WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Tonight, there are just four days until Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump face off in Tuesday's televised debate.
It will be the first time the two have met face to face, let alone debated.
And with less than 60 days until Americans cast their vote for president, the candidates and their running mates are hitting the campaign trail to sway swing state voters.
But will their cross-country rallies and Tuesday's showdown change any minds?
Next.
Good evening.
I'm William Brangham and welcome to Washington Week.
Jeffrey Goldberg is away.
With the much anticipated first debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates for president just days away, Vice president Kamala Harris hit the campaign trail this week.
She's trying to strike a delicate balance, selling her economic plans while distancing herself from President Biden's unpopular economic record.
Former President Donald Trump touted his own plans for the economy this week to tackle the high cost of child care and inflation.
Trump again accused his opponent of embracing Marxism, focusing on Harris proposal to go after corporate price gouging.
And as the candidates hope to sway voters in next week's debate, the Justice Department accused Russia of interfering in this year's election.
Attorney General Merrick Garland alleged Putin's allies are spreading disinformation and working to amplify division in the U.S.
Joining me to discuss all of this and more, Leigh Ann Caldwell is anchor of Washington Post Live and co-author of the Post's Early Brief, Lisa Desjardins is PBS NewsHour's political correspondent and she also covers the Trump campaign, and Vivian Salama is national politics reporter for The Washington Post.
Thank you all so much for being here.
Thanks for joining us on a Friday.
Leigh Ann, to you first, Trump dodged a bullet, a legal bullet this week, in that he will not be sentenced in the Stormy Daniels case now until after the election around Thanksgiving.
So, all eyes are going to be on this debate next week.
Given how consequential that last debate was, and basically upending the presidential race, how important is this one?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, Anchor, Washington Post Live: So, I'm of the mindset that it's actually quite important.
The reason is that Kamala Harris campaign, they acknowledge that she is still introducing herself to voters.
She is a relatively new candidate.
That's why the convention was so important.
And that's why this debate is also going to be really important not only because it's another opportunity for voters to find out who she is and what she stands for, but also it's going to be -- this is a new campaign.
These are two candidates who are going to be standing next to each other for the first time.
And what politics is all about is a contrast between the two candidates and the country will see that for the first time.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lisa, I know you've been doing some reporting on how the Trump campaign is trying to prepare for this.
How are they looking at this event?
LISA DESJARDINS, Political Correspondent, PBS NewsHour: Well, you know, Donald Trump himself likes to portray that he doesn't need to prepare for anything.
He just arrives ready.
But the truth is, I was told by senior Trump campaign officials that they actually are doing a lot.
We know that they brought in Tulsi Gabbard to be one of their consultants, former Democrat, now I think she's technically an independent.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Consultant, meaning she's not playing Kamala Harris.
LISA DESJARDINS: No, I've been told specifically she's not playing Kamala Harris.
But I was told this.
I was told that why is she there, specifically?
Because in the words of this senior advisor, senior campaign official, that you can't really do debate prep with seven guys when you're facing Kamala Harris.
So, they're being open about it, that they want a woman in the room.
They need that kind of energy to go off of.
But they are doing intense policy briefings, and I was told they're doing a lot.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, Vivian, this -- as Leigh Ann was saying, there is still this getting to know you phase that Kamala Harris is in.
And on some level, that adds a lot of importance to what she has to do.
But it also gives Trump the opportunity to do his own defining.
Well, if she's trying to -- we're trying to get to know her, well, let me tell you about her.
Do you think he's really going to try and go directly at her on this regard?
VIVIAN SALAMA, National Politics Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: Oh, absolutely.
And this is something that the Trump campaign has made a concerted effort toward for the last couple of weeks, especially because he's out there, he's doing interviews and he's holding press conferences or press avails, as they case was today, he did not take questions, and he is basically trying to build a case against her.
