Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea. Gosh, I missed you! A big thanks to John Z for filling in on The Brew the last several days.

Well, tonight is the night — the big presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Or maybe between Kamala Harris and Kamala Harris, the way she’s been suddenly flipping policy positions faster than Vanna White flips letters. Or between Trump and Trump’s wayward mouth, because Trump’s toughest foe is usually himself.

The duo go into tonight’s debate with the race still tight, but Harris’s post-convention honeymoon period fading fast. A new New York Times/Siena College poll shows Trump has now moved ahead of Harris into a two-point national lead.  

Trump Gets Pre-Debate Gifts from Bernie Sanders and CNN

If you’re Donald Trump, you should have started the day by sending Sen. Bernie Sanders a fruit basket to thank him for his thoughtful pre-debate gift: Sanders told Meet the Press Sunday that Harris hasn’t changed her progressive views in the slightest.  “I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election,” he said.

There’s a word for that. What is it? Oh, yeah. Lying.

Sanders’s comments make Harris’s task tonight even harder. She can try to run from her past positions, but to every change – such as her about-face on fracking – Trump can cite Sanders and dub the switch a con.

Trump also got a debate gift, from all places, CNN. The network got hold of an ACLU questionnaire Harris filled out in 2019, in which she stated she wants to provide taxpayer-funded sex changes to illegal immigrants. For starters.

CNN—yes CNN—exposes just how far left Kamala Harris is. According to an ACLU questionaire from 2019 Kamala is in favor of decriminalizing illegal immigration, taxpayer funded gender transitions for illegals, defunding ICE, ending ICE detainers, and decriminalizing ALL drugs… pic.twitter.com/rbdGbB5fPk

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 10, 2024

Trump does not have to call Harris names tonight. He just has to call her out on the facts.

What Do We Know Going In?

If Kamala Harris isn’t absolutely destroyed in the debate the way Joe Biden was, the media will declare her the winner. But don’t listen to what the media says afterwards. Watch their faces while they say it.

The debate will effectively be three against one. Khalid Sheik Mohammed gets a fairer shake from Gitmo interrogators than Trump will get from ABC News’ Linsey Davis and David Muir. As you may recall, Davis once compared Trump to the KKK. 

The questions will likely be on topics favorable to Harris, such as climate change, J6, school shootings, and “reproductive rights.” They’ll try to get Trump complaining about what happened in 2020. And if they do ask about immigration, crime, or inflation, the questions will be framed in ways beneficial to Harris. They’ll also let Harris get away with slandering Trump with assorted debunked claims. 

Even more insidious is the fact that Harris can call Trump a convicted felon, but because of the judge’s gag order on that case, Trump will not be allowed to point out that the judge’s daughter was being paid by Kamala Harris as a consultant. 

Questions I Would Ask if I Were in Harris’s Camp

For starters, I’d ask Trump why the vice president from his previous administration isn’t voting for him, nor is any other living Republican president or vice president endorsing him.

I would focus more on J6 and Trump being a “convicted felon” than the Venezuelan gangs Harris is letting ravage the country.

I’d ask Harris how her experience as vice president has helped her evolve on her policy positions. (Gotta cover for the flip-flops, after all.)

Questions I’d Love for Harris to Answer

“Why did you lie about Joe Biden’s mental condition? When did you first notice that he was in cognitive decline?”

“Why have you been so afraid to answer questions from the media and the American people? Is it good for America to have a president who is fearful?”

“Why do you want to put your political opponents in jail, but bail out rioters? For example, when journalist David Daleiden exposed Planned Parenthood’s baby-organ-selling operation, why did you prosecute him instead of the people chopping up babies? What’s to say you won’t put other journalists in jail who run afoul of your political benefactors?”

“Since you were the ‘last person in the room’ with Biden when he made his disastrous decisions about withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan, did you agree to the bonehead idea of ignoring what the generals on the ground were recommending, or push against it?”   

Harris’s Tough Balancing Act

Harris has a tough balancing act to pull off tonight. If she brings the laughing “Joy” Kamala, she’ll look frivolous and ridiculous. If she brings the “tough prosecutor” Kamala, she’ll prove to be unlikable.

Amuse reports that Harris’s strategy will be to “prosecute” Trump to the point of pushing Muir and Davis to fact-check him in real time.

