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00:00The stage is set, and we're less than an hour away from Trump and Harris taking the stage
00:06for their first and probably only presidential debate, and you can watch it here on Fox.
00:12The two candidates will duke it out for 90 minutes, no opening statements, no cheat sheets,
00:17no audience, two commercial breaks, and the mics will be muted when the other one's talking.
00:22The podiums will be different sizes.
00:27Standing behind a shorter podium, a Trump official says it looks like the kids' table
00:31at Thanksgiving. This is the former president's seventh presidential debate, but for Harris,
00:36it'll be her first, and she's under tremendous pressure. Trump's the betting favorite to win
00:42the election, and for the first time since Biden dropped out, Kalama will be all alone,
00:47no running mate, no teleprompters, against an unpredictable former president and veteran TV star
00:54who she's never been in the same room with. With two months until the election,
00:59this is Kamala's one shot to make it happen, and we're hearing she's nervous. She spent the last
01:05week cramming at debate camp, buried inside of briefing books with her counselors feeding her
01:10zingers, but Trump isn't underestimating her. His campaign tells Primetime that the former
01:16president has been training like Rocky. He's totally dialed in, more focused than ever,
01:21and is walking in tonight calm, cool, and collected. The goal for Trump is to make
01:26Harris defend her record, tie her to Biden, and tag her as the status quo. She's just more of the
01:33same, the same people who ran Biden. They're going to be running her, except she'll be more radical.
01:39Trump will be showcasing Kamala's record to the nation tonight. A senior advisor to the campaign
01:45says she will not be able to escape from it. By the end of the debate,
01:49everybody will know her record. Trump's going to treat Kamala like an equal,
01:55and not treat her any differently just because she's a woman. His aim isn't to attack her,
02:00but her policies, which are dangerously liberal, weak, failed, and extreme. A source tells
02:07Primetime that Kamala's support for taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegals may very well come up
02:13tonight. And don't expect Harris to play nice. She's got nothing to lose. The strategy of both
02:20candidates is to keep the other candidate on defense. Kamala will largely avoid policy and
02:26provoke Trump with carefully crafted sucker punches. And when she's on offense, she's winning.
02:33If she's on defense the whole night, she's toast. And since there won't be any more debates,
02:38she'll be vicious. Don't expect her to take any responsibility. Harris will say all of Biden
02:44administration's failures are Trump's fault. Afghanistan, his fault. Border, his fault.
02:49Inflation, his fault. Biden-Harris had nothing to do with it. And everything good that Biden did,
02:56she'll say, yeah, that was all me. As Trump continues to hammer her over the last four
03:02years, look for Kamala to turn to the camera and say, you maybe think you're debating Joe Biden,
03:07but I'm not Joe Biden. And create distance from her boss and their record.
03:13Now, if Kamala is defined as a Joe Biden Democrat, she loses. Kamala's goal tonight is to persuade
03:21the American people that she represents change and that Trump represents the past. Again,
03:27Trump's got the same strategy. Trump needs to convince the American people to go back to the
03:32future, meaning hire me back and I'll guarantee you a better future. It'll be difficult for
03:40Kamala Harris to claim she represents change, though, when on the eve of this debate,
03:44she was just caught copying and pasting Biden's policies onto her website.
03:49She finally put policies on her website and she plagiarized them from Biden.
03:53That's not change. This is a lady who lied about her past, is secretive, dependent on the machine
04:00and has gone into hiding because she's too insecure to face scrutiny.
04:04And her policies are so progressive that she's unelectable.
04:07But not everybody knows who Kamala is. So she'll chew up talk time this evening,
04:13presenting her biography and avoiding accountability. This debate's completely
04:19unpredictable. We know Kamala is looking to throw a punch, but can she take one?
04:23Can she speak without a script? We know Trump can be presidential,
04:28but also self-destructive. The country knows Trump, but it doesn't know Kamala yet.
04:34And how will ABC moderators be? This is a news broadcast that doesn't give 45 a fair shot
04:41and has promoted Harris with completely positive coverage.
04:44Will moderators be fact checking Trump? We'll see. But tangling with the moderators could help
04:50the former president because no one really likes the media except me. We like to see them
04:55counterpunched. And this would just prove the game's rigged, which Trump can exploit
05:01because he's not just running against Kamala. He's running against the machine behind her.