She, in the meantime, was doing a lot of rallies, but wasn't doing any interviews until the CNN interview that we saw recently, and hadn't really taken a lot of questions publicly from the press.
That really left a void for her campaign to be able to then define her and get out there ahead of the message.
The other issue, and the debate is going to be really key for this, is to really offer some details as far as what her policy plans are, whether or not she's going to distance herself from any of President Biden's policies and kind of break from that, define herself in her own way, that's something that remains to be seen.
Even with the very limited press engagements that we've seen with her, she has offered sort of top line visions, but hasn't gotten into the details of policies.
And so this is an opportunity for her to really let voters know, this is what I'm going to do for you, and this is how I'm going to do it.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, do you think, though, in the end, that, given the importance of this matchup, of the really viewers getting a good first glimpse at her, apart from the convention, that those policy distinctions will rise to be so important?
VIVIAN SALAMA: At this point, I think the dynamics is going to really be what prevails to see how much she's able to take back.
Donald Trump on to call him out on issues like, you know, if he says something that's not true or goes after her in an aggressive way, how she's going to be able to handle that and to sort of come back at him.
I think that is something that you know, with a lot of debates, a lot of them are very superficial at the end of the day.
I mean, since the advent of television, we have seen how, you know, just the visuals alone.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right, it's performative.
VIVIAN SALAMA: Yes, it's very performative.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Nixon, Kennedy, and whether he shaved or not was critical.
VIVIAN SALAMA: Exactly, and so that is going to be a lot of it, you know?
And also we have seen that a lot of people view women a little bit more harshly.
You know, are the viewers going to be kind to her in terms of her gender and see it as sort of a strength versus something that might work against her?
You know, we saw that with Hillary Clinton in 2016, where likability came into the picture when she was going against Donald Trump or interfacing with voters.
All those things are really going to probably be what matters to people.
But at the end of the day, they are talking to a very small sliver of voters who are undecided at this point, and a lot of those people want to know how can you improve my life?
What are you going to do to make it better?
And so, for those people, I think they will be listening a little bit to the nuances of the policies as well.
I mean, Leigh Ann, I know you've been doing some reporting about, very specifically, what kinds of voters, these voters that Vivian is talking about, that Trump is going after in particular.
What have you been learning?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: So, from what I've learned from the Trump campaign is that key to their strategy in these last 60 days is that they are trying to turn out these very low propensity voters.
They're spending a lot of time and a lot of money -- WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Define that term for us.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: -- trying to find the voters who definitely don't vote in the midterm elections, voters who probably didn't vote in 2020, maybe probably voted in 2016.
So, they're sometimes presidential election voters, but more often than not, they don't vote.
So, the Trump campaign thinks that there are a lot of voters, especially male voters, who are likely to vote for him if they vote.
And so that is actually what their focus is in these next 60 days.
They say that the undecideds, there's just so few of them, especially when it comes to Trump.
Like most people have an opinion about Donald Trump.
They are flooding those undecided people's mailboxes with flyers and their phones are getting text messages.
But it's really these low propensity voters, these not often voters, who the Trump campaign is really going after.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lisa, I know you've been doing some reporting in Pennsylvania with some of these Trump teams that are trying to reach these voters.
What have you been reporting?
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, this is great.
We're like one reporting team right now.
This is making me so happy.
Yes.
And in Trump Force 47 is one way that the Trump campaign is focusing this whole effort.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Trump Force 47?
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, and I Essentially, the key things to know is the Trump campaign says it has thrown out the playbook that the RNC used in 2020.
They do not believe in the way the GOP canvassed.
They think it was a mistake and horrible decision-making.
So, instead -- VIVIAN SALAMA: And a waste of money.
LISA DESJARDINS: And a waste of money, that's right.
And so instead of doing this mass door to door, every weekend, we're going to have these groups going door to door, which is exactly what the Harris campaign is doing, by the way, they are trying to train key volunteers, they call them key volunteers, to target smaller lists of voters themselves, saying that you will be the one in charge of swaying this group of low propensity voters.
