The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debate’s rules.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are veering sharply in how they gear up for Tuesday’s presidential debate, setting up a showdown that reflects not just two separate visions for the country but two politicians who approach big moments very differently.
The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debate’s rules. She’s been working with aides since Thursday and chose a venue that allows the Democratic nominee the option of mingling with swing-state voters.
Trump, the Republican nominee, publicly dismisses the value of studying for the debate. The former president is choosing instead to fill his days with campaign-related events on the premise that he’ll know what he needs to do once he steps on the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
“You can go in with all the strategy you want but you have to sort of feel it out as the debate’s taking place,” he said during a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Trump then quoted former boxing great Mike Tyson, who said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Kamala Harris will be spending a great deal of time both studying policy and practicing with seasoned opponents and people with a deep understanding of Trump's psychology.
Kind of ironic that Donnie uses that particular Mike Tyson quote because he’s a whiny little bitch who is afraid of direct confrontation and has only ever punched women.
I think Harris may be neglecting a key part of necessary prep. She should spend some time at the zoo outside the monkey enclosure dodging their flung shit, or I fear she might lose.
Yeah kinda special case there though I think. But of course they matter to an extent. I think there’s trumps strong hardcore nutter fans who would rather have Putin govern them than Biden or Kamala (actually heard one of them say this on a YT video about Biden).
These people won’t be swayed away from him by anything, therefore debate is irrelevant for them.
Then there are also hardcore anti trump people, the only sensible position to have, frankly. That would be the category I fall into but I’m not American so irrelevant for me lol.
But yeah, for those people, whatever percentage that is the debate doesn’t really matter either.
Then there are some people who are hardcore republicans. Really don’t like Dems but also do kind care about trump being cray cray and maybe cancelling all future elections if he gets in. So these people might be swayed I guess? I dunno. As I’ve wrote this out, I’ve actually more or less come to the conclusion that there really shouldn’t be many people who the debate will change their mind on anything.
But there has to be some undecided but it’s a weird position that I can’t really understand so who knows if it will sway those people either way. Some of them I guess. Also the evidence for these charges against Trump are coming out in a week or so I think, whenever that happens, that’s not gonna be good for trump. That’s for sure. How bad it will affect him I can’t really say, but it’s certainty not gonna increase his support.
So I can only imagine it will thankfully DECREASE IT. Overall I think Trumps bitten off more than he can chew. With these charges and with him basically alienating half the population (women) over abortion, I’d like to THINK, the Dems have this in the bag. But fucking vote people!
There are a certain subset of people that just vote R because they always have because of where they grew up or how their parents voted or what have you and pay attention to basically fucking nothing but the biggest of headlines. These are the ones he might still be able to lose if he fucks up hard enough, because at this point I suspect a lot of them are not exactly hyped about voting for him anyway and are just coasting on a combination of sunk cost fallacy and a nigh on pathological fear of change.
republicans are going to deludedly believe that kamala bombed this debate no matter what, they will literally believe anything if it suits their narrative.
So as long as kamala has a reasonable performance and gives trump a run for his money that's all that's required, dig into real policy, dig into real statements, don't let him get away with anything, and i think it should pretty much only go well for her at that point.
At this point, as a non american, i just cannot comprehend at all why people would doubt on who to vote. Trump fanatics have made up their mind and will never vote Harris, I get that. If you dont like trump, there's only one other option and that's Harris, right?
But is there really a big group of people that actually STILL need to compare candidates and think "not so fast, that trump guy may have a point". What makes them think he is a sane choice? Are these people that voted biden, are disappointed in his presidency and now think "it was better under trump"?
It's not like European countries where you need to choose between like 10 different parties. If you dont like trump, you vote harris; simple as that, right? (Obviously not, so I really want to understand the dynamic in play here)
Anyone with sense was saying Biden needed to step down before the debate. It was plain as day to everyone except the Democratic strategists, and, well, Lemmy.
I don’t think that’s the case at all regarding Lemmy.
