The late, great Democratic debate coach Christine Jahnke had one piece of advice for female candidates trying to get through a debate: interrupt a man.
That may not be an option for Kamala Harris on Tuesday for the biggest test of her career.
Harris, after much negotiation, agreed to a debate plan that would allow microphones to be muted when the other candidate is speaking.
And her campaign is worried that will put her at a disadvantage when she debates Donald Trump in their decisive prime-time debate on ABC.
One of her goals for the debate is to create a viral moment similar to the one Harris experienced during her questioning of Brett Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing and during her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence, when she told him, “I’m speaking.”
Those moments were repeated over and over on social media, putting her in good stead. Her advisers hope that many Americans will view the debate through those kinds of social media moments.
Kamala Harris appears in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she spends five days in a pre-debate camp with her closest advisers, preparing for the biggest night of her political career.
Trump, however, will be silent as Harris answers questions, denying him the chance to interrupt and her the chance to respond.
His communications director, Brian Fallon, wrote to ABC News in his acceptance of the debate rules that muted microphones “will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President. We suspect this is the primary reason for his campaign’s insistence on using muted microphones.”
But some argue that Harris’s decision is risky.
“There can be BAD moments too, social media clips work both ways,” Todd Graham, known as America’s debate coach and a debate professor at Southern Illinois University, told DailyMail.com.
“If Harris loses her temper (in a bad way: there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to show displeasure in debates), then she would have the viral moment and not the one she wanted.”
Temperament is one of the things Harris is working on as she prepares for Tuesday’s showdown.
Trump has already begun his attacks and lowering expectations of himself.
On Wednesday, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity of Harris: “They’ll get the questions in advance.”
He did not cite his sources, and ABC News, which is hosting the debate, said neither side would see questions ahead of time.
But it does show his intention to try to disconcert Harris.
Trump also brought in Tulsi Gabbard, the former representative from Hawaii who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 in a crowded field that also included Harris. Gabbard’s performance in that year’s primary debate left Harris shaken.
In Harris’ debate practice sessions, her aides will push her to practice staying calm and not letting Trump get on her nerves.
Her team needs to “prepare her for Donald Trump to come in quickly and be prepared to attack and unbalance her,” Democratic strategist Donna Brazile told CNN.
For her part, Harris is looking for her own ways to unnerve Trump and perhaps get that social media moment anyway.
She is expected to go on the offensive on policy issues and attack if Trump tells any falsehoods.
However, Trump can be an unpredictable force and Harris cannot prepare for everything, although she will try.
Harris is holed up with her staff in Pittsburgh, spending five days of intense debate preparation ahead of the Sept. 10 showdown in Philadelphia.
The debate will be the first time she and Trump have met.
The two have been in the same room before — Harris, as a senator, attended Trump’s State of the Union addresses on the House floor when he was president — but the two were never formally introduced.
The pressure is on. Joe Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate caused him to drop out of the race. Although no one expects the same result for Harris, she will have to prove that she can take on the former president.
“The starkest contrast between Harris and Biden will be simple but fleeting; all it takes is showing up,” Carlos Lozada wrote in Thursday’s New York Times.
‘Assuming the vice president speaks with even modest eloquence and clarity, denounces Trump’s distortions and does not declare victory on Medicare, she will have surpassed the low bar Biden set in the June debate against Trump, instantly appearing more presidential than the current president.’
Kamala Harris snapped a selfie with Democratic Sen. John Fetterman upon her arrival in Pennsylvania; Tuesday’s debate will take place in Philadelphia
Trump has repeatedly worked to link Harris to the Biden presidency and is expected to try to do the same on debate night.
But the Democratic candidate projects confidence.
“So far, so good,” Harris told reporters Wednesday when asked how her preparations were going.
She is studying hard, though some caution against over-preparing, as many felt Biden did before his disastrous performance against Trump.
In her preparations, Harris likes to use index cards and is a voracious consumer of policy briefing books.
And he’s also been participating in mock debates.
Playing Trump is Philippe Reines, a longtime Hillary Clinton adviser who portrayed Trump in his debate prep.
He even wears Trump’s signature red tie during practice sessions to help the candidate focus.
Reines, when preparing Clinton to face Trump in the 2016 debates, didn’t just fire off one-liners at her; he helped her prepare to avoid a hug from her Republican rival.
Footage from the warm-up session shows that as practice began, Reines walked toward Clinton with both arms extended in preparation for a hug. Clinton walked toward him and gave him a high five with one of her hands, quickly moving past him to avoid his embrace.
From there, Reines proceeded to attack Clinton as Trump would, setting her up for the inevitable blows from the Republican candidate.
Also helping Harris prepare for the debate is a small team of advisers, led by Rohini Kosoglu, a senior political aide, and Karen Dunn, a veteran Democratic debate specialist who also helped Clinton prepare for Trump.
Others include Harris’s White House chief of staff, Lorraine Voles; her campaign chief of staff, Sheila Nix; and Sean Clegg, a veteran strategist.
And Harris has another advantage: She is close to Clinton and Biden, the only other two people to have debated Trump in the Democratic Party.
She talks to them regularly and they have probably talked about this topic.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to elaborate on the conversations between Harris and Biden.
“They talk regularly, they talk a lot regularly. You saw them yesterday and they certainly stay in touch. I just don’t have anything else to share,” he said Thursday aboard Air Force One.
“He’s looking forward to seeing her on Tuesday.”
Kamala Harris and Mike Pence at the 2020 vice presidential debate
Donald Trump and Joe Biden in their June debate in Atlanta
Harris, a former prosecutor, is fierce at asking questions and that could be one way she can provoke Trump — questioning him about his policies as president, his handling of the coronavirus, the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and his false claims that he won the 2020 race.
His campaign has repeatedly tried to undermine him. His running mate, Tim Walz, described Trump as “weird,” a claim the former president dismissed, saying it was his rivals who were “weird.”
She is an experienced national debater, having run for president in 2020 and then debating Pence in that year’s vice presidential debate.
But the expectation is different when you’re at the top of the list.
Above all, Harris must be willing to fight.
“Democrats are pretty tired of their candidate being the polite one who gets crushed by Trump,” Todd Graham told DailyMail.com.
“They want to watch this debate and feel proud of Harris in a way they couldn’t with Clinton or Biden,” he said. “Democrats need a fighter to fight back to shake off eight years of defending what they perceive as a ‘timid’ candidate.”