Harris and Trump – another chance at the US presidential debate | The Take

[Music] Al jazer podcasts today a preview of what could be one of the most consequential presidential debates Donald Trump and kamla Harris will square off on a Philadelphia stage for the first and perhaps only time before November's election with so much at stake who has the edge and can we even cover this like any other presidential debate I'm Kevin hurton and this is the [Music] take tonight's debate has a lot to live up to you'll recall the first presidential debate of this election cycle went so poorly for President Biden he ended up dropping out so I've decided the best way forward is the past to torch to a new generation since then his vice president kamla Harris was chosen she's Consolidated her support in the party launched a national campaign made a VP pick and staged a convention let's get out there let's vote for it and together let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary Story Ever Told and after all all of that the country finds itself right back where it started bitterly divided and facing an election that will likely come down to a few th000 voters in a handful of States joining us now is Al jazer English White House correspondent Kimberly hawkett okay so Kimberly the first debate of the fall campaign is always one of the most hotly anticipated events in any presidential election and now we're about to have a second debate and of course this year is far from normal so the anticipation is truly off the charts for this one with so much at stake why don't you try to walk me through the respective game plans for both sides and what a successful debate might look like for the Trump and Harris [Music] campaigns let's start with KLA Harris because that's where all the focus is and really for kamla Harris this is a big test this is her first prime time TV test and she needs to nail this and in some ways we've already seen because there is so much pressure on the vice president there is already this almost downplaying of expectations that is going on from the campaign and it's a good strategy because she's human she doesn't have the TV experience that her counterpart Donald Trump has I mean he has been a showman for decades and so she's had a disadvantage right there so I think her campaign recognizes that so there was a big debate between the two campaigns a duel if you will about whether there would be muted mics whether there wouldn't be muted mics the candidates microphones will be muted when it's not their turn to speak they also will not be allowed to bring any notes and they'll not be able to question one another so that is one thing that is going to be there the other thing that we know about it is that there are going to be no opening statements there's only going to be a closing statement and we also know that Donald Trump won the coin toss which means he gets to choose whether or not he wanted the closing statement to be last and he won that and so in terms of prepared notes they're not going to have any yep they have a pen of paper glass of water and yeah we know that this is largely going to be domestic issues or maybe a little bit of foreign policy but we don't really know what the topics are going to be but we know that they'll have two minutes each for their answers and there may be some rebuttal as well but it's going to be strict to the [Music] time yeah in terms of the overall theme of the debate I remember the last debate between Trump and Biden was the Trump campaign wanted to make it about strength versus weakness and it couldn't have gone better for the Trump people in that case what do you think the overall theme might be for this debate well I think the challenge this time again the pressure is on KLA Harris because when you look at the polling everybody knows what Donald Trump's about our country is being poisoned poisoned and your schools and your children are suffering greatly because they're going into the classrooms they're taking the seats and they don't even speak English it's crazy the American people aren't really watching this debate to learn more about Donald Trump they already know they've seen him as a president they've watched him on TV they know who this guy is but they don't really know who Kamala is even though she's been vice president so this is her opportunity but it's really a fine line in terms of the tight rope walk that she has to do what the polls are showing right now is that Americans want change mhm so she has has to say that I am that change well at the same time not criticizing the administration she's been a part of yeah and that's difficult how do you not criticize Joe Biden the man you've been working alongside and so what we're seeing is the campaign basically saying we've done a lot of good work but there's still work to be done and so this is going to be difficult for her and she's really got to knock it out of the park and I don't know if you can do that one debate what are the main issues and do they matter at all that's after the [Music] break so Kimberly obviously there are issues that each will want to emphasize for example Trump will want to steer the conversation towards immigration and Harris might want to talk about abortion rights but these debates are rarely one and lost on the issues alone so I have a two-parter for you here tell me about some of the critical issues in this race we should cover that but also why demeanor and personality and Poise play such a key role in how voters evaluate these candidates well first of all to answer the last part of your question I think we only have to look to kamla Harris's first sitdown interview that she did with her running mate to understand just how important Optics are she didn't get a great review overall for That interview they took like the most anticipated interview in 40 days and it felt like a stale bag of nuts from a vending machine