CNN
—
Donald Trump has geared up for his debate with Kamala Harris with some extreme stances that threaten to contradict the vice president’s claims that he is a “clumsy man” and poses a “very serious” threat if he returns to the White House.
Trump has threatened to jail election officials he believes cheated, accused Pennsylvania of voting fraud, vowed to pardon the January 6 rioters and slammed women who have accused him of sexual misconduct, all while going on hours-long, sometimes incoherent rants in recent days that have raised questions about his own mental state.
But new polls ahead of Tuesday’s showdown in Philadelphia suggest the race is close nationally and that Harris, running on behalf of President Joe Biden, has not given her a commanding lead.
The close race shows both the enduring support Trump has among tens of millions of Americans as he seeks to return to politics and the enormous challenge facing Harris as she tries to salvage an election that Democrats were expected to lose before Biden withdrew.
That makes Tuesday’s debate the first since the critical clash on CNN in June that ultimately ended Biden’s campaign, and the most important scheduled event before Election Day.
The candidates’ preparations highlight the different paths Americans can choose in November and the stark differences in the style of the presidency that could result if either Harris or Trump sits in the Oval Office.
Harris has been holed up in Pittsburgh with her staff, honing her skills for the challenge of a debate with Trump. Her choice of Pennsylvania as the place to prepare underscores the importance of the state, which she will almost certainly need to win the presidential election. A source told CNN that Harris’ advisers are considering how she would handle the rule that requires candidates to mute their microphones while their rivals are speaking. Harris had sought to subvert the rule, hoping to use her skills as a former prosecutor to rebuke Trump in real time. But “I’m ready,” Harris told reporters on Sunday as she strolled through the Steel City with her husband, 2nd Vice President Doug Emhoff.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reflected on the challenge Harris faces as she tries to tackle a sometimes erratic force of nature like Trump while capturing a public’s interest in learning more about her. “Taking on Donald Trump on a debate stage requires superhuman focus and discipline,” Buttigieg said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s a monumental proposition, and it’s not just because Donald Trump is a master of explaining policy ideas and how they will make people’s lives better, it’s because he’s a master of turning any form or format that airs on television into a show about himself.”
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday found that 28% of voters said they needed to know more about Harris, compared with just 9% who said the same about her rival, suggesting the vice president has room to grow. But she is also under pressure to provide a more precise explanation for her policy shifts on issues like immigration and fracking than she did in the awkward interviews she gave early in her vice presidency. And her unwillingness to give interviews to major media outlets, except for one with CNN last month, means a candidate who has sometimes struggled to make a coherent case in high-pressure, spontaneous situations is coming into the debates with less recent political conflict.
Trump’s Republican allies have for days pleaded with him to dig into issues like the economy, immigration and national security and to avoid the petulant attitude that would contradict Harris’ argument that it’s time for the country to move on from the bitterness and turmoil that she has inspired with many voters. The GOP theory is that Harris is ill-suited to act as an agent of political change as a leading member of an unpopular administration.
But Trump’s demeanor during the debate speaks to fears that he will undermine a stark contrast that Sen. Tom Cotton made to Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “People remember when Donald Trump was president, prices were low, wages were high, there was peace and stability around the world,” the Arkansas Republican said Sunday. He added, “Vice President Kamala Harris has delivered record-high inflation. Our southern border is wide open, and there are wars everywhere you go in the world.”
But Trump has shown no signs of restraining himself in recent days.
In the most ominous development, the former president used his Truth Social network on Saturday to slam the “fraud and misdeeds” committed by Democrats in 2020, then turned to the 2024 election, warning that “if I win, those who cheat will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including long prison sentences, so this corruption of justice will never happen again.” He blasted “lawyers, political activists, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials,” saying they “will be prosecuted at a level never before seen in our country, unfortunately.”
There is no evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Several of Trump’s lawsuits have been dismissed by judges, and even his own Attorney General, William Barr, has said there was no widespread voter fraud. The fact that the former president tried to steal the last election makes his warning against officials who do not share his views on the integrity of this one even more troubling, and bodes ill for the period after the November election if Trump loses.
Trump’s warning also represents the outcome of his successful legal maneuver to postpone federal and Georgia accountability for election interference until the next election. If he regains power, he will almost certainly use his restored executive powers and new legal maneuvers to try to dismiss Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lawsuit in District Court in Washington, D.C., and block the Georgia lawsuit from going to trial.
In another Truth Social post, Trump featured an interview with Tucker Carlson in which he claimed, without evidence, that 20% of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania were “fraudulent.” This isn’t the first time the former president has appeared to prepare grounds for a challenge to the 2024 election if he loses.
Trump’s debate preparations are the most unconventional of any modern presidential candidate.
In other public remarks in recent days, the former president has displayed a rougher side to his personality in stream-of-consciousness speeches that have delighted many supporters but also raised questions about whether he possesses the discipline and clarity of thought traditionally associated with the presidency.
In a rare on-camera appearance in New York on Friday, Trump offered a detailed and unequivocal assessment of the women’s allegations of misconduct, part of a broader set of claims that he is the innocent victim of a weaponized judiciary. His allegations seem unlikely to boost his approval rating among female voters, who are trailing Harris by 11 points, according to a New York Times Siena poll.
At a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, Trump embarked on often confusing asides (about Al Capone and Hannibal Lecter, for example) and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “chess player.” He promised that he was the only thing standing between the American people and World War III. And he promised to pardon those convicted and imprisoned “by the Harris Administration” for trying to overturn the January 6, 2021 election, a measure that short-circuits the justice system and legal accountability for crimes. In a self-indulgent asides, he hailed one of his own speeches as the most “masterful” since Franklin Roosevelt. His appearance was full of hyperbole and distortion, but his conspiracy theories and falsehoods come so frequently that they often escape scrutiny because of their volume.
At one point, Trump mistakenly referred to SpaceX and Tesla pioneer Elon Musk as “Leon.” When Biden makes such gaffes, Trump and his allies frequently claim the president’s intellectual acuity is in doubt. But the 78-year-old Trump’s unrestrained public appearances and apparent belief in fantasies and unproven facts also raise questions about his competency as commander in chief and the threat he poses to constitutional democracy. But his grip on the Republican Party means he purges the party of anyone who might voice such concerns, such as former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who endorsed Harris last week, as did her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Trump’s growing ties with Musk also bode well for a second term. Trump’s promise to put Musk in charge of cutting government regulation means the world’s richest man has a chance to rewrite federal rules and safeguards at a time when his businesses have huge interests that could be subject to government influence. That would go far beyond the conflict-of-interest controversies the Republican candidate faced in his first term.
Despite new evidence of Trump’s volatile nature and Harris’ success in outperforming Biden in the race so far, the latest polls show no clear lead between the two. In the latest CNN polls, which include surveys conducted from August 23 to September 6, Harris has an average approval rating of 49% compared to Trump’s 47%. This new average is little changed from before the Democratic National Convention; in polls conducted from August 1 to 16, Harris’s approval rating averaged 50% compared to Trump’s 48%.