This is risky. I said it before the debate with Biden in June, but it bears repeating now: People prefer Trump’s policies. It’s the personality they have a problem with. If Trump is the most likable candidate on the stage, he wins.

Harris’s strategy can easily backfire. All Trump will have to say is, “Why are you angrier at me than the illegal immigrants raping and killing women all across the country? Why do you care more about insulting me than improving the lives of the American people?”

Harris also is married to the record of the past four years. She can’t pretend there’s been an annulment. So all Trump has to say to that is, “Isn’t it the Biden-Harris administration? In fact, how many times did Biden refer to you as the president?” If Harris tries to duck responsibility, Trump can respond, “So what were you then, an ornament?”

“What exactly did you accomplish? Under your watch, we got record inflation, 10 million illegal immigrants, hundreds of thousands of fentanyl deaths, wars breaking out all over the world, and 300,000 missing children. So what are you proud of about that?”

Harris is at a disadvantage in any live event, but never more so than a debate with someone like Trump. She is, under the best of circumstances, terrified of making mistakes, unsure of herself and her policies, and isn’t graceful on her feet. Her default setting in those situations is nastiness. She’ll also be trying to push positions she’s held for all of five minutes, some of which she took directly from Trump’s platform.

Trump, meanwhile, is a devastating counter-puncher, quick on his feet, and is likely to throw things at Harris for which she is unprepared. And if she needs rescuing from the “moderators,” that will just demonstrate she’s not ready for the big desk.

Trump Key: Focused Pressure and Good Cheer

Donald Trump’s toughest foe is Donald Trump. And Donald Trump being the Rude Orange Man is Harris’s best chance of winning the debate — meaning, Trump winning the debate is simply a matter of him winning the battle over with his Inner Queens Construction Guy.

If he stays in good cheer and in command, the night is his. 

Trump should follow the Tulsi Gabbard model, with his own colorful flair. In a 2019 debate, Gabbard calmly hit Kamala hard with 90 seconds of indisputable facts, and Harris never recovered. She couldn’t take the punch. If Trump does that with every rebuttal – methodical but without menace, hard but with humor — Harris won’t make it through the debate. There will come a point when everyone knows it’s over before the final bell even sounds.

• “Only Kamala Harris could get thirteen of our heroes killed, then attack me for attending their memorial.”
• “Only Kamala Harris could reverse all my border policies, be named border czar, let in 10 million illegal immigrants, unleash a migrant crime wave unlike anything anyone has ever seen, and then blame me for all of it.”

Trump has used this line before, but if Harris dares call him a “threat to democracy,” he can respond, “Threat to democracy? I took a bullet for democracy.”

Trump, of course, should tout his record, particularly in comparison to the Biden-Harris record. But he also must talk about his future plans — particularly partnering with Elon Musk on government efficiency and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on improving Americans’ health and getting us all back in shape. Throwing in a self-depreciating line about his own girth wouldn’t hurt here. 

So What’s the Prognosis?

Since Harris is now refusing to do more than one debate, she has raised the stakes of this one for herself. (What did we say last week about her habit of making little things into very big things?)

As as result, this debate is now probably the most consequential presidential debate in recent history. 

Harris is playing with a poor hand: The Biden-Harris record, her own radicalness, and her recent, politically expedient flip-flops on policies.

Trump is playing a strong hand: He’s got his record. He’s got their record. He’s got the issues on his side. However, he’s also got that mouth, and moderators who are motivated to get that mouth to betray him. He’s also got high expectations.

Harris has put additional pressure on herself to do well, and historically has shown she doesn’t respond well to pressure.

Trump, as he demonstrated in the second debate with Hillary Clinton right after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in 2016, to say nothing of what happened when he was shot in July, thrives under pressure.

With the pressure this intense and the stakes so high, past performance suggests Trump should win the debate. Harris is too overmatched.

In fact, there’s a chance this whole election could be over by 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. Harris could fail even more spectacularly than Joe Biden did in June. Biden proved to be a sad and sympathetic figure; Harris could prove to be pathetic and unsympathetic.

Then again, it’s 2024: the year of the cuckoo. Harris and Trump could end the night doing the merengue for all we know. It’s been that kind of year.

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.