00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Dave Briggs here at the New York Stock Exchange. The first debate of the 2024
00:04presidential cycle was arguably the most consequential in modern American politics,
00:10effectively ending President Biden's presidency and upending the race. Now, Kamala Harris hopes
00:17to define her campaign, which to this point has relied on slogans and speeches. Political
00:23Deputy National Editor Zach Montalero with us now. Five things that matter. Zach, good to see you.
00:29Where does the race stand today? How consequential is this debate?
00:35Yeah, so the race today is incredibly close. You know, when President Biden was still in the race,
00:41you could pretty comfortably say Trump had a narrow but comfortable lead. Now,
00:45it's basically a coin flip between the vice president and former President Trump.
00:49Over this weekend, we saw a poll from The New York Times and Siena College that had the former
00:53president up two points over the vice president. National polling averages generally have the vice
00:58president up anywhere from one, two, three points. So this race is about as close as you can
01:03get. As for how consequential this debate will be, well, debates don't matter until they do,
01:08just ask Joe Biden, as you alluded to it. This could all be nothing. We could come out of this
01:12on Wednesday morning and the race is exactly as it is right now. And that's, I suspect,
01:16where it will be very close. But who knows? Someone could blow up again. We've already
01:20seen it once this cycle. Who's to say it can't happen a second time? Yeah, and they are in
01:25Philly and Pennsylvania largely holds the entire race right there. So Vice President Harris has
01:31given just one interview with her VP pick and largely focused on personal narratives.
01:37What is her strategy? Yeah, so for the vice president, she still has the opportunity to
01:42introduce herself to Americans. That same New York Times poll about about 20 to 25 percent of
01:47Americans said they still don't know enough about Vice President Harris to have an opinion on her,
01:51to make up their mind. They want to learn more. So for the vice president, this is really her
01:55first and biggest opportunity to introduce herself to the American public. I, of course,
02:01as a member of the media, want to see all politicians do more interviews with the media.
02:05But a debate is just going to get so many more eyeballs than an interview with you or I or CNN
02:10or anybody. So this for the vice president is reintroduce herself to the country, the country
02:15that's kind of maybe slipped away from her since 2020. She's the vice president. She's an incredibly
02:20political figure, but she's not at the forefront or at least wasn't at the forefront of everyday
02:24political life. Reintroduce herself and kind of prosecute the case against Trump. And I use the
02:28word prosecute intentionally. She was a former prosecutor, you know, in her convention speech
02:34and the ads we've seen. She's tried to hit Trump over his charges, over what over his role in
02:39overturning Roe v. Wade to her goal. Introduce herself and also, you know, take it to Trump,
02:46take it to Trump directly in the way that Democrats could see her doing in a way that
02:49Biden could not. Expectations are well north of 50 million will watch in some form tomorrow night.
02:56So given his recent social media posts about prosecuting political opponents, what is the
03:03Trump strategy? Yeah, and when I said prosecute for the vice president, I meant that metaphorically,
03:08the former president means that literally, you know, to the degree that Trump has a strategy.
03:14We've now seen what, you know, almost a decade worth of debates from Donald Trump at this point.
03:23He doesn't have a strategy. His strategy is to be Donald Trump. Donald Trump has followed his
03:26gut political instincts time and time and time again, and it more or less has worked out for him.
03:31At least it worked out for him in 2016, didn't work out for him in 2020. But Donald Trump does
03:36not have a strategy. Donald Trump does what Donald Trump wants to do. You know, his social media
03:41posts have certainly been more on the outlandish side recently. It's kind of a return to form for
03:45the former president. And his goal, I guess, is to unnerve the former or the current vice president.
03:51Rather, you know, I believe the vice president and Donald Trump have never actually been in the same
03:56room together before. So he's probably going to want to try to get her off her game, get her off
04:02her notes and attack her as well. But Donald Trump does whatever Donald Trump wants to do. His camp
04:06has said he's not even doing debate prep for him.
04:09That is extraordinary. And they certainly want him to stick with policy.
04:13Don't hold your breath for that happening. What can you tell us
04:17about Kamala Harris's past debate performance in particular in 2020?
04:22Yeah, you know, her 2020 debate performance was uneven. And in the primary, especially,
04:27it's a different audience, literally, in the sense that the Democratic primary electorate,
04:31not all Americans, but she had incredible highs. That girl was me moment when she actually was
04:36ironically attacking President Joe Biden. It was probably the peak of her campaign
04:41that when she, you know, if it looked like she was going to capture the nomination,
04:44it started in that moment. But she had an uneven performance throughout. You know,
04:48some of my colleagues here at Politico wrote about a fight on stage she had with Tulsi Gabbard,
04:52which kind of dragged her down a little bit, because even at the time then, you know,
04:56Congresswoman Gabbard and Vice President Harris were not on the same level.
05:00So she's always had an uneven debate performance. What we're looking for her to do now,
05:05you know, after four years in the vice presidency, is kind of show that she's no longer the same
05:10person who ran for president four years ago. She's had a lot of experience now on the national stage
05:14and on the international stage. So how does that change her preparation? How,
05:19what does she do going into this? It was uneven in 2020. So her aides and allies are certainly
05:24looking for a more, you know, steady performance this time, this go around.
05:29She's never been great off script, off teleprompter. So that will be the ultimate
05:33test for her. Now, you and I would love these things to come down to policy. They almost
05:38never do, rarely if ever. So what's the X factor here in your estimation? And
05:44what do you make of the much discussed muted mics matter?
05:49Yeah. So that was the big fight heading up into the debate is will mics be muted?
05:53The vice president's campaign wanted them unmuted. And the reason for that is probably
05:58pretty straightforward. They wanted to capture Donald Trump potentially going off the rails.
06:02They wanted people to hear that. You know, in the last debate, when President Joe Biden kind
06:06of fell apart, Trump, A, kind of stepped back and kind of let him damage himself to a degree.
06:10I'm not, you know, I don't want to excuse or just write off all the things that Trump did
06:14in the debate. But President Biden kind of, you know, gave himself the rope in the last debate.
06:20This time, the vice president's camp wanted people to hear Donald Trump and wanted people to hear her
06:24or potentially hear him interrupting and insulting her. They didn't get that.
06:29The mics will be muted, at least to an extent. ABC, the host of the debate, has said to leave
06:34it open, you know, in the middle of crosstalk. But it's kind of all this is expectation setting.
06:40It's all trying to set expectations for members of the media, for members of the public,
06:44on what a good debate performance looks like, both for yourself and for your opponent.
06:49So, you know, all these minute details we'll always forget about, you know,
06:5312 hours after the debate, probably. Who wants the mics muted? Who wants them un-muted? Who
06:56wants them standing? Is it a town hall style? What will really matter for Trump and for Paris is,
07:01you know, those five or 10 standout moments that end up not only happening during the debate,
07:06but get recircled in news coverage and on TV, essentially, as well.
07:12Yeah, let's be honest. It's that one viral tic-tac that's likely a gaffe by one of the
07:17candidates that will ultimately decide this. And who knows, could the race as well.
07:21Political Deputy National Editor Zach Montalero, appreciate it. Enjoy the chat.
07:26Let's talk after this debate and see how we did. Thanks so much.
07:29Thanks for having me.
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