seems to be winning the debate,

02:25it will make that win even better.

02:27And if he doesn't do very well, he'll just say,

02:30well, these odds were already stacked against me.

02:33Who's got the most to gain?

02:34Who's got the most to lose, do you think?

02:35That clearly is Kamala Harris.

02:38She has the most to gain,

02:39simply because people don't know her as well

02:43as they do Donald Trump.

02:44A recent poll showed that 90% of voters

02:48say that they know everything they need to know

02:51about Donald Trump to make their decision.

02:53Barely 70% say the same thing about Kamala Harris.

02:56So she has that extra 20% of people

02:59that maybe she could convince during that debate.

03:03She hasn't really been on the campaign trail for that long,

03:07even if she is the vice president.

03:08And she's also only done a couple of these big debates,

03:12the Democratic primary back in 2020,

03:15and the vice presidential debate against Mike Pence.

03:18And both times she did pretty well.

03:20Some of her most memorable lines were against Joe Biden,

03:24who was running against her,

03:27and against Mike Pence.

03:28But with the possibility of a lot of gain

03:31comes a lot of risk also.

03:34She's going to have to defense some of her policy switches.

03:38At the same time, she's going to have to sort of lay out

03:41her vision for the United States.

03:43And as I said earlier,

03:45she's going to have to try to get under Donald Trump's skin,

03:48throw him off his game.

03:50For Trump, the biggest challenge is going to be

03:52stay on message.

03:54That's what the Republicans have been telling him

03:56to do.

03:57Lindsey Graham wrote an op-ed saying

03:59he should focus on policy, not on barbs.

04:03That is going to be the trick for him.

04:05He hasn't been doing great about that in recent weeks.

04:09He called her stupid.

04:10He called her incompetent, questioned her race,

04:13questioned her gender.

04:15He knows that his base loves it,

04:17but the problem is that it could sort of throw off

04:21the independents, the moderate Republican,

04:24especially the women in those groups.

04:27And he has a big gap to fill with women voters

04:31against Kamala Harris,

04:32who leads him by about 14 points

04:35when it comes to female voters.

04:36It's going to be fascinating to see

04:38what topics come up as well

04:39and whether they're really going to get into

04:41a nitty gritty policy discussion

04:43between the two of them, isn't it?

04:44Absolutely.

04:45And that will be again,

04:47whether Kamala Harris manages to get on the policy

04:50and whether Donald Trump sticks to policy.

04:53If he does, there are basically three words

04:56for Donald Trump.

04:57The economy, immigration, crime.

04:59These are the three issues that Republicans believe

05:02they have an advantage over Democrats on.

05:05So he's going to try to sort of tie her

05:08to some of the failed policies of Joe Biden,

05:12while at the same time doing what he's done

05:15in the past couple of weeks,

05:16which is say basically she's going to be Joe Biden,

05:18only she's going to be worse than him

05:21because she's incompetent,

05:23because she is stupid.

05:26For Kamala Harris, there's going to be a mix of substance

05:29and style on substance.

05:31There's one big issue that she knows

05:33is her real weapon, abortion.

05:36She knows that it's a weakness for Republicans

05:39and especially for Donald Trump,

05:40who has himself been wavering

05:42about where really he stands on abortion.

05:45And she's going to have to use those prosecutorial skills

05:49that we've been talking about to, again,

05:52try to throw him off of his game.

05:55That is why her team wanted those microphones

05:58to be on the whole time.

05:59They didn't win on that.

06:01The mics will be off when the candidate is not speaking.

06:04So she's going to have to sort of get him

06:06to show his unruly self

06:09without the help of those open mics.

06:12And it's going to be crucial, this debate,

06:14because, and we have to repeat it multiple times now,

06:17we always talk about election day, November 5th.

06:20Don't forget that millions of Americans

06:23are going to start voting, especially in Pennsylvania.

06:25They're going to start voting on Monday.

06:28And in 24 hours time, we will be here once again,

06:30Ketavan, and me to digest that debate

06:32for you here on France 24.

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