05:06Donald Trump doesn't have to be your Valentine. No one's asking you to fall in love. He's asking
05:12for another four years. His last four years, he's turned out. His mission is to restore the
05:18American dream, which over the last four years has been pushed out of reach for half the country.
05:24Kamala just has to show the country she can play in the same league as Trump.
05:29Give it as good as she gets it. Embrace Biden while distancing herself from him
05:34and then quickly pivot away from her record to what a future would look like under her.
05:39She has the bigger challenge this evening, and she's going in cold with one interview in over
05:4550 days. And if she doesn't deliver, the Democrats are stuck with her. It's too late for another coup.
05:52Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders joins me now. So it's different, Governor,
05:58because she's a woman. She's not Joe Biden. She's the VP. She doesn't have full control
06:03over the administration. How will Trump face off against Kamala Harris,
06:10which became this new fresh candidate just in like the last month and a half?
06:16You know, Jesse, you made a great point earlier. She's not Joe Biden, but she does still have to
06:22be responsible for all of the failures of this administration. Not only that, she is literally
06:28taking the same page out of his playbook and trying to use it and fool the American people.
06:33But they're too smart to fall for the ridiculousness and think that she is anything
06:37other than a far left radical. In fact, I would go as far as to say she's in the middle of it.
06:45She's infinitely worse than Joe Biden. She is the most radical nominee that the Democrat Party has
06:52ever put up. And the people are way too smart to buy into anything she's going to try to sell
06:57tonight. After today, I will now have done two interviews, which is twice as many as she has done
07:03as the Democrat nominee for president. She cannot, I think, show anything other than failure that
07:10they have been responsible for over the last several years. And Donald Trump is no rookie.
07:16He is somebody who is seasoned. This is his Super Bowl. This is something he is very comfortable
07:22asserting that he undoubtedly will step into prepared because he does interviews all day,
07:28every day. He's not afraid to take tough questions. And he knows that he has a much better
07:33story. And he's right on the policy. She doesn't have any of those things. That's why she's been
07:38hunkered down studying for the last week, trying to prepare for it.
07:43When you were White House press secretary, you were very good at your job.
07:46You never really got frazzled. You kept your composure and you really engaged pretty sometimes
07:53aggressively with these reporters who were very hostile. What does it take to be able to do that?
07:58I know the press briefing room is not the same as a presidential debate, but what does it take?
08:05You know, one of the most important things is that people would ask all the time,
08:09how do you prepare for a briefing? I'd say every day is part of preparation because you're always
08:16learning, you're always taking questions, you're always engaging. She hasn't been doing that the
08:21same way that Donald Trump has. That's why he's going to come in game time ready. That's why she's
08:25had to do this crash course because she is not used to taking hard questions and being held
08:31accountable for anything. I think tonight is the biggest challenge for her is answering hard
08:39questions, something that she does not have experience with on a stage with there's probably
08:44no person on the face of the planet that has more experience taking hard questions. But also,
08:50you have two people with incredibly different records. You have one that has four years
08:56of success, four years of strength to come to the table. And then you have another person who
09:02comes from a total position of weakness and complete an abysmal failure over the last four
09:07years. And so the contrast couldn't be more clear. It's going to be a huge and big night for Donald
09:12Trump. All right. We'll see what happens. Just about how much time left? Fifty minutes.
09:19It's getting close. Governor Sanders, thank you so much.
09:23Let's bring in nationally syndicated radio host Dana Lash and John Roberts, co-anchor of America
09:28Reports. All right, Dana, we're setting the bar low, I think realistically, just because Kamala
09:35Harris has never done a presidential debate. She's been cramming. She's been memorizing a lot
09:40of the policies. They've been training her on what to say. What if she comes out fresh? What if she
09:46comes out and uncorks a few haymakers and performs better than anybody expects? What's next?
09:57I don't believe that's going to happen, Jesse. I really don't because it's Kamala Harris. I mean,
10:02that's kind of her record. Two quick things. And I think that the governor made a really good point
10:06on one of them that Kamala Harris hasn't done a lot of discussion, hasn't done a lot of press
10:09interviews. That's where you kind of hone your skills. If you're a politician, you don't walk
10:14in cold on a debate stage, having never been in front of anybody hostile or anyone that is
10:20opposing you ideologically and have to think on your feet very quickly and have to come up with
10:24very concise answers and speak briefly in a setting like that. She's not used to that because
10:30she's never put herself through the grinder of doing press scrums or press conferences. Trump
10:36has. And I also think that Trump actually does better when he's in a hostile environment. When
10:42he is in a press environment where he's speaking with people that he knows agree with, agree with
10:46him, he relaxes, he kind of goes on, it goes off message. But when he knows that he's speaking to
10:51hostiles, he's very disciplined. He's very concise. And it's a different Trump. And I
10:56think that that's what we're going to see tonight. I think that as long as he doesn't take any bait
11:01and he brings everything back to the economy and the border, she has nowhere to go. And one last
11:05quick point. He needs to make this about Kamala versus Kamala, not Kamala versus Trump, because
11:11she's running against herself. And that's where the real battle is on the left.
