Ahead of this week’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Senator John Fetterman, both Democrats, issued warnings on Sunday to the vice president.
On Tuesday, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, will go toe-to-toe with Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, on the ABC News debate stage for the first time. Nerves and excitement will be high that night as Americans tune in to the much-anticipated debate in Philadelphia following a dismal performance from President Joe Biden in Atlanta in late June when he went up against Trump.
Biden’s debate performance had magnified concerns about his age and ability to beat Trump and led to concerns within the Democratic Party, with some urging him to exit the race so the party could pick a new nominee. Weeks later on July 21, Biden announced he was ending his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place. Harris then launched her own bid for president and later accepted the party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention on August 22.
In an interview with CNN‘s State of the Union on Sunday, Buttigieg spoke about the upcoming debate as he warned that while Harris is “focused and disciplined,” it will take more “to deal” with Trump.
“I think the main task will be to make sure Americans understand the difference in visions and are reminded that they already agree with her on the issues that matter most to them…She is a very focused and disciplined leader, but it will take almost superhuman focus and discipline to deal with Donald Trump in a debate. It’s no ordinary proposition,” he said.
Buttigieg added that this is because Trump is a “master” of turning things “into a show that is all about him.”
“Not because Donald Trump is a master of explaining policy ideas and how they are going to make people better off. It’s because he’s a master of taking any form or format that is on television and turning it into a show that is all about him. The less we are talking about him and the more we are talking about you, the better it’s going to be for the vice president,” he said.
Newsweek has reached out to Harris’ and Trump’s campaign via email for comment.
In another interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Fetterman of Pennsylvania also spoke on how he thinks the debate will play out between the two nominees, warning that while Trump “is a good debater,” Harris is “going to do great.”
“It’s going to be a straight up debate, she’s [Harris] going to do great of course, but Donald Trump will be good too. I mean we can all remember he wrecked all the Republicans, he’s a good debater. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe this debate is going to be definitive because it’s going to come down to this choice and it’s going to be close,” the senator said.
In response to Buttigieg and Fetterman’s remarks, in an emailed statement to Newsweek on Sunday, Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung took aim at Harris and pointed towards polling in battleground states.
“Polling shows President Trump is dominating both nationally and in the battleground states because voters want a return to pro-America policies that actually work, not the weak, failed, and dangerously liberal policies of Comrade Kamala.”
According to the most recent polling average by The New York Times/Siena College, Harris is narrowly ahead in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The two are tied in Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona. FiveThirtyEight’s average has Trump up in Arizona and North Carolina, while Harris leads narrowly in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
This is not the first time Fetterman has warned Harris that winning the election won’t be easy as he noted last month the “undeniable” Trump effect in Pennsylvania, and his ability “to create a strong connection with the people of Pennsylvania” in 2016, which helped him win the presidency.
In an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax in August, Fetterman described Pennsylvania’s voting history, and the impact the state’s voters could have on the election.
Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, has historically been one of the toss-up states, but voted Democrat for six elections prior to 2016, according to political projection site 270toWin.
Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.2 percent in 2020 according to the site, and Fetterman noted that while he believes the race this time around will be close, he said that winning counties like Erie and Bucks are what he believes will cement either candidate the presidency.
“It is going to be close, but at the end of the day, I think the Harris-Walz message is going to prevail and that’s what Pennsylvania is looking for and that’s why I fundamentally believe Pennsylvania will pick the president, and that’s why Harris is going to be our next president,” he said.
