Tuesday Briefing: Trump and Harris Prepare to Debate

The presidential election is less than 60 days away. This is what we’re watching.

The first and only scheduled debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is on Tuesday in the U.S., and people are bracing for a nail-biter. It’s hard to predict what will happen, but here’s what my colleagues covering the race are watching.

“I would definitely define Harris’s debating style as aggressive,” Lisa Lerer, our politics reporter, explained in this video. “She has a philosophy that if someone hits you, you have to hit back harder.”

But in the past, Lisa added, when Harris has not methodically prepared, she has had “trouble being light on her feet.”

“That could end up being a problem with Trump, because he is, above all other things, a highly unpredictable debater,” Lisa said.

Trump has always honed a playbook of explicitly gendered attacks against female candidates and journalists that he is likely to draw from. Jess Bidgood, who writes the On Politics newsletter, reviewed his onstage clashes with women over his nine years in politics.

Trump will also face renewed scrutiny after recent appearances where he mixed up names, confused facts and stumbled over his points. His incoherent statements and outbursts have stirred concern among voters.