Now in theory, it makes sense, the idea is that a neighbor will talk to a neighbor and keep talking to them.
But, you know, the reality of it when you see it on the ground is some of these folks have never really done campaign work before.
Are they really going to follow up every time?
It's a bit of a risk the Trump campaign is taking, but like much else, they're doing something different.
It's not traditional.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Yes.
And I'm glad you brought that up, actually, because to compare it with the Harris campaign, you know, you hear, they have over 2,000 staff in these battleground states.
They have hundreds of offices that are open and they always criticize the Trump campaign for not having very many staff, not having very many offices.
And for so long, that has been a quantitative number that has always been important in presidential campaigns, how many people are you employing to get out these votes.
And like you said, Lisa, the Trump campaign is turning the whole thing on its head and not going down that route.
LISA DESJARDINS: All their eyes, when they hear those numbers from the Biden campaign, the Trump campaign just like rolls their eyes and thinks that the Biden campaign is ridiculous.
VIVIAN SALAMA: And antiquated.
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.
VIVIAN SALAMA: And it's making a lot of traditional Republican National Committee members nervous in the states, because they'd like to see them ramping things up in the final stretch.
But at the end of the day, the Trump campaign says, our candidate is different from any other candidate, so we're not going to do things the old way.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: And just to clarify one thing, they are relying on some of these outside groups to do the more traditional door-knocking, but the Trump campaign is not really engaged in that.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, we have seen all the swing state polls.
You guys have all seen them as well.
We can put up the graphic of the latest CNN polling number.
I mean, it is still a very, very snug race in a lot of states, I mean, within the margin of error in a lot of these states.
Wisconsin maybe has the biggest gap there, but a lot of those other states, not a very big gap there.
Donald Trump received some criticism today from -- I mean, when we're talking about what's going to move voters in the end, I'm curious what your take on this is.
Dick Cheney, who no one could accuse of being a, quote/unquote, RINO, Republican in name only -- LISA DESJARDINS: I'm sure he is being accused of that.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well, maybe.
But, he came out today and gave this excoriating statement about Donald Trump.
Let me read a little bit of what he said.
Dick Cheney said, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.
He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.
He can never be trusted with power again.
Vivian, in the end, does a man like Dick Cheney, a Republican stalwart, but albeit a man of a different generation, and maybe even a different era, does that move the needle in any meaningful way?
VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, first of all, Dick Cheney has his own baggage.
So, let's just remember that as well, that he was a controversial figure in his time.
The short answer is no.
We have seen countless, you know, statesmen, former statesmen and women come out after having served some of them under the Trump administration to say he is not fit for office, he is a danger to national security or a danger to the United States, and a number of these people even saying that they would not vote for him.
At the end of the day, does Donald Trump's base care what Dick Cheney or any of these people have to say?
The answer is no.
Now, would more moderate Republicans listen to it, they may consider it.
I don't know if Dick Cheney personally would move the needle, but there are some other people, like General John Kelly, who served as Trump's chief of staff, who's highly respected in the national security world, certainly -- WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jim Mattis.
VIVIAN SALAMA: -- Jim Mattis, another one, his former secretary of defense.
You know, when these people come out and they speak, they definitely get the attention of a lot of people, especially in that orbit.
But at the end of the day, a lot of them are choosing Republican policies over Democratic policies and not necessarily voting for the man himself.
And so whether or not it moves the needle, I don't think very much, no.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: It's just emblematic of the shift of the Republican Party and what Donald Trump is, a very much, a very different Republican Party than the Dick Cheney, George Bush Republican Party.
And so this is just another instance of that divide of the party.
And there's Republicans like Dick Cheney and others who want Trump to go away because then they want the old Republican Party to come back.
We'll see if that will even happen.
LISA DESJARDINS: Even for Trump supporters, Republican Trump supporters, there is a discomfort.