I think Lemmy Dems vastly agreed that Biden was not the choice they would have preferred, however he was not a bad president and had some really good policy gains (and definitely some fails). Even if people were sick of old white men being President, they would vote for Biden because he was still a damn sight better than trump. Him stepping down was not really on the table because the only people beating that drum were the “genocide Joe” crowd who were just as critical of democrats in general.
I wasn’t in favour of him stepping down. And all the polls at the time showed Harris as being less popular so it just didn’t make sense.
After that debate I was still not really in favour of him stepping down from a pure just looking at the numbers stance that I’m sure still showed him as being more popular than her.
However when he called Zelensky, Putin, I knew the game was up. It was clear that he literally couldn’t function even when he wasn’t in a pressurised debate.
I don’t think it was obvious that there was a chance that Harris was going to be more popular than him until before that point really. Even then you couldn’t say for sure.
But it was obvious he just wasn’t going to make it to the election. You can’t mix up Zelensky and Putin and just carry on after that. I really think that was a much lower low than the debate.
The Democrats fucked up by not replacing Biden from the beginning, that was the time when it made sense to get rid of him. I was fully in favour of it at that point.
To change your candidate THIS close to the election of course seemed like an insane idea. The choice just got taken away in the end and he just had to go.
Thankfully it’s worked out really well but it’s easy to say that we should have changed him straight after or before that debate. The choice was not as obvious as you are making it out to be beforehand.
Because the dem voters weren’t obsessed with Biden like the reps are obsessed with Trump. Everyone wanted whoever would be the best candidate to beat Trump. Literally no one gave a shit whether it was Biden or not, he just looked like the best choice until very late on.
Not everyone with sense. The question was if Harris is electable, if the dems would rally behind her instead of infighting, and if there was enough time to spin up a campaign. Biden was previously electable, had the majority of dems supporting him, and didn't need to spin up a campaign.
Now, in hindsight, Kamala was the right choice. She's been great and people have responded well. But that was by no means a sure thing
I hope Harris doesn’t over prepare, she does need to maintain a certain level of off the cuff affability.
Over preparation was Biden’s fatal error, he was struggling so hard to hit his talking points he couldn’t keep things straight. Obviously things are vastly different with Harris, but she’d be best to not just be a talking point machine.
That's the main reason I gave up on watching political debates years ago, because nothing ever gets directly answered. It's all fillers and boasting about past hurrahs and talking points.
If they just answered the fucking questions I'd be happy.
But with the switch from "when they go low,..." to "fuck it, we can hut below the belt even better", I gotta admit I am quite interested to see how she will handle a formal debate: Hammer phrases like everyone before or hitting hard and agile.
Idk, somehow I feel we might see something refreshing this time.
well one advantage she has is that she's not legally dead.
also she seems to actually study things to understand them, not to parrot them by heart. being a prosecutor she probably knows how to study things and make cases.
What she needs to be doing is trumping all over Trump. Like farting all over his face. No cancel that. Not farting. She needs to be consistently SHARTING all over his face, all over his whiskers and in his mouth.
Yessss… yessss.
Side note: fuck Shapiro that guys a fucking sellout like I’ve never liked the guy at all. Obviously. And I’ve never really thought he was actually principled. But like he has always tried to act like he’s super rational and it just makes no sense that he could still be supporting someone who blatantly tried to steal the election to stop the transfer of power.
His excuses to justify still supporting Trump make me sick and he also needs a caking of shart IMO.
You know. That's actually an interesting hypothetical. How does the Secret Service react if two people with Secret Service protection try to fight each other? I imagine they would first protect whoever has the most seniority, as in the current serving president, then current vice president, etc. But what if say, two former presidents try to duke it out?
Or can the president waive Secret Service protection? Since the president has broad immunity for 'official acts', does this mean the president can now duel someone on the White House Lawn at dawn?
I know you're supposed to confirm things for yourself but I'm very sensitive to audio and sounds have a tendency to stick in my brain. I'll take your word on that so that I don't have to stick my head in a blender later tonight.
