On Tuesday, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off for their first - and perhaps their last - debate. On this weekend episode of Reuters World News, our political correspondents walk us through what to expect from the night and lay out what each candidate needs to do to win over undecided voters.
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(upbeat music) Grab your popcorn and start whipping up those coconut-themed cocktails. It's debate season. We are less than two months away from the presidential election, which we'll decide whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the Oval Office. And on Tuesday, the pair will face off for the first and perhaps the last time ever for an ABC debate in Philadelphia. For the Democrats, it's the once in a generation do-over they wished for after Biden's flop. For the Republicans, it's a chance to halt Harris' momentum. On this weekend episode of Reuters World News, our political correspondents walk us through what to expect from the night and lay out what each candidate needs to do to win over undecided voters who, if you can believe it, are only now just tuning in. I'm your host, Jonah Green. Beverly Hills Emergency. Somebody killed my parents. Pardon me? I came home and I found them. From the creators of Dahmer. Okay, you have to shoot first so that you don't back out. Okay. Based on the horrific, true events. I think you're gonna do this. Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story. Now play only on Netflix. We're joined now by White House correspondent Trevor Honeycutt and national political correspondent James Olafont. Hi guys, thanks for joining us today. Hello, great to be here. First, all debates are important to a certain extent, but this one seems perhaps more so because in a way, this campaign has only just begun, right? So Trevor, what does Harris need to do here to introduce herself or reintroduce herself to voters? Sure, so Kamala Harris' aides believe that she's just not that well known by the American public, which they see as an advantage, but also a disadvantage in some ways. So she's gonna have to introduce herself to the American public, convince them that she is a calm and experienced leader and let them get to know her a little bit. In this forum, when she's also going to use the fact that she's not as well known as her debating opponent as a positive, that she's going to bring something fresh to Washington, even though she's an incumbent vice president. Both candidates are portraying themselves as the change candidate, right, Jim? So which one is more changey, really, in this context? Well, it's really difficult to say, honestly, because Harris is the sitting vice president. She inherits the Biden administration's policies and she's gonna have to be held accountable by Trump and the moderators of the debate for those policies at the same time. She is really sort of a fresh face in American politics and she can make a credible argument that she represents the future. Whereas Trump, hey, you know what? He's 78, he's already been president. He loves to run as an insurgent candidate, but the truth is that he's had a turn at this and his record is his record. And it's very hard for him to come back and say, I'm the outsider. Yeah, so what does Trump need to do here to sort of stall Harris' momentum? Well, I think his goal, you know, as Trevor alluded, is she's trying to introduce herself to the American public. Well, he's trying to introduce a different version of Harris to the American public. And that is one that he says is an untrustworthy liberal who presided over economic chaos, who allowed the largest influx of migrants in recent history. So basically, he wants to define Harris before she can. And his goal will be not only to blunt her momentum, but actually to try to turn voters who may be intrigued by her off of her. Right, so Harris might be on the defensive for Biden's record, but you'll also have to answer for some past positions. So Trevor, what does Harris sort of need to prepare for, worry about? What are some of the vulnerabilities? Yeah, so there's been a lot of attention on the fact that a number of Harris' policy positions have changed since she was a senator, since she was a presidential candidate back in 2020. And those include things like she supported Medicare for All. Now she doesn't. There's a number of positions like that that have evolved. And so her team has been working with her on how to discuss those changes. And I think we'll see that she says that she's evolved because she's had experience in governing, because times have changed. Whatever that explanation is is something that I think Republicans will be watching closely for signs of flip-flopping or inconsistency. And I think she's also going to pivot to talking about what she sees as the inconsistencies in Trump's record around issues like abortion, which is one of the key issues that they think they can leverage to win the election. I imagine this will be kind of cathartic for Democrats who really wanted Biden to be the one to bring some heat to Trump and hold him accountable since it was the first time they were on stage together since January 6. But as we all remember, that was a disastrous