Adrienne Elrod, senior campaign spokesman for Vice President Kamala Harris, on Monday warned against underestimating how former President Donald Trump will perform in Tuesday's debate.
Trump and Harris are scheduled to appear together in ABC News' only scheduled presidential debate, and Elrod said on “Morning Joe” that Harris' team cannot “underestimate” Trump given his skill and experience in the debate. (RELATED: Tulsi Gabbard gives inside scoop on Trump debate prep in interview with Vince Collianese)
“She's definitely going to hold Trump accountable, but debates are … difficult. When Trump gets on stage and he's lying and saying things that are completely wrong over and over again, you think,” Elrod said. “When you're debating him, are you going to spend your time fact-checking him and expecting the moderator to fact-check him, and if so, are you going to spend your time on that, or are you going to talk directly to the American people and talk about how you're going to improve their lives? So I think we're going to see her do incredibly well in that moment.”
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'Trump is a pretty good debater': Harris campaign spox warns against 'underestimating' former president pic.twitter.com/Rrm5UxQM7R
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“But I don't think we should underestimate the fact that Donald Trump is a pretty good debater. He's been in seven debates. He's prepared,” she added. “He beat Joe Biden, President Biden, in a debate in June, so I think he's prepared. But we'll just have to wait and see.”
Harris' campaign on Wednesday accepted a request from the Trump campaign and adopted a microphone-mute rule similar to the one CNN implemented for the June 27 debate. Trump asked Harris for two more debates during a Mar-a-Lago news conference in August, but only the ABC debate is officially scheduled.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said on “The View” Friday that Harris shouldn't “underestimate” Trump's debate performance, saying “he's a skilled debater” and has television experience.
Meanwhile, former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza said he believes the ABC debate will mean more to Harris than to Trump.
“I think she has a better chance…Trump's approval rating is very high at the low end and very low at the high end, basically hovering between 46% and 48%,” Cillizza said. “It's not going to get to 52% or 51%. It's not going to get to 40%. So I don't know how his approval rating is going to move. I think she's going to move more in that regard.”
Mark Halperin, a political analyst for Newsmax, said Friday that he expects Harris to perform well in the debate given her past debate performance.
“Some Republicans are hoping that she'll ruin the debate, which could happen, but given her history as a debater, I don't think that's going to happen,” Halperin said.
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