11:14John, Dana makes such a good point that this format demands she be concise with her answers.
11:21You have two minutes, sometimes the retorts just a minute. She's not used to that environment.
11:26She's used to kind of friendly things where there's no time limit and she can wander around
11:31and then land somewhere. This is going to demand incredible discipline and for her to just pick up
11:39the speed with which she delivers her message. Have you ever seen her covering her capable of
11:45doing that? I have not. Not in a big debate format. Remember back in 2020, October 6th,
11:51when she debated Mike Pence, the big moments from that debate were when she stopped him after he
11:56interrupted and said, excuse me, Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking. I'm speaking. She's
12:01likely not going to have a chance to do that tonight because of the closed microphones.
12:04The closed microphones may also be a little bit of impulse control for Donald Trump.
12:09Where does he get in trouble in debates with a hot mic where he blurts out something in response to
12:14some of the punch that he's just taken? But if the microphones are closed, he has a beat or two
12:19to think about it before he responds. What'll be interesting to see, and I agree with Dana and the
12:24governor, that, you know, every day you're out there honing your skills. We do it on a day-to-day
12:29basis. If we take a long weekend, you got to retrain us. And for her, it's like being a piano
12:35player or a golfer or a basketball player. If you haven't played piano or golf or basketball in four
12:41years, you still know how to play the game, but you're not going to be hitting birdies. You're
12:45not going to be hitting threes, and you'll probably miss a few notes. Donald Trump, on the other hand,
12:50has been out there playing every day and, you know, getting that real back and forth with taking
12:55a lot of questions from the press as well. It's that thrust and parry that he is used to. She
13:00hasn't had to face that, so she's going to be coming in somewhat rusty, I think, tonight.
13:04Yeah, if you've ever seen The Five after a long weekend, I think everybody knows what
13:09Russ looks like. John, Dana, thank you. Hey, if you've ever seen my show after a long weekend,
13:14same thing. All right. Fox News contributor and chairman of the Harris Poll, Mark Penn,
13:22joins us now. So, Mark, these numbers have tightened. Harris had a nice bounce after she
13:27came in. Now these things like this, the battlegrounds look favorable to Donald Trump.
13:33What has changed and why have things changed on the eve of this probably only debate?
13:42Well, I think both bases of both parties have galvanized around their clients. Our poll,
13:49we're the Harris poll, but not Harris's poll, is 50-50. And if you look at it, I think,
13:57you know, the the atmospherics underneath the poll are good for Trump. Almost two thirds are
14:02unhappy with the economy and the direction of the country. Only 42 percent think Joe Biden
14:08has done a good job. Trump leads on major issues of economy, inflation, crime. But he has not been
14:17able to deliver a knockout punch here against somebody who has risen to really regalvanize,
14:23particularly black voters. Trump is doing very well with Latino voters. And this debate,
14:28it's going to be very interesting to see. Does Harris go out there and say, I want to get those
14:34swing voters and I'm going to seem very statesmanlike and moderate or do I want to rev up
14:38my base, in which case I am just going to swing at Donald Trump? And that's what's so unpredictable.
14:44We have no idea what's going to happen when you debate someone that's fresh, that's new,
14:49that's a female. If you're Donald Trump, do you do anything differently in terms of maybe helping
14:57yourself with women or maybe just driving up the male vote? How is that working out?
15:05Well, I do think you never want to come off as the overbearing personality when there already
15:13is a pretty strong gender gap. You want to seem strong, stable, statesmanlike,
15:20able to handle those conflicts against Russia and the Middle East, but not lose your cool
15:25in a way that turns off women. And I think obviously that's what the Harris campaign
15:31wants to see out of Trump. Trump already knows that everybody has told him not to do that,
15:38but he has a habit of doing it anyway. We will see.