Like Vivian and I were both in Pennsylvania this week.
That is the biggest prize of all of the swing states with 19 electoral votes.
We're on different sides of the state pretty much.
I was in North Hampton County, which is a big swing county.
You're going to hear a lot about it.
It's a fun county.
Look into it.
But I talked to, you know, one suburban Republican woman, mom, you know, she's all about her Christian faith.
She says, yes, I don't like everything Trump says, kind of a classic Trump voter, but he's a strong leader.
I support him.
I spoke to another Trump supporter woman who really spouted a series of conspiracy theories.
She was someone being trained for this Trump Force 47, potentially.
She was in that meeting.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: She's going to be one of those people trying to persuade others.
LISA DESJARDINS: She was in that meeting.
I didn't stay for the actual training, but she was there for that event.
And she told me, you know, I believe Joe Biden died three years ago.
You know, I told her, you know, that sounds like a conspiracy theory.
You know, that's a stereotype against Trump voters.
And she said, I know that, but this is true.
So, I talked to the first woman, suburban woman, Trump voter.
I said, you know, these are the other supporters of Donald Trump.
These are the same people in your party supporting him.
And she said, you know, I think that's just crazy, you know?
So, they're really on different pages.
They're both behind Donald Trump, but neither one are quite seeing the full picture of his support and what he stands for to everyone who supports him.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And into that vacuum, you have a candidate like Donald Trump, who -- if you're trying to run his campaign, he's an incredibly difficult person to manage.
I mean, given that this is the window through which he's supposed to be defining Kamala Harris, every time he tries to go to the microphone and say, I'm going to lay out X policy, he seemingly cannot stop himself from meandering all over the place.
I mean, today, when he was in New York, supposedly talking about other issues, he was maligning women who had accused him of sexual assault from years ago, people who are not being paid attention to by voters.
And it just seems like it's incredibly hard for him to stay on message.
VIVIAN SALAMA: And this is more of a liability now than it was a few months ago, right?
I mean, before when he was ahead in the polls by enough, the campaign was able to sort of let Trump be Trump and that was -- WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right, when you're competing against Joe Biden.
VIVIAN SALAMA: When he was competing against Joe Biden.
But the race changed and suddenly, you know, if viewers will remember, he spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists a few weeks ago and he questioned Kamala Harris' race and made a couple of comments around that regard, and that really sent shockwaves through his campaign where they said, okay, he could really go off message and derail this entire effort that we've worked so hard to get here toward.
And so more and more they've tried to rein him in.
He's even joked about it publicly where he says, I'm going to fire my advisers because they want me to stay on message, and you guys don't like me to stay on message, talking to his supporters at the rallies and he's joked about it.
Sometimes he does stay on message, but oftentimes he goes off-script.
And I'll talk to the campaign after, you know, he delivers a rally speech and I'll ask him, you know, he said something about the Taliban leader and his conversation.
What was that about?
And he was like, yes, that wasn't in the script, you know?
A lot of times it's.
Stuff like that, where, you know, some of it is harmless and he does it for jokes, but a lot of times, he can, like today, where he starts going after women, or he talks about race and things like that really do possibly move the needle because one of the big groups that they're trying to target at the end of the day is women.
You know, abortion is a huge issue in this election, and it is a contentious issue, but also talking about women in a sexist terminology is something that can really affect voters.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And it happened again today.
VIVIAN SALAMA: And it happened again today.
And so these are the things where his campaign kind of starts pulling their hair, where they made it this far, you know, somewhat of a disciplined campaign, and now, you know, the potential for this race heating up is making him clearly nervous, and he's going off script more and more.
LISA DESJARDISN: There is a real opportunity for the Trump campaign.
I mean, this election, it's still really close, you know?
But the fact of the matter is, what we're talking about, and, honestly, voters of all stripes I talked to in Pennsylvania, they're talking about Trump.
They're not talking about Kamala Harris.
