A former opponent of Kamala Harris pours scorn on the Democrat. But she proves the Republican wrong a short time later in the TV debate.
Kamala Harris’ former opponent, Steve Cooley, advised Donald Trump before his TV debate with the US Vice President on Wednesday night (3 a.m., CEST). Trump should concentrate primarily on the issues of immigration and the economy in the TV debate, because Harris has major weaknesses there, Cooley said in an interview with the magazine “Politico”.
Cooley once took part in a TV debate against Harris when the two were fighting for the seat of California’s Attorney General. In 2010, the Republican and the Democrats engaged in a speech battle in this important US state. Harris later narrowly won the election.
Since then, he has followed Harris’ political career closely, Cooley said. But he apparently doesn’t think much of the 59-year-old vice president. She doesn’t have what it takes to be president, he said. Trump’s job is therefore simply to give Harris the space she needs to disillusion herself. He should do it like he did in the first TV debate against US President Joe Biden. “She’s incompetent,” Cooley told Politico, “let her prove it.”
And Cooley went even further in his assessment of Harris’ abilities: “She will be prepared in the sense that she will probably have a few lines memorized. But she is not capable of any kind of critical thinking, in my opinion.” Again, he drew parallels to the incumbent president’s speaking skills: “If she doesn’t have a teleprompter or notes in front of her, she will fumble around, stumble, and eventually fall.”
But that’s not how it turned out. Harris gave a confident performance in the ABC studio in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening (local time). She didn’t let Donald Trump’s constant attacks unsettle her and instead presented herself as a president of balance, as someone who wants to unite the country. Nor did she stumble during her speeches, as Cooley had predicted.
“I think you’ve heard two very different visions for our country tonight: one that focuses on the future and another that focuses on the past,” Harris continued. She wants to be a president who will protect fundamental rights and freedoms, “including women’s right to decide about their own bodies.”
