Keep calm and get under his skin: How Harris is preparing for her first Trump debate

Vice President Kamala Harris has been diligently preparing for the debate stage for months — first by gearing up to face the Republican vice presidential nominee and now, over the past several weeks, to debate former President Donald Trump, according to four sources familiar with the Democratic nominee's preparations.

The prep sessions have been sandwiched between campaign stops, official duties as vice president and preparation for her first joint interview with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, that aired Thursday night on CNN, the sources said.

Among Harris' chief aims, the sources said, are to avoid being pulled into Trump’s personal attacks by remaining calm and focused on talking about how her presidency would help everyday Americans.

Harris also aims to showcase what her campaign has characterized as Trump’s lies, failures and broken promises during his time in office and to distinguish the administration that Harris intends to lead from that of President Joe Biden, while building on his legacy.

As of Thursday night, however, there’s still no agreement between the Trump and Harris camps on the rules for the Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News.

Getting under Trump’s skin

One source told NBC News that while Harris’ team is preparing to talk about a range of topics, the campaign is very much viewing the optics of the debate as critically important. To that end, the source said Harris and her team are focusing on homing in on how to needle Trump in an attempt to rattle him.

In that sense, the source said, it’s going to be less about substance and more about showcasing Harris as a woman who is not scared, not going to cower, and who is standing up to Trump and holding him accountable.

Her campaign is also hoping to “remind people of what it was like during Donald Trump’s years,” the source said.

That strategy includes Harris potentially bringing up issues like: Trump failing to get Mexico to pay for the southern border wall; his response to the Covid pandemic; his failure to come up with an alternative healthcare plan after trying to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act; and his inability to pass the kind of sweeping infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law. Harris can also be expected to hammer Trump on the critical role he played in pushing Republicans to back out of a bipartisan border bill that would address many of the issues he uses to attack Democrats.

Another source said the Harris team is planning to emphasize what they view as Trump’s advanced age and lack of details on policy proposals.

“If you listen to the first debate without Joe Biden in it, that was the second worst debate performance in the history of presidential debates. It just got overshadowed because Joe Biden’s was that terrible,” the source said.

The source added that while Harris is a “real person” who gets angry and emotional, the goal is for her to remain calm no matter how personal the attack.

Tension over how to differentiate from Biden

Drawing a distinction between Harris and Biden is a source of tension as some on Harris’ team are taking the approach that she may have to respectfully but forcefully lay blame for some problems like the Afghanistan withdrawal squarely at the president's feet.

One source said the 2021 withdrawal is seen as an “obvious vulnerability” that Harris is preparing how to tackle.

“They are trying to figure out how to create some space between her and some of his decisions,” the source said. “There’s a way to say it like, ‘I’m the vice president, I work at the behest and the direction of the president.’ She wants to figure out how to strategically answer those questions without creating problems for Biden...But there are some on the team that don’t really care about causing problems for Biden.”

Avoiding a Tulsi Gabbard moment

Harris and her team are most focused on avoiding a moment from a Democratic presidential primary debate in July 2019 when now-former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii launched a lengthy attack on Harris’ prosecutorial record.

Gabbard at one point accused Harris of jailing more than 1,500 people for marijuana violations, adding that Harris "laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” in a jab that elicited applause from the audience.

Harris and her team were unprepared for the attack and now are working on ways to ensure she can quickly pivot in the face of a similar approach by Trump.

“She was rattled. She was on the ropes. And she didn’t have a home or a value proposition to get out of it,” one source said of Harris. “She recovered. She bounced back and had a good debate against Mike Pence. But it’s a moment that’s firm in Harris’ mind.”

Gabbard recently endorsed Trump and is working with him to prepare for a debate with Harris.

Mock debates soon with a very small circle

Harris is keeping a very small team of people directly involved in the debate preparations, including her brother-in-law Tony West; longtime aide Rohini Kosoglu; Brian Nelson, a senior adviser for policy for the campaign; and Josh Hsu, who was Harris’ chief legal adviser in the White House.

Most of the preparations so far have provided Harris with briefing books on a variety of topics and going through question-and-answer sessions.

The four sources believe Harris will have full mock debates after her travel in Georgia and her Labor Day travel push.

NBC News previously reported that the Harris team tapped longtime Democratic strategist Philippe Reines to play Trump, reprising the role he took opposite former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump's approach to the September debate

Trump's national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that the former president didn't need traditional debate preparation.

"President Trump has proven to be one of the best debaters in political history as evidenced by his knockout blow to Joe Biden," she said in a statement. "He does not need traditional debate prep because unlike Kamala Harris, he has a command of the issues, frequently sits down for interviews, and takes questions from hostile news media almost every day.”

Earlier this week, Trump suggested that he may back out of the debate, arguing that ABC News treated Republicans unfairly. The Harris campaign has pressed the issue of using live microphones, which Trump initially expressed indifference toward, but that his campaign has opposed.

Brian Fallon, a Harris campaign spokesman, wrote Thursday in a post on X that the campaign was asked to go along with the muted mic request from Trump's team, contending, "his handlers don’t trust him to spar live with VP Harris."