And there's an opportunity to define her.
There is a real -- there are some moderate voters who are nervous that Democrats will go too far, you know?
There is a question about that, but that's not what we're talking about.
The Trump campaign, they're not using this opportunity in the way I think some of the campaign advisers would like.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: And it's also interesting on how Kamala Harris is dealing with it.
She's almost acting as if Trump doesn't exist.
She is running her campaign.
She is not responding to any tit-for-tat.
She is just moving forward as if he is just this like entity out here.
And it's a really fascinating strategy that I guess we'll see if it works.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On that strategy, Leigh Ann, one of the other things that I know you've reported a bit about is why Kamala Harris, potentially the first woman, first black, first South Indian candidate to make it to the White House, why we haven't been hearing more about that?
She seems to be actively stepping back from saying, hey, everybody, potentially history in the making here.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Yes, she does not talk about the historic nature of her candidacy.
Even the Democratic Convention, she didn't bring it up.
Most of the speakers didn't bring it up.
I talked to a lot of people about this.
And there's a couple reasons.
First, one of her long time former chiefs of staffs told me that every single thing she has run for in her entire life, she has been a first.
It has been a record, a history-making candidacy.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: First D.A., first female A.G., et cetera.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Yes, first black woman senator from California, first woman vice president, list goes on.
She has never talked about it in any of her races for the past more than 20 years.
She thinks it's a distraction.
She thinks it's obvious when you look at her, so she doesn't need to bring it up.
And it's just not part of what she thinks is important.
She thinks what's important is what matters to people, what she's going to do for them, not the historic nature of her candidacy.
So, that's personally.
There's also a strategic element too.
Her campaign and people around her know, many Democrats know that it did not work for Hillary Clinton.
She really leaned into the historic nature of her candidacy.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I'm with her, if we all remember that.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: I'm going to break the highest glass ceiling, and it didn't work.
And Democratic strategists know that it was a mistake now, in hindsight, looking back.
So, there's two elements.
The first element is it's not part of who Kamala Harris is, in the sense of how she wants to be seen, like run her campaigns.
And the other part is there's a real losing strategy.
They think that voters, that's not why they vote for people.
LISA DESJARDINS: This comes back to the debate a little bit, though, because one thing that I heard in Pennsylvania, this goes back to you saying about Trump talking about women harshly.
There are voters that are not quite decided, male voters I talked to, who said, quite a few of them, they're not sure that she can stand up on the world stage to other world leaders with -- WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The classic misogynistic trope about female candidates.
LISA DESJARDISN: So, it's an important moment for her to stand up, you know, to someone, you know, who touts himself as a strong leader, you know, and to show how she does that.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lastly, in just the minute or so we have left, I wanted to just touch on this news that came out of the DOJ this week, where Merrick Garland again accused the Russians of trying to actively sow dissent within American politics through a series of online -- funding different groups to sort of sow division.
Do you think that in the end that that will matter in this election, or do you think we are just good enough at sowing division on our own and we don't need any foreign assistance?
VIVIAN SALAMA: Oh, I mean, this has been a concern now for multiple election cycles and it continues to grow.
The type of attacks get more sophisticated, the number of countries that are getting involved and getting on board with these attacks.
We know that the Trump and Harris campaigns both were victimized by Iranian hacks.
And so we see that there is an effort to get involved, to get to try to sway our elections.
And, obviously, it's a powerful thing that the government is very worried about.
LISA DESJARDINS: Well, I'm really glad you brought it up, because we need to be aware of it.
But I think to answer your question, I think we may not know.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right, until it's maybe too late.
Thank you all so much.
I really appreciate you joining us.
Unfortunately, we have to leave it there for this evening.
Thanks to our panelists for sharing your reporting.
And to our viewers at home, thank you so much for joining us.
For more on Russia's attempt to sow division and interfere with November's election, visit theatlantic.com.
I'm William Brangham.
Good night from Washington.