performance. It knocked him out of the race. So given Harris's past performances, what should we expect from her on stage? - This is a bit of a mulligan for Democrats here. It's their second chance to take it to Trump. And the hope is that Harris, a prosecutor, is going to be able to make that case against Trump at a time when the election is really on a knife's edge in terms of how close it is in these battleground states. That said, Harris has not been on a debating stage in four years when she faced Vice President Mike Pence in their debate. She did a number of primary debates, including against Joe Biden, where she was very aggressive, but she's out of practice, right? And so that's why her team has been working with her now for many, many weeks. Going back to when they were preparing for JD Vance, when they have now pivoted those sessions in recent weeks to focus on Trump, just to get her back in the habit of having these kinds of combative and adversarial exchanges on television. - Now, remind me, what is the format of this debate? I know there was some issue over whether Mike's would be muted, so what is the format? And how will that kind of affect the vibe of the evening? - The microphones will be muted when the other person is talking, which theoretically should limit interruptions. But let's remember that Trump will still have the floor when it's his turn to talk, and he'll be able to say whatever he wants. And he has a habit of going back and answering the question before, if he doesn't feel like he got his answer in. So I would still expect him to be all over the place, and these rules will not prevent him from launching personal attacks at Harris, if he feels like he's being cornered. And some of those attacks may be, as we've seen in the last few weeks, they may have a tinge of racism or sexism to them. So there's only so much that the rules of debate and the moderators for that matter can do about it. - And this is a really key point here, because the Vice President Harris actually pushed for the Mike's not to be muted, which was kind of a reversal of Biden's position. And that is because she wants Trump to be combative. She wants him to jump in, she wants him to talk over her, because that's how she illustrates that he's extreme and out of control. And so a lot of her prep has been focused around getting under Trump's skin and trying to get him to create these moments. I mean, for Harris, this is as much about the moments that she can make Trump have as it is about the moments that she can have and how they end up on social media and how they make Trump look. - Well, we remember, we remember eight years ago, when Trump took on Hillary Clinton and he regularly interrupted her, pointed at her, called her names, said people didn't trust her and lost his cool. And yeah, and so if Harris is trying to make the argument that she has the presidential temperament and he lacks it, then he could end up helping her out. And it's gonna be on Trump to try to deliver a relatively restrained performance as he did against Biden. June, he, you know, he stepped back a little bit and sort of let Biden, for one of a better word, knock himself out of the game. But I expect Trump will be different this time because I think he feels the need to attack Harris. We've seen this at the rallies. She's been a little more hesitant to go after him because I think she's trying to play up the more biographical and positive elements of her candidacy. But it's really gonna be a question of comportment, how the two of them handle each other, how she handles his attacks, how he responds to maybe being put, have the screws put to him a little bit on his behavior. Let's just say even after the election with the January 6th attack and his efforts to undermine the 2020 result, he's probably never faced the kind of scrutiny that he's going to face from her in a public setting. So how he responds to that is going to be really interesting. - I mean, we did see from his very contentious appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention, what happens when he's confronted by a black woman in particular? Then he was very combative. - Yeah, I was with President Trump in Chicago when he had that panel conversation with three black women journalists. And the thing that is remembered from that is Trump questioning Harris's racial identity. But the first exchange of that interview that kind of got it off to a contentious start is when the ABC journalist, Rachel Scott, asked Trump about his history of using demeaning and abusive language with black women, especially journalists in his past. And the journalist was confronting Trump with this. And that was kind of what set Trump off and caused him to respond by saying that it was rude and disrespectful and really took him off of his message, which was about what he was intending to do for the black community if he's given a second term as president. - That's staying on topic. We know female candidates are held to an impossible standard in American politics. You know, be tough, but not too tough. Be compassionate, but don't come off as weak. So how will Harris deal with this? - Vice President Harris expects that there will be invective and personal attacks that are