Hillary Clinton has some advice for Kamala Harris in advance of Tuesday night’s ABC presidential debate with Donald Trump. “I talked with her about a number of things,” Clinton told the New York Times. “She just should not be baited. She should bait him. He can be rattled. He doesn’t know how to respond to substantive, direct attacks.”
“And I think that from her prosecutorial background, I think that’s what she will be equipped to do. I mean, when I said he was a Russian puppet and he just sputtered onstage, I think that’s an example of how you get out a fact about him that really unnerves him.”
Clinton knows of what she speaks—having debated Trump in 2016 when she was standing for the presidency; at one debate observers noted how he had menacingly prowled behind her as she spoke.
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“She’s proven to be a good debater, both in her races in California and in her debate with Mike Pence,” Clinton said of Harris’ past performances. “So I think she needs to be prepared enough that she feels really comfortable going on both offense and defense against Trump, because there’s a lot to cover with him.”
“He doesn’t answer the questions,” Clinton said of Trump. “He doesn’t come with any specifics. It appears from the reporting that he is going with a scorched-earth approach and will just try to tear her down, which is his usual go-to strategy.”
“The more that he can be exposed onstage—he’s not a strong leader,” Clinton added. “He’s not a stable leader. The more that can be exposed, the more people will have doubts about him. And that’s really what this debate is meant to do, because the people already locked in to supporting either her or him are unlikely to change.
“But there still is enough potential movement in the key states where people can be persuaded that they don’t want to sign on for another four years of him.”
