Donald Trump should be afraid, very afraid, to debate Kamala Harris

It’s easy to find examples of vacuous, deceptively thoughtful responses that border on the cartoonish from Vice President Kamala Harris, and it’s easy to conclude that this rhetorical mishmash is what has put off meetings with serious journalists, because she is not agile in unscripted situations or at ease with the necessary data. If anything, those are the Republicans’ arguments.

But that assessment ignores her performance in a 2020 debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence. Remember that? It was a high-stakes encounter as risky as any interview with any media heavyweight, and she did well. Better than well, in fact. Several post-debate polls, including one posted by 538 and another by CNN, concluded that Harris had won. It is true that Pence was facing A fly’s decision to land on her head, but still. He had been on the national political scene longer than she had, and she did not hesitate.

Ben Hickey

So Donald Trump’s recent complaints and threats to pull out of the debate scheduled for ABC News on September 10 make perfect sense. He should be hesitant. In fact, he should be afraid.

For all his absurd boasts about his past debate performances, many of them have been laughable: a combination of childish mockery, unparalleled lies, complaints, outbursts, contempt and gloating. Remember those cartoonish dances football players do when they’ve reached the end zone in the fourth quarter of a close game? That’s Trump at the debate stand, only he hasn’t scored a single point. touchdown. He hasn’t even moved the ball a millimetre.

I’m referring to his antics with his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, in three encounters with Hillary Clinton in that year’s general election and in two with Joe Biden in the 2020 general election. (He skipped the 2024 Republican primary debates, wisely, given his lead over the other contenders.)

Now imagine Trump against Harris. Imagine him being offended and angry that he didn’t have a bigger lectern, a higher podium and a more glittering invitation than a black woman.

Actually, there’s no need to imagine. His insistence that Harris is making up the number of people who attend his events, which It’s not really blackthat he is more handsome than her and that she deposed Biden in some kind of coup—is that being projected, perhaps?—tells you everything you need to know. So does the fact that mispronounce your namethe phonetic equivalent of throwing a tantrum. All of which confirms that Harris gets on his nerves in a particular and powerful way.

Which gives her an advantage in the debate, assuming Harris can maintain the discipline and poise she has so far demonstrated during her whirlwind presidential campaign. The more Harris remains calm, the more he will lose it. Both Trump and his advisers know this: That’s why Harris’s team has pushed for each candidate’s microphone to remain unmuted when the other is speaking, and Trump’s team has pushed for the opposite. Everyone involved (except perhaps Trump) recognizes how explosive it is; it’s just that one side wants to light a match while the other reaches for a fire extinguisher.

Harris will be taking on Trump at the perfect time—for her—because he sometimes seems to be on fire. Of course, he’s making blunders and strange decisions. You don’t win the news cycle by inventing helicopter rides and secret conversations that never happened, and you don’t escape the “weird” label by making alliances with him. animal corpse fetishist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who would apparently be part of any Trump transition team along with… Tulsi Gabbard, The former congresswoman who loves autocrats. Trump, Kennedy, Gabbard: it’s a dinner party in hell. And, given the frequent mentions of Trump a Hannibal Lectercould be another guest.

Trump was able to breathe a sigh of relief after his June debate against Biden, whose startling volatility overshadowed Trump’s brazen dishonesty. But he is unlikely to be so lucky again. Harris may well offer inadequate or unconvincing explanations for her many shifts in position, retreating into the comfort of fuzzy issues. During the 2019 Democratic primary debates, she had strong moments and weak ones, and by early 2020, before the Iowa Caucuses, she was out of the race.

But none of his recent appearances predict a performance as confusing as Biden’s two months ago. And they predict a more presidential bearing than Trump’s.

These are very limited expectations, admittedly. But that is my point. Trump did not benefit against Clinton in 2016 or against Biden and 2020Why would he fare better against Harris? She has vulnerabilities and flaws that a focused, fierce polemicist could exploit, but Trump has never been such a polemicist, and it’s impossible to believe he’ll morph into one now. He’s older. He’s meaner, to the extent that’s possible. He’s angrier (ditto).

And he is snarling his way to humiliation. It will be a fascinating moment in an election year that will not be short of such moments.

Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, author of the book The Age of Grievance and writer of the Opinion section. He writes a weekly newsletter.