WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet in a highly anticipated and potentially consequential debate Tuesday night in Philadelphia — just over two months after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance precipitated his exit from the race.
The debate, to be hosted by ABC News, is set for 9 p.m. Eastern and will be the first time Trump and Harris will meet in person, according to Harris. Viewers can livestream the debate on ABC.com or on the platforms ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. The debate will also be simulcast on C-SPAN.
The event is the only scheduled televised exchange between the candidates before Election Day in November, though early voting kicks off in the battleground state of Pennsylvania Sept. 16 and in four other states later this month.
‘We’ll be ready’
Trump surrogates on Monday said the former president plans to challenge Harris on views she’s changed over the years, including on fracking and immigration.
“We’ll be ready tomorrow, President Trump will be ready. The question is will Kamala Harris be ready because she’s gonna have a lot of things to defend,” Jason Miller, Trump campaign senior adviser, said on a call organized by the Republican National Committee that also featured Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic Party defector who has endorsed Trump.
“You can’t prepare for President Trump. There’s just no way to do it,” Miller later added.
Trump will also seek to tie Harris to all decisions made under the Biden administration. Gaetz dubbed her “co-president” and alleged on the call that Harris is “in charge of the entire administration.”
Republicans are using the narrative to blame Harris for the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in which 13 service members died.
The GOP-led House Committee on Foreign Affairs released a 353-page report Monday blaming the deadly conclusion of the two-decade U.S. war in Afghanistan squarely on the Biden-Harris administration. Harris’ last name is mentioned 285 times in the report.
“Kamala Harris is unfit to be our president and commander-in-chief,” Gabbard said on the call.
Retired U.S. military leaders issued a letter defending Harris’ fitness to lead the country, and blaming Trump’s “chaotic approach” to negotiating with the Taliban before leaving office.
“He repeatedly fails to take responsibility for his own role in putting service members in harm’s way,” the former generals wrote on behalf of the veterans’ advocacy group National Security Leaders for America.
Trump attracted his own attention related to the Afghanistan withdrawal when his campaign staffers confronted an Arlington National Cemetery official on Aug. 26, the third anniversary of the 13 service members’ deaths. The incident was first reported by NPR.
Trump has denied his staffers pushed the cemetery official aside in order to take photos in a restricted area, but the U.S. Army confirmed the incident.
‘Go to Bat 4 Harris’
The vice president prepped for the debate in a Pittsburgh hotel over the weekend before traveling across the swing state Monday for the following night’s prime-time event.
The Harris campaign began the week by releasing an ad Monday featuring several former Trump administration officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who have spoken out against a second Trump presidency.
The Democratic National Committee flew a banner Monday above Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia ahead of the division-leading Phillies’ home game against the Tampa Bay Rays. The banner read: “Don’t Strikeout W/Trump Go to Bat 4 Harris.”
After roughly 50 days into her campaign and just 56 days until the election, Harris released her policy platform one day ahead of the debate. The four-pillar plan includes promises to lower taxes on the middle class and build affordable housing, protect reproductive freedoms and civil rights, secure the border and address gun violence, and “stand up to dictators” and support veterans.
Harris also vowed to support an ethics code for the U.S. Supreme Court, and to “ensure that no former president has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House” — a reference to the high court’s July ruling that granted former presidents immunity for core official acts and presumptive immunity for “outer perimeter” duties, but none for personal actions.
The Trump campaign accused Harris’ platform of “dishonesty” in a campaign email sent Monday. “We know the results of her policies: chaos, devastation and destruction.”
Trump and the Republican party released a platform in July that centered on 20 core promises which swore to “seal the border,” “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” and “end inflation,” among others.
When asked by reporters Saturday in Pittsburgh’s Strip District market area if she was ready to debate Trump, the former California prosecutor and U.S. senator answered, “Yes, I am. Yes.”
What’s the main message she wants to tell Trump on the debate stage?
“There is a lot,” Harris said in response to the question.
“But look, it’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness. It’s time to bring our country together to chart a new way forward,” she said.
Trump’s legal issues ahead of debate
While Harris hunkered down for debate prep, Trump has been focusing in recent days on his myriad legal issues and hosting long-winded appearances.
On Saturday the former president held court for nearly two hours at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, and repeated a debunked claim that Venezuelan gang members had overtaken an Aurora, Colorado, apartment building. He told the crowd that removing Venezuelan immigrants from the state will “be a bloody story.”
He also downplayed his New York state conviction as a “witch hunt,” as he has several times before.
Trump, the only former president to become a convicted felon, learned Friday that a Manhattan judge delayed his sentencing until after the November election. Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump also spoke for nearly an hour Friday at Trump Tower during what was billed as a press conference but included no questions. The appearance followed oral arguments in his appeal of a civil trial verdict in which he was found liable of sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll.
On Thursday his lawyers pleaded not guilty on his behalf in federal court to a renewed indictment alleging he co-conspired to subvert the 2020 presidential results. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set a pre-trial schedule that includes deadlines both before and after November’s election.
The vice presidential debate between Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is scheduled to be hosted by CBS News in New York City on Oct. 1.
