Kamala Harris has revealed she is prepared for Donald Trump to “lie” during their debate and said she expects him to use his “tired old playbook” when they meet on Tuesday.
“He’s followed an old, well-worn playbook,” he said on Rick Smiley’s radio show, “where there’s no limit to how far he could go and we should be prepared for that. And we should be prepared for the fact that he’s not burdened by the truth.
“I think he’s going to lie,” he added in the interview that aired Monday. “He has a playbook that he’s used in the past, whether it’s in his attacks on President Obama or Hillary Clinton. So we should expect some of that to come out.”
Harris has been focused on debate preparation in the five days leading up to Tuesday’s showdown, which will be one of the most-watched moments of the 2024 presidential campaign.
Kamala Harris revealed what she’s prepared for at Tuesday’s presidential debate
Much has changed in politics since the first presidential debate in June: Trump survived an assassination attempt, Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Harris won the Democratic Party nomination.
Polls now show the race between Trump and Harris virtually tied. And early voting begins in many battleground states in the days after the debate, increasing pressure on the candidates to get their message across to voters.
Harris said she intends to point out in the debate that Trump “tends to fight for himself, not for the American people, and I think that will come out during the debate.”
And while she’s been holding practice sessions, her campaign has been deploying every tactic possible to annoy Trump.
That includes a new ad set to air Tuesday — the day of the debate — that features former Trump administration officials criticizing him and saying he is unfit to occupy the Oval Office.
The ad features former Vice President Mike Pence; former Defense Secretary Mark Esper; former national security adviser John Bolton; and retired general and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.
The ad is compiled from his public comments warning of the dangers of a second Trump presidency.
“In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House,” the ad’s narrator says. “Now those people have a warning for America: Trump is not fit to be president again.”
The ad will air on Fox News in Philadelphia, where the debate will be held, and in West Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump lives.
Harris has also garnered endorsements from several high-profile Republicans: Liz Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman and Trump critic; her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney; and Jimmy McCain, the son of the late John McCain.
And former President George W. Bush said he would not endorse any candidate in the race, staying on the sidelines instead of supporting his party’s nominee.
A group of 10 retired senior U.S. military officials also endorsed Harris, writing in a letter that she is the only presidential candidate fit to serve as the nation’s commander in chief.
They called Trump “a danger to our national security and our democracy.”
Harris has spent most of the past five days in “debate camp” at a hotel in Pittsburgh. On Monday night, she will head to Philadelphia. Trump is scheduled to arrive there on Tuesday, shortly before the debate begins.
The former president has been preparing for the debate by holding discussions about his policies with aides in sessions at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
She also invited Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard, when she ran for president on the Democratic side in 2020, made Harris nervous in the primary debates.
Trump has also been sitting on stage to spin things after the debate, arguing that the debate is “rigged” against him.
At rallies and social media posts, Trump has criticized ABC News, which is hosting the debate, for being biased against him.
“ABC is the worst network in terms of impartiality,” he told Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall recently. “They’re very nasty.”
He accused the network, without providing evidence, of giving Harris the questions in advance.
“Do you think ABC will give Kamala all the questions beforehand? We already know her liberal media cronies would do ANYTHING to keep her from being embarrassed like Biden was!” Trump said at a fundraiser.
Donald Trump has been preparing for the debate with aides in sessions at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Tuesday’s debate will be the first time Harris and Trump have faced each other. Until now, they have only ever been in the same room together: Harris, as a senator, attended then-President Trump’s State of the Union addresses in the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill.
The event will air at 9 p.m. ET for 90 minutes from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate the debate, and it will air on multiple platforms.
There will be no live audience for the debate.
There is currently no other debate scheduled between the two contenders, although NBC News has offered to hold one on September 25.
Following the debate, Harris will join President Biden in New York, Shanksville and the Pentagon on Wednesday to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
He will campaign in North Carolina on Thursday and in Pennsylvania on Friday.
The Trump campaign has not released a post-debate schedule.