15:41And what are the risks for Kamala Harris? Who could she turn off
15:44if she gets either too aggressive or just sits there and acts presidential?
15:51Well, look, she has two ways to win. I think being able to explain a set of coherent policies
15:57on inflation on the border and or just go out there swinging the Democratic base. We'll love
16:05her just drawing blood on threat to democracy, on felon, on all of that stuff. And 50-50,
16:12you know, that's the choice. The real threat, I think, to Harris is in that ACLU questionnaire.
16:19She is in writing and on tape with some incredible policy proposals that are completely rejected by
16:26the American public. And if Trump can trap her in those, he is going to win the debate.
16:32She could also just say, oh, you're lying. He always lies. You're lying.
16:35And then everybody in the audience thinks he's lying. But she's he's really telling the truth.
16:41Anyway, we'll see. We'll see. We have about 40 minutes to go. Mark Penn,
16:45thank you for coming on. Jesse Waters. Let's bring in Trump's senior advisor, Alina Haba.
16:51Alina, you spent some time with the former president today. How is the mood?
16:56He's great. He's great. He's ready to roll. He's like Rocky. He just gets focused. He knows his
17:01policies are going to win. He knows he's not trying to get taxpayer dollars to pay for
17:05transgender illegal immigrants to get transitioned in in in cells. So, I mean, when you have issues
17:13like that fentanyl crisis and her saying she wants to make it legal, it's pretty easy to debate
17:18somebody like Kamala. All right. So he's going to say you want breast implants, you want
17:24breast implants for illegal aliens. You know, you want to legalize fentanyl. You want to get
17:30rid of the internal combustion engine. You know, you want to abolish ice. I mean, it's a very long
17:36laundry list of just crazy, dangerous stuff that she said. Can you see her wiggling out of that?
17:46No, not with President Trump. I mean, the reality is the border crisis has created
17:5060 percent more rapes of women. We have 325,000 children who are lost from their families as a
17:56result of her actions. She's going to act like she's a lawyer. But as a lawyer, I can say what
18:00she's done to the city is an absolute disgrace. She can't get away from her last three and a half
18:04years, Jesse. And that's the truth. We have the privilege of knowing what she is and can do because
18:10she's still sitting there and what President Trump did. And it's completely different. So
18:15what do you want, America? You want the last three and a half years or you want
18:18the prior four? I think the answer is pretty clear. So all he's got to do is just let her speak.
18:22So if he makes this about change, I'm the guy who's going to bring change. You saw how I brought
18:28change last time. You lived a good life. You had more money. You had safety. You could afford to
18:33buy a house. This woman here, she represents the status quo the last four years. Don't let her
18:39try to sell you a bill of goods. She'll promise this and not deliver. If she could have delivered,
18:44she would have done it. That's all it really takes. Is that is that mainly the theme going in?
18:52No, that's not just it, Jesse. Let's not forget that it's not just change. It's that she wants
18:57some changes, but the changes she wants are far more radical left than anybody in this country
19:01has ever seen before. To tell people that you can't have guns, to tell people that your taxpayer
19:07dollars are going to pay for things and allow children to get you know, she's got 65 people
19:11sitting right now with her that believe that children's parents don't have to know whether
19:16their children want to transition. Those are changes. That's not status quo. And those are
19:20pretty nice changes. Those are radical left changes. All right. Well, I think at the end
19:24of the night, everybody will know what Kamala stands for. Alina Haba, thank you so much.
19:28I think so. We'll see you soon. Stay tuned for Fox's special coverage of the ABC presidential
19:35debate, which can be seen on Fox News, mostly Fox News. You can see that. And I'm going to run over
19:40to the other table and you can see more of me now. And then after the debate,
19:45have a great night, everybody. It's going to be a big one.
19:54We are awaiting history with just eight weeks until Americans cast their votes. Vice President
19:59Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are about to come face to face for the very first
20:05time tonight. Good evening. I'm Brett Behr. And I'm Martha McCallum. This is a moment we could
20:10not have predicted just a few short weeks ago. And the stakes could not be higher for these two
20:16candidates tonight. The ABC News presidential debate is now just moments away. We will see
20:21it live from beginning to end right here on Fox. A showdown between Vice President Harris and
20:27President Trump seemed unimaginable just two months ago. President Joe Biden was at the top
20:32of the Democratic ticket. His stunning debate performance, we saw it here,
20:36changed the trajectory of this race. And it has been a roller coaster ever since.
