Preparing for his debate with US Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump has roped in former Democratic congresswoman and Hindu-American leader Tulsi Gabbard to amp up his attacks, The New York Times reported, citing two people familiar with Trump’s schedule.
She joined Trump in his practice sessions at his private club and home, Mar-a-Lago.
Trump and Indian-origin leader Harris will face each other in the ABC News debate on September 10.
Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party after the 2020 presidential race and established herself as a celebrity among Trump’s supporters, has long been friendly with Trump and was for some time speculated to be his running mate.
Gabbard’s involvement in Trump’s debate preparation was in part due to her own performance in the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, when Gabbard blew away Harris in a memorable onstage encounter.
Trump spokeswoman Caroline Levitt confirmed Gabbard’s involvement in an email, the NYT reports.
Levitt said the former president “has proven to be one of the best debaters in political history, as evidenced by his crushing defeat of Joe Biden. He won’t need traditional debate preparation, but he will continue to draw on respected policy advisers and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage in 2020.”
Though Trump says he “doesn’t need” to prepare for debates, the former president has spent more time practicing for debates this year than he did in 2016 or 2020, The New York Times reported, citing advisers working with him.
He still doesn’t do traditional debate preparation. No one has played Mr Biden in his sessions ahead of the June 27 debate on CNN.
Before his CNN debate with Biden in June, Trump sat down with advisers either intermittently or informally on plane trips to discuss potential topics and answers to questions. In the more formal sessions at Mar-a-Lago, his aides sit in chairs across from him, playing the role of moderator.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz asked particularly aggressive questions, according to a person in the room. Other lawmakers, including his future running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have also spent time with Trump on policy topics.
Biden’s stilted and inconsistent performance in the June debate with Trump eventually led to his dropping out of the race. Trump’s aides are expected to handle preparations for his September 10 debate with Harris in a similar fashion, reports NYT.
In particular, Gabbard brings some key qualities to the role for Trump: she’s a woman, at a time when Trump is facing a woman as his general election opponent for the second time; she’s a former House member, giving her policy experience; and, perhaps most importantly for Trump, she’s been on a debate stage with Harris and launched a scathing attack on his record as a prosecutor, The New York Times reported.
However, all of Gabbard’s attacks on Harris in the July 2019 debate came from the left.
He alleged that while Harris was district attorney in San Francisco, she “put more than 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed when asked if she had ever used marijuana.”
He also accused Harris of withholding evidence that could have helped spare an innocent man from the death penalty, and that he did so only when the court “compelled him to do so.”
Harris, on the other hand, responded that she was “proud of having decided to not just give a fancy speech, or go into a legislative body and deliver a speech on the floor, but to actually get things done.”
After the debate, Harris mocked Gabbard’s low standing in the polls. Eventually, Harris withdrew from the race in December 2019, and Gabbard did the same a few months later, in March 2020.