directed at her that may have to do with her gender or her race. And her goal is to avoid getting pulled into those attacks, right, to kind of rise above it and let's voters see that contrast. So I think if there is a contentious exchange, she's expecting it and she's going to say that this is part of the same old playbook. You've heard her say that before and shift to talking about her record and her ability to do the job. - I'll add to that too in that it is corrected that women candidates are held to an almost impossible standard. But we do have a situation here where Harris, you know, she does need to detail her resume a little bit. And, you know, with Clinton, everybody knew who she was. Everyone knew her background. She had been a public figure for two decades. But with Harris, I think she does need to assert that she's got the experience and the background to be the commander in chief and to be the most powerful leader in the world. And I think that's something that she's going to really have to work hard to convince some voters simply because of the fact that, yes, we've never elected a woman president in this country. And also that she is, you know, an unknown quantity. So to the extent that there is pressure on her deliverance, it's only going to be about rebutting Trump's attacks, but it's also going to be to really get who she is and what she's done and what her qualifications are across to the public. In this part is in political climate. So much support is already totally baked in for each candidate. So who is this debate for? Well, I think this debate is for people who are what we call the double haters. And these were people back when Biden was in the race who did not like their choices. And they weren't excited about voting for Biden. They may have already decided they couldn't support Trump. They may have been curious about RFK, but now they're sort of looking for a home. And I think those voters may be a little more curious about Harris because Trump is such a known quantity at this point, but they're both going to be pitching for those voters and also just any other voter. I mean, like we say, these voters are locked in, but let's remember there are still millions of people who really haven't been paying attention. And now that we're past Labor Day, they're tuning in. They want to get a sense of what's going on. And so it's not that I expect a lot of people to flip from one candidate to another. But again, you have to reaffirm in people's minds that this election is coming up, that they need to pay attention and they need to vote. And the debate's going to help accomplish that. Yeah, and to agree with Jim, I think there's really two groups of people we're talking about. There's a really, really small group of people who are true undecided voters. And they are like the most valuable people in politics right now, but they're very hard to reach. In general, they don't watch a lot of television news about politics. They're kind of scattered all over the place. So that's one group that may or may not be reached by this debate or the clips of it that show up on social media afterwards. But then you have this much larger group, which is supporters of each candidate who need a reminder that, hey, mail-in ballots are going to start to go out in a few days. There's going to be volunteering opportunities and phone banks and all of these kinds of things and fundraising opportunities. And so if your candidate has a big moment, that can be a real help in terms of getting supporters to do what they have to do in order for these campaigns to be successful. And finally, what drinking games would you recommend to people watching at home like it's the Super Bowl? Maybe every time Trump tries to mispronounce Harris's name, that might do you in after an hour and a half. Yeah, and maybe for lighter drinkers, you can look for Harris to say Unburdened, which might come up a handful of times. Does she use that word a lot? Unburdened by what has been? Yes, Unburdened, yes. Good to know. (dramatic music) (upbeat music) - Max Bankman, I'm the new doctor. - Welcome aboard the Odyssey. - ABC Thursdays. - This ship has happened. We're tending to our passenger's dreams. - I'm in. - From 911 executive producer Ryan Murphy comes a splashy new drama on a luxury cruise ship with Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson. - It's your job to keep everyone alive. - She's gonna be a good one, two, three, clear. - I have a pulse. - You're gonna be okay. - Dr. Odyssey Thursdays, 9/8th Central on ABC and stream on Hulu. (upbeat music) - Thanks again to Trevor and James for their time and expertise. And make sure to tune into our daily headline show this week as we'll continue our political coverage of the race and the debate. Broder's World News is produced by Gail Iza, Sharon Reich-Garson, Tar Oakes, Christopher Wall, Jasper, David Spencer and me, Jonah Green. Our regular host is Kim Vanell, Sound Design and Musical Composition by Josh Summer. Our senior editor is Carmel Krimans and our executive producer is Leila de Kretzer. To stay in the know, make sure to subscribe to this podcast on your preferred platform or download the Reuters app. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
