Vice President Harris said in a new interview that she’s preparing for former President Trump to lie and make personal attacks in Tuesday’s debate.
“There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go,” Harris said in an interview with “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show” that aired Monday. “And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth.
“Ultimately, you know, what I intend to point out is … he tends to fight for himself, not for the American people. And I think that’s going to come out during the debate,” she continued. “But I expect that he is — I think he’s going to lie. And he has a playbook that he has used in the past.”
Harris and Trump are set to face off on the debate stage Tuesday. The debate will be hosted by ABC News.
Each candidate’s microphone will be muted when they are not recognized by moderators to speak, as was the case during a June debate between Trump and President Biden.
While Trump made several false or misleading statements during that debate, it was Biden’s disastrous performance, where he struggled to complete his thoughts or land many lines of attack, that dominated headlines.
Harris’s team had pushed for microphones to be unmuted throughout Tuesday’s event, believing it would lead to fuller exchanges and would bait Trump into repeatedly interrupting his opponent.
The debate comes at a critical moment in the presidential race, with early voting starting in several states this month. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday found Trump leading nationally by 1 percentage point.