The challenge is getting the former president to stick to the script.
Tuesday’s debate may be former President Donald Trump’s best chance to regain his footing in the presidential race.
But it’s an opportunity some Republicans fear he could blow — particularly if Trump gets personal with Vice President Kamala Harris. Prominent GOP officials and his own advisers have urged Trump for weeks to keep the focus on critiquing her policy record, but the former president continues to signal that he’s not interested in backing down from personal attacks.
“I assume she’ll come in very, very aggressive, and she will try to bait him, getting very angry, and she’ll be personal and try to demean him,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “I think, I hope, what he’ll do is be a guy who’s been a real president — while she has been kind of a semi-vice president — and a guy who knows all the world leaders, and a guy who has been through an enormous amount, and just be calm and steady and stick to the real differences.”
For allies of the famously unscripted and bombastic former president, that’s a hope that has some literally invoking a higher power.
“I think — I pray — he can be disciplined,” said Tricia McLaughlin, one of several Republican strategists who voiced concerns about Trump’s ability to keep from personal attacks.
But, she admitted, that may not be the case. “If Trump feels like he’s backed into a corner and feels like it’s three on one, that could be a problem,” McLaughlin said, pointing out that Trump could lash out if he feels ganged-up on by Harris and the debate’s moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC.
McLaughlin, who was a senior adviser on Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign, has reason to be unsure how Trump will react. Trump has already sought to cast doubt on ABC’s impartiality, calling the network “dishonest” and the “worst network in terms of fairness.”
And he does not appear to share allies’ concerns about refraining from personal insults. When Trump recently was urged by podcaster Lex Fridman to talk about “a positive vision of the future versus criticizing the other side,” the former president seemed to disagree.
“Yeah, I think you have to criticize though,” Trump said in the episode released Tuesday. “I think they’re nasty.”
Previously, Trump has said he is “entitled to personal attacks” on Harris, after he was widely criticized for questioning her racial identity.
It’s a strategy Republicans in recent days have been warning Trump against. Earlier this week, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “Every day that the candidates trade insults is a good day for [Harris] because it’s one less day that she has to defend the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.”
“Far more worthwhile for Mr. Trump is his record of success,” Graham continued. “The road to the White House runs through a vigorous policy debate, not an exchange of barbs.”
Rep. Don Bacon, the Nebraska Republican who represents a potentially critical Electoral College district in Omaha, told CNN that Trump talking about “DEI, race, coming up with nicknames — that doesn’t play well in this district. They want to talk about the issues. This is an issue district.”
Those assisting Trump with debate preparation include Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), and Trump’s advisers Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles and Jason Miller, according to a Trump ally.
A Trump campaign official, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the former president, as he did before the June debate, is working with senior staff and allies to determine how to best portray a contrast with Harris during the debate. But the official suggested preparations are minimal. Trump is “simply reviewing policy specifics” that he believes voters will most care about, the official said, in order to contrast his time in office to “Kamala Harris’ four years as co-pilot.”
