Vice President Kamala Harris expressed her expectation that former President Donald Trump will likely resort to dishonesty during the upcoming Tuesday debate, and anticipates that he will target her based on her racial and gender identity.
In an interview on “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show,” released Monday, Harris stated that she is bracing for Trump to spread “a lot of untruths” and engage in personal attacks, referencing the “worn-out playbook” of tactics he has consistently used against her and others throughout his political career.
“There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go and — and we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth, and we should be prepared for the fact that he’s probably going to speak a lot of untruths,” she said.
Harris specifically pointed to Trump’s past attacks on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, suggesting that he might similarly target her identity as a Black woman during the debate.
“I think he’s gonna lie, and, you know, he has a playbook that he has used in the past, be it, you know, his attacks on President Obama or Hillary Clinton. So we should expect that some of that might come out,” she said.
In the interview, recorded last Wednesday during her trip to New Hampshire, Harris expressed her hope to underscore the contrast between herself and Trump, emphasizing that while he “tends to fight for himself,” she is dedicated to advocating on behalf of the voters.
“What I intend to point out is what we, so many people know, and certainly, as I’m traveling the country in this campaign, he tends to fight for himself, not for the American people. And I think that’s going to come out during the course of the debate,” she said.
Since Thursday, Harris has been in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania preparing for the highly contested debate.
Just weeks before, an op-ed penned by MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem shed new light on surveys showing Vice President Kamala Harris is surpassing President Joe Biden in approval ratings.
In a poll conducted by Blueprint, registered voters were evenly split, with 50% believing she would do a better job “bringing down prices” on goods and services and 50% believing Trump would be more effective in this area.
“The upside for Harris is huge: Voters do not hold her accountable for Biden’s perceived failures on inflation, and she can run hard on economic messaging,” Blueprint lead pollster Evan Roth Smith told Semafor.
Harris matching Trump on the issue of inflation might not seem like a big win, but it actually is, Aleem writes. He added that numerous polls have indicated that Biden has been perceived as weak against Trump on economic issues, particularly inflation. Despite the fact that inflation has decreased, wages have risen, and the economy is strong by many measures, including a low unemployment rate, Biden struggled to regain voter trust on economic matters. It appears that, for some voters, the memory of high inflation earlier in Biden’s term has lingered and is difficult to shake off, especially with housing inflation remaining high.
