The vice president said she expects Trump to revert to personal attacks during their match-up on Tuesday.
By By Emmy Martin
Kamala Harris expects that former President Donald Trump is “going to lie” during their debate Tuesday and is prepping for those “untruths,” she said in a prerecorded radio interview released Monday.
“There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go,” the vice president said on “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show.” “And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth.”
Harris also said she believes the former president will revert to personal attacks during the debate, pointing to the “playbook” he used with former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Such an attack might have been just what the Harris campaign had hoped for if the candidates had unmuted microphones throughout the event. However, each candidate’s mic will be muted while the other speaks on Tuesday, limiting the time they can challenge each other to their allotted turns.
The comments are some of Harris’ first about how she expects her first presidential debate to play out. At a campaign stop in Pittsburgh over the weekend, Harris said she will focus on a message of unity during the debate.
“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said in Pittsburgh. “It’s time to bring our country together, chart a new way forward.”
Since her campaign agreed to the mic muting rule President Joe Biden’s campaign had pushed for ahead of his June debate with Trump, they have been forced to adapt their strategy away from expecting outbursts or interruptions from the former president.
In response to Harris’ comments, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that Harris will be “the only person lying on that debate stage,” calling her a “far-left dangerous liberal.”
The radio hit comes a week after the first sit-down interview of Harris’ candidacy, when she told CNN anchor Dana Bash that she would not ban fracking as president, reaffirming her 2020 reversal of her 2019 stance favoring a ban, and rejected Trump’s attempts to paint her as left-wing.
Harris had not previously engaged in back-in-forth interviews with reporters since Biden announced he was stepping down from the race and endorsed her more than a month before. In contrast, Trump has continued to conduct several interviews, primarily with friendly interviewers, but also with traditional outlets.
Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said in a statement that Harris’ advisers told her to “hide from the press for two months, further raising expectations for the voters.”