Well yeah. Because Trump’s strategy will just be to talk about all the shit he already talks about, regardless of the question. If he does actually try to answer the question he will likely just waffle, call things fake news, call Kamala a communist, shit like that.
Kamala will have a normal strategy of actually answering the questions like literally any other politician would in any other debate. Hopefully she can also shut down Trump with a few simple similar to “he’s weird” comments, because even though it’s a shame that they work, they do actually work for just dismissing his bullshit and are simple to understand for the simple minded.
As I say, it’s a shame so many people are apparently that simple, that stuff like “make America great again” and “fake news, that’s just fake news” actually work: but they do work for persuading certain simple minded people who the Democrats need votes from.
It’s kinda how the whole “when they go low we go high” thing doesn’t actually work as a complete strategy.
Yes she needs to be making coherent, actual points as well. But having the odd simple put down and knowing when something Trump has said is so insane, that it actually doesn’t deserve a proper answer, but simply a dismissal is important.
Otherwise you end up being on the defensive constantly and run out of time to actually make your own coherent points.
The sad part is his base won't care how stupid he looks and how great she does. They're beyond reasoning. I do look forward to our future President kicking the shit out of him at the debate though.
I'm convinced anyone who claims they're undecided is just being polite to the pollster instead of telling them "none of your business". Or "undecided" is some statistical construct based on the last 70 years of data. Or, someone who hasn't been paying attention and doesn't want to admit to their own apathy.
The idea that someone has thoroughly weighed the offerings and is still waiting for more information to make a decision is utter fucking nonsense.
Back in 2004 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney said that if you couldn't decide between George Bush and John Kerry in five minutes you were too stupid to have a vote.
edit = I had 2000 not 2004. credit wreel for noting it
I was going to say the real mystery is how anyone could vote for the racist, but then yeah, that's why they're voting for him. We have a lot of shitty people in this country, but then again, the world is full of shitty people.
Ive had so many arguments with my mother where she just can't wrap her mind around the fact that someone might not want american citizenship. She always says the dumbest phrase too: "american citizenship is worth too much money to pass up".
Right, cause I'd love to pay the US taxes when I don't even live in the country.
Trump will ramble nonstop, hot mic rule will prevent them from moderating him (as if they would) and Harris will look bad because she has to endure his ramblings because getting into a shouting match will look worse.
If that means they were going to have them muted then yeah that’s what I understand. That they will be muted just like with the Biden one.
That was what was reported on bbc news well I think they actually said “likely” about their mics being muted so actually it wasn’t conclusive. I know Harris didn’t want them muted.
I agree with her wanting them unmuted, I think that will benefit her. She’s very quick on her feet from clips they showed of her (I literally hadn’t seen her speak until today, so I’m only going by a few clips they showed of her in debates and in congress).
She will be quick. Trump will be senile and slow and she can quickly shut him down while also letting him ramble just enough to show he’s senile.
But Trumps side wants them muted, clearly knowing it will be better for Trump that way. Especially if Trump needs to shart again. He will be hoping he can hold it in until he mic is muted and it’s Harris’s turn to speak.
Looking forward to the grand American tradition of having candidates accuse each other of doing good things while vehemently denying the other's slanderous accusations that they would ever do anything good.
He gets accused of wanting to deescalate conflicts, pull out of NATO, and generally refusing to uphold the constant state of war that every single US politician wants. The fact that he isn't ideologically invested in stupid pointless conflicts is literally his only positive quality, so of course it's where a lot of criticism gets directed, in order to uphold the grand American tradition. Of course, he's not actually ideologically opposed to stupid pointless wars, so the machinery still gets to run uninterrupted, but he did at least give us an excellent roast of John Bolton, a notorious hawk.
I wish we could ever get offered a candidate who's actually as isolationist as Trump gets accused of being, but unfortunately he's not it. We got rising tensions and a trade war with China, which Biden normalized, and we got pushed to the brink of WWIII with the assassination of Soleimani, which Biden's also following up by supporting Israel's antics. Voters will never be given any sort of choice or input about such matters, and Trump is no exception, despite what people say.