Kamala Harris’ camp is trolling Donald Trump by bringing his former White House aides to Tuesday’s historic debate to speak out against him.
Harris' surrogates include Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as the former president’s communications director, and Olivia Troye, a Trump White House national security adviser.
The pair will appear in Philadelphia for the 90-minute, high-stakes showdown between Trump and Harris, and will appear for a press availability before the ABC News debate gets underway at 9 p.m. ET.
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The invitation is part of Democrats’ larger effort to needle Trump relentlessly on debate day. That push includes billboards reminding voters of his disdain for the host city and mocking his obsession with crowd sizes, a theme the campaign also harped on in a new ad featuring President Barack Obama.
“Take it from the ones who know Donald Trump the best and who are telling the American people exactly how unfit Trump is to serve as president,” Harris-Walz communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
The campaign is counting on surrogates like the former Trump staffers to serve as some of the most effective messengers for their attacks on him, namely, that he is a self-centered laughingstock.
“They saw firsthand the abject failure of Donald Trump’s presidency: the way in which he constantly put himself above the American people, the ease with which he dismissed the rule of law, the embarrassment that he brought to the entire Republican Party,” Tyler said.
Scaramucci and Troye are the first guests announced by the campaign, signaling the emphasis Harris is putting on winning over former Trump supporters and other so-called "Republicans for Harris."
In a release touting their appearances, a Harris campaign official highlighted the endorsements Harris has received from high-level Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, the former congresswoman, Liz Cheney, who risked her political career to prosecute Trump for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
The campaign is also running an ad on Fox News that features other members of the Trump administration, like former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, trashing their old boss.