20:46Look, if we finally beat Medicare. I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence.
20:53I don't think he knows what he said either. There was a slow start, but it was a strong finish.
20:58A campaign years in the making, thrown into disarray.
21:05If the Lord Almighty came out and said, Joe, get out of the race, I'd get out of the race. The
21:08Lord Almighty is not coming down. As the calls to step aside grew louder, Biden persisted.
21:17The two nominees about to speak directly to voters and pitch themselves as the best person
21:22to try to run this country. We have a full house with us tonight in New York.
21:27Brit Hume, Dana Perino, Harold Ford Jr., Laura Ingram and Jesse Waters and senior White House
21:34correspondent Jackie Heinrich kicks us off. She is there at the site in the spin room where
21:39there's a lot of excitement right now. Hi, Jackie. Good evening to you, Martha and Brett.
21:45The vice president has been studying President Trump's past debates, his comments, his policies.
21:51She wants tonight to feel predictable. Democrats see this as an opportunity to show that if she can
21:57handle Trump, she can handle someone like Vladimir Putin and she can handle the job of being
22:01president. She had to, though, scrap plans to direct questions at Trump and put her prosecutor
22:06hat on when they lost the bid to keep the microphones on. Instead, they're going to have
22:11the traveling press positioned close enough that they can hear what's being said that might not be
22:16picked up on those microphones and hopefully have the press write about it. It's unclear,
22:20though, how she's going to explain her shifts away from her more progressive views of the past
22:26and try to convince persuadable voters that she's a safe bet for a moderate. They've been deploying
22:32Republican endorsements and former Trump administration officials as surrogates
22:37bidding for her here in the spin room. And tonight, she will also try to frame herself both
22:42as an agent of change and a new way forward while distancing herself from this administration's
22:48biggest challenges, like inflation and the border. Her campaign basically being pretty
22:56tight lipped about how she sees tonight as as going, except for saying that she is ready
23:02and that she is going to take Trump on tonight face first. All right, let's bring in our panel.
23:11Let's bring in our panel, Jackie. Thank you. Our in-studio panel, Brit Hume. This is a big night.
23:15I mean, usually you say debates maybe don't move the needle that much in the big picture. This one
23:21seems like it's bigger. Yeah, and it isn't a night where I think people are going to change their
23:24minds about Donald Trump. Very few people lack opinions of Donald Trump. They've had them and
23:28they probably had them for some time. They're not likely to change. It's all really about her,
23:32I think, Brett and Martha. I think she's the one who's got to explain herself on a number of scores.
23:36She's the one who's got to introduce herself to people as someone with substantive knowledge of
23:42issues and positions on them, some of which have changed rather dramatically in recent times.
23:46So she's got work to do here tonight. That doesn't mean she won't win the debate,
23:50but it means that she has a somewhat more daunting task than he faces.
23:55No doubt. You know, when I watched a number of interviews today with with her surrogates,
24:00they talked about how unhinged Trump is and how he's done this so many times before,
24:05what a threat he is to the country. She's got to try to get him to show that at some point,
24:11whether or not she succeeds. Yeah, well, it's kind of a hard balance. I think she has to
24:16take it because she wants to turn the page. She said she's the most logical change agent as an
24:21incumbent. That's kind of hard to do. But I think on the getting under his skin point, that's really
24:27her only card to play, I believe, because that's been their whole argument that, you know, he's
24:32this and he's that. He's a tyrant. He's Hitler. So when you say that, you lay that predicate.
24:37And if he comes out and he basically says, look, I've done this before, I'll do it again,
24:41I'll turn the economy around. We'll have a lot of fun doing it. I know some of you don't like
24:45me that much, but guess what? I have your interest first and they'll always be first. If he can
24:49manage to keep that overall tone, I think it's going to be hard for her to turn the page to a
24:56new change era when she's basically the incumbent. Harold, President Biden was asked about
25:03conversations today that he may have had with the vice president. He answered reporters. Take a
25:07listen. I spoke to the vice president, she seemed calm, cool, collected. I think she's going to do
25:13great. And I'm not going to tell you what advice I gave. It didn't it didn't say what his advice
25:18was, but it is so stunning. And you saw that timeline piece. Seventy five days ago, we were
25:24on this set watching him come out for that first debate and the entire race changed. Now the onus.
25:31It seems a couple of things to that point. A lot of people are going to watch tonight.