she was sitting there with her running mate and the body language she was slumped over on a desk she looked shorter than her running mate and she wanted to be the president of the United States and here her vice president running mate is almost a foot taller than her I mean I don't understand why it was set up like that because the campaign should have recognized what a mistake that was and then sort of the lack of confidence that was projected as she answered and so those Optics were caught by the audience and so she's got to make sure she doesn't make those kind of mistakes again because in this television medium those things people whether they're recognizing it or not are digesting and making judgments about the candidate have nothing to do with policy she didn't have strength she didn't have confidence she looked unsure of herself and that hurt her now with regard to the issues K Harris has also been criticized that she's been very vague in terms of her policies the kamla Harris website remains vague there's bios for her and her running mate Tim Walls there are events and donations there's merch but there are noticeably no policy stances in fact it's interesting just on Sunday evening her campaign finally put out an issues page but it reads just like it was written by Joe Biden's staff I've listened to all of his speeches and some of the phrases are identical and then one of her biggest criticisms is that it's still scant on detail and yet when you look at some of the details they're still pretty flimsy for example one of the biggest areas where she could be criticized is immigration and yet when it comes to immigration on this issues page of her website there is just a single paragraph and all it says that she acknowledges that it's a broken system and it needs to be reformed well we've known that for 20 years but what's your solution what you're saying is so interesting and it speaks to just how complicated electing a president is for American voters because the candidates need to project that presidential Authority but they also have to be someone who they will except in their living rooms for four years so it's a really tight tight rope to walk and it sounds like Harris is the one who has to pass that because Trump has already been president 100% and where kamla Harris wins in terms of persona is in projecting hope and there's no question across the board people in the United States are so tired of the Discord course they're so tired of the division and they're looking for something different and so what we saw initially when Biden dropped out and passed the top of the ticket to kamla Harris was this incredible surge of enthusiasm when I covered the Democratic National Convention I have not seen enthusiasm like that since Donald Trump came onto the stage and then prior to that when Barack Obama came onto the stage yeah and in my mind the election was one just based solely on nothing other than the enthusiasm and the fact that the stadiums were standing room only I me it was just electrifying I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America and just based on the fact that people were looking for something to hang on to to me it seemed like she had captured it now in terms of the polling too close to call the New York Times poll that just came out on Sunday has given a slight advantage to Donald Trump the remainder of the polls nationally still have a haris lead so it's really hard to say but if you look at the Kimberly hit unofficial enthusiasm of the last sort of three major candidates that I've covered just looking enthusiasm it would be Harris okay Kimberly do we fall into this trap every four years putting way too much stock in these debates Hillary Clinton is said to have won all three of her debates against Donald Trump in 2016 that didn't matter I guess the questions are does it matter who wins this debate or to put an even finer point on it with a country this divided is it even possible to evaluate who wins this debate if everyone is in their separate media bubble telling them exactly what they want to hear um yeah it's definitely possible to win and it's Poss possible to lose we saw that with Joe Biden he was finished yeah and it doesn't matter how well sometimes you do in the debate what matters is the court of public opinion and if you are you know eviscerated in the press or in the court of public opinion it's over but in terms of is it possible to win yeah but I think what matters more is is the takeaways of the American public and how the media reports it and how the campaign spins it either campaign and so that's why we already see both campaigns going into this with strategies of how to play it for the Harris campaign they're going into this sort of lowering expectations and I think that's smart given the fact that KL Harris is at a disadvantage in terms of this medium next to Donald Trump in just the fact that she hasn't done it as many times but we've talked about the fact she does have the advantage she's a prosecutor she looks better on television than Donald Trump but the Trump campaign is going to attack kamla Harris on issues of the economy on issues of immigration and the fact that she's also kind of waffled on some of her policies and she's got that challenge of trying to distance herself from Joe Biden and make herself distinct and that honestly I think is going to be the hardest part yeah how do you do that that's what I'm most interested in is seeing how she's going to pull this off Kimberly thank you so much pleasure is mine thank you and that's the take this episode was produced by khed Sultan and Khloe kay Lee with Philip Lanos hasham Abu Salah haer Salah dad and me Kevin hurton in for Malika Bal it was edited by nor wazwaz our sound designer is Alex Rolan Joe PL mixed this episode Alexander lock is the tak's executive producer and nay Alvarez is alzer's head of audio we'll be back tomorrow [Music]