For more than a week now, Donald Trump has been facing heat over his appearance at Arlington National Cemetery — the final resting place of hundreds of thousands of service members — during a wreath-laying for troops killed during the botched Afghanistan withdrawal three years ago, a low point of the Biden administration.
The crux of the issue comes down to reports that Trump’s staff disregarded requests not to film political content at the solemn site and got into an altercation with an Arlington official. The campaign’s response has been all over the place. There was no need for Trump to bring his own video cameras to the cemetery, and now Vice President Kamala Harris has entered the debate, jabbing at Trump.
But the much bigger debate is Tuesday in Philadelphia. The previous presidential debate, on June 27, was consequential: Joe Biden’s halting performance forced him out of the race, and Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee.
There’s no certainty that Harris and Trump will have a second face-off. Time is running short. The make-or-break state for both campaigns, Pennsylvania, commences early voting less than a week after the Philly debate.
This will be Trump’s seventh general election debate (three in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, two in 2020 against Biden and the June debate against Biden), and only Harris’ first. While Harris will not have the articulation problems Biden encountered, this debate stands to be the fulcrum of the election for her campaign. She did well with her convention, and her running mate, Tim Walz, is working out fine. She even successfully fielded some questions from CNN last week. The debate (and a possible second debate) is the missing component.
Trump is by far more well known to the electorate than Harris, who, like all VPs, has mostly been a background presence. Trump has been in the spotlight constantly since he rode that escalator into the basement of Trump Tower nine years ago.
While Harris has to introduce herself to voters, it would be nice if ABC can get Trump to focus on the questions with actual precision or some grounding in reality, instead of his usual distractions and obfuscations. The debate might be an opportunity not to let him get away with it as he usually does in his raucous rallies. Last time out, his debate showing didn’t really matter because Biden lost the night, big time.
It’s important to hold both the cautious Harris and the bombastic Trump to account, to give them each the chance to respond to things they would rather not talk about, like the Afghan withdrawal meltdown for her and the Arlington commotion for him.
Unlike during the last debate, there will be no more swapping out of candidates. One of these contenders will be the next president.