25:35A lot of people don't know Kamala Harris. We are invested in it, as we should be. We talk a lot
25:41about her and this this political race and what she's done the last three and a half years.
25:45But most people know her as vice president, know a caricature of her. So I think for her,
25:50the biggest test tonight is to convey leadership calmness. If I were her, I wouldn't litigate every
25:59back and forth between the president if he chooses to to be that one. I think he's going to be good
26:03tonight himself as well. But if indeed he gets rattled by her, it would be in her best interest
26:09not to get rattled back to. We talked about it this morning. Change is the issue. Every presidential
26:16race is a race. Who can be the best change candidate? So to your point, Laura, can she
26:21do that tonight? Can she explain the shifts in positions? That's going to be her second big test.
26:27And if she passes that, she'll be off to a good start here in these last 60 days,
26:32because this race is still got a long, long way to go. Yeah, eight weeks. Maybe that's a long
26:38time. I mean, we've seen how quickly things happen in that opening piece, Dana.
26:42But Harold just touched on something that's really important tonight for Kamala Harris,
26:45and that's to explain how she got from Medicare for all and some of these more extreme takes
26:52that she took. This ACLU questionnaire had some pretty wild stuff in it to where she is now.
26:57And so you wonder how the moderators are going to press her on that, right? Because there's
27:01because of the mic, the mics are muted when the other person isn't speaking. So the moderators
27:05play a role here of saying, OK, but why did you flip flop on this? Why did you change your
27:09position on that? And I agree that you've had these election altering events like the candidate
27:16dropping out of the race, and it hasn't really altered the election. We are back to status quo
27:20ante. And I think both of them needs to figure out a way to talk to their one, the small sliver of
27:25the electorate that is undecided, but also to reassure their base. I think Harris has the most
27:30to lose and possibly the most to gain. If you've seen ups and downs in this election, it's all been
27:36from the Democratic side. President Trump has his numbers pretty locked in, but they the Democrats
27:41are saying our enthusiasm is not guaranteed. The last thing I would say is I think both of them
27:47need to have some sort of a phrase like Ronald Reagan had, which was there. There he goes again
27:52or there she goes again. Something that means that you don't have to prosecute every single
27:57thing that the other person said and be the live fact checker, but lets the audience know this
28:02person is not telling the truth. And we'll get back to you later on what it is. Jesse, what are
28:06you looking for tonight? Obviously, Vice President Harris has kind of been holed up practicing,
28:09and it's likely going to be a different practice than we saw with President Biden before that last
28:13debate. We were on set all of us the last time there was going to be a big debate and you asked
28:17me to predict what was going to happen. And right before the debate, I said, I don't think this
28:21debate is going to change much. Thanks for playing. So I don't know if you really want to
28:26hear what I have to say. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. This is going to be so unpredictable
28:31because both of these people can self-destruct. We've seen Trump blow himself up. You've seen
28:36Kamala blow herself up and just wander around and search for things to say and maybe land it.
28:42Now she has a concise time limit to see if she can make the case. She's never been in that format
28:48before. And we don't know if the moderators are going to interfere. Are they going to fact check
28:52Trump live? Is he going to engage with the moderators? Who knows? But if he keeps her on
28:57the defensive, he wins. If she keeps him on the defensive, she wins. So that's what it's going to
29:03be. Who's more reasonable and who's more disciplined and whether he can make her eat her record.
29:08Sex change surgeries for migrants spread. If you had said 10 years ago, the Democrat nominee would
29:15support that. I would have said you were cuckoo. It's here. Britt, you know, what's interesting is
29:20that this race is so close. Former President Trump is doing a lot better than he did in 2016 or 2020
29:26at this point. This debate is in Pennsylvania, which is the swingiest of swing states. It doesn't
29:32get closer. Yeah, I think it would be discouraging to the Democrats that Trump is standing with the
29:38public is better than it was in 2020 and indeed in much of 2016. So he's now and that's on that
29:45count, which matters. He looks pretty good otherwise. But the polling does not really
29:51show that it just shows a tight race, which we've all expected for some time. And so it'll be
29:56interesting to see, you know, how we go from here. I have a feeling that he'll come out of this debate
30:01in about the same position with the public that he that he holds going into it. So as I've been
30:07saying here, I think it's, you know, everything is going to revolve around how she does and how.
30:12And of course, that, to some extent, depends on how he approaches her. If the moderators do their job,
30:18he will have to do less. If they don't, then there's a distinct possibility they won't, given
30:23the performance of these mainstream media outlets in recent years. He'll have to carry the fight to
30:27her. He'll have to challenge her. He'll have to demand explanations and so on. I'm sure he and
30:31his team are hoping he doesn't have to do that because the being the aggressive guy and being
30:36therefore thereby thought a bully is something I'm sure he'd like to avoid.
30:40We heard all week, Harold, that and even from Kamala Harris, that President Trump goes low
30:45and that she expected him to do that. She expects him to come at her in some way, shape or form on
30:51the issue of color, on the issue of her gender. What if he doesn't do that? And how does she sort
30:58of make him look bad? It goes back to my original question. If he resists that and candy, I guess,
31:04is one of the big questions for him. She's got to play chess if he does that. I think to
31:09everybody's point, I think Jesse said it well about who puts the first on defense and is able
31:13to sustain that. But if he doesn't, I think you have to expect this is a guy who's had six
31:19presidential debates. He knows what's good and bad. He knows right and wrong in these debates.
31:24And if he goes all wrong in her estimation, I'm sure she'll know what to do. But you have to
31:28assume that he won't be bellicose and pugnacious. So that means she's got to be presidential,
31:33more presidential, less prosecutorial and explain to the country. I've come to some
31:38different positions because of experience in government. And this is why I think differently
31:42about these big issues today. You know, Laura, this strategy of not doing interviews, not engaging
31:48with the press made that CNN interview that much bigger moment. Now it makes this a bigger moment
31:55because we haven't engaged with Kamala Harris that much. I think you're right in the Univision
31:59radio interview didn't really help her either because you could hear her literally turning the
32:04page. Speaking of turning the page, turning the page, presumably notes. Everyone has notes. But
32:08again, that takes on more importance when you're not out there. I think tonight it has to be said
32:12to Britt's point that Trump has the momentum in this race right now. It's close, but I like how
32:18Nate Silver does analyze the breadth of the polls and the trend lines in the polls. So Pennsylvania
32:24is tied. A lot of these swing states are one point. I think by Tuesday of next week, she has
32:29to be up five points in the national average to be sitting pretty for an electoral college win.
32:34And right now she is not there. She needs a massive momentum shift tonight to really give
32:41the media a reason to write the story tomorrow that this race is back in Kamala Harris's favor.
32:46They've been angry that they haven't been able to write the story for the last couple of weeks.
32:50They want to get back on that narrative. Yeah. And the Nate Silver projection,
32:53the markets take into account the historical undercounting in polls in 2016 and 2020
33:00before Election Day. So it's two, three points maybe. And that makes a difference.
33:04You know, she came out of that relief rally after she was chosen with enormous enthusiasm
33:10that brought her into Chicago, Jesse. And then it has diminished. You know, Jay went away and
33:15now these two are neck and neck again. So she has to do something bold tonight to try to take
33:21away some of those voters. You know, we've seen what happened with Latino voters and black voters
33:25and young voters that have eroded for Democrats. So she went to bed for three weeks and everybody
33:31defined her. The media did here. And Trump was able to do it. And she just let everybody do it
33:38to her. And so tonight she has to come out and say, who is Kamala Harris? Because half the country has
33:44no idea. And to get the momentum back, she has to attack to that. So I'm going to think there's
33:49going to be a lot of vicious haymakers constantly throughout the night, because that's what Biden
33:54didn't do last time. And that's why the Democrat base didn't do that because he basically couldn't
33:59because he couldn't hear a point about this needing to be about who she is. Think about
34:04right now. And for as long as this campaign has been going on since she's been now the nominee,
34:09it's been about who she's not. She's not. She's, first of all, not Biden. That's the main thing.
34:15And the second thing is, of course, she's not Trump. And that automatically means she inherits
34:20the anti-Trump vote, which is considerable. And, you know, it was costing the election in 2020
34:26and has been tough on Republicans in the midterms since then, as before and since then as well. So
34:31that's what she inherits. She's got to rise. She's got to add to that. That's that's the
34:35challenge for her. Oh, 23 minutes from now, we will see where this goes as we wait for the start
34:41of that debate. This is high level chess between the two top politicians in America for the
34:46presidency of the United States. So anticipation clearly building the countdown to the debate
34:51is on. Sean Hannity joins us live from the spin room coming up next.