political Minefield I mean for 3 weeks while her party was in just abject turmoil the vice president had to avoid being seen as grasping or ambitious as she remain a loyal Soldier to the President Joe Biden and when the president decided to suspend his campaign she had to launch her own presidential campaign in one day she then had just a matter of weeks even days to consolidate support UniFi Democrats and then plan and lead a convention and she managed all of it with just tremendous success and so just 52 days into her campaign for president kamla Harris entered last night's debate with an immense task before her vice president needed to navigate a bunch of contradictory imperatives she had to shore up her Democratic Coalition while also reaching out to those all-important swing voters in swing states she had to handle the lies and Mania and weirdness of her unpredictable opponent while also getting her own message across to viewers and in the face of high expectations and even higher pressure K Harris executed all of that flawlessly on one of the most important issues in this election abortion K Harris eviscerated the former president's position and spoke directly to the experiences of American women nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and and and in asking for an abortion that is not happening it's insulting to the women of America and understand what has been happening under Donald Trump's abortion bans couples who pray and and and and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments what is happening in our country working people working women who are working one or two jobs who can barely afford child care as it is have to travel to another state to get on a plane sitting next to strangers to go and get the health care she needs barely can afford to do it and what you are putting her through is unconscionable Harris also used her opponent's psychological weaknesses to her Advantage at multiple points in in seemingly almost every answer she deliberately baited Trump with lures she knew he just wouldn't be able to resist I'm going to actually do something really unusual and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch you will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter he will talk about windmills cause cancer and what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom first let me respond this to the rallies she said people start leaving people don't don't go to her rallies there's no reason to go and the people that do go she's busting them in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light so she can't talk about that people don't leave my rallies we have the biggest rallies the most incredible rallies in the history of politics showing them in a different light what what does that mean vice president finished the job with what can only be described as a punch to the gut painting Donald Trump as a loser and a disgrace Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people so let's be clear about that and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that but we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts as he did in the past to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election and I'm going to tell you that I have traveled the world as vice president United States and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump I have talked with military leaders some of whom worked with you and they say you're a disgrace and when you then talk in this way in a presidential debate and deny what over and over again are court cases you have lost because you did in fact lose that election it leads one to believe that perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament or or the ability to not be confused about fact that's deeply troubling and the American people deserve better con Harris accomplished everything she needed to last night and she needed to accomplish a lot knocked it out of the park the vice president's known for being a politician who really prepares and it was clear that she took her debate prep very seriously Philipe rinus is a former deputy assistant Secretary of State and former spokesman for Hillary Clinton and Ry has played the role of Donald Trump in Clinton's debate prep back in 2016 uh there he is and what appears to be kind of like a flip phone video in costume role playing a scenario where Trump tried to hug Clinton and then chased her around the room for said hug ryus reprised the role of trump in kamla Harris's preparations for last night's debate self tanner and all and he joins me now uh Philipe it's good to have you first what what do you think of that debate I could watch it all night I mean she put on a clinic there there's really I mean there's no part of it you can watch that says that's bad she should have redone it it was a remarkable performance I know the former president is saying the same thing but as usual one of them is lying and one of them is not what so tell me take me through the prep first of all what was your approach in that prep to playing Trump and what are the kind of signature things he does in debates that you were doing and then how was that kind of gamed out and prepared for well first you know I my role in it is the kind of sexy part of it but I really just had to focus on the left side of the screen which is him there's a team that helps the vice president that was headed up by uh Karen Dunn and rohini culu who I mean it was amazing and it was a frictionless team that I've you know I've worked with other teams and it was great the vice president has great people around her um I mean it was not just a two of them but they co- ran it from my perspective you just want the candidate to get used to what they're going to see and hear and experience and there was that added odity that they never met and what's great is I had never met her um the first day that I met her I said Madame vice president it's nice to meet you and then 20 minutes later I was telling her how she was ruining America did you um what was your approach what are the most important things to prepare for if you're debating Trump like the the of go-to moves the things that might rattle someone who hasn't been been in the same room with them well I I would take it a step back I mean a debate in its ideal form is a job interview you have two people who are going for the same position who want to put their experience and their best foot forward they want to be professional they want to think about curveballs that might come there way and and you know we've all been in that situation the situation we haven't been in is when the other candidate for the job is six feet to your left and they've got a chainsaw and the only way that they can win is by you know blooding you up and the challenge there is you know you have to make some decisions but the what she did last night that was so amazing is that she wasn't just um pointing out things that uh that might get under his skin she was making her case directly the camera to the American people she was talking about her plants and what what was also incredibly is that she did something that no one else has really been able to do in the last year which is remind people that this guy actually served and has a record and that record is really bad and you know you've talked about this this Amnesia issue is a problem where he starts out saying you know you completely screwed the Border it's got to be hold on pal you were there for four years you were in charge of the border and you promised us a wall and it's not there and that hasn't happened enough and it's important to lay out that case and and third I mean for my own in terms of asking about prep first of all you know we all get makeup before we're on TV and um the makeup artist here said you already have makeup on and I said no and she said well you've got on your forehead I can't get it off I mean it's it's so CED on the guy uses you know like plaster Paris but the thing that's I noticed over the eight years and by the way feel like it was 50 years when you say a flip phone I mean it wasn't black and white Chris um is that he's really he's really decompensating I mean his language has always been choppy he's always digressed there's something else going on there I think we all watch it and it's like oh he always speaks like that he does not he's losing like if I lose track of my thoughts I stop for a second when he loses track of his thoughts he just goes to another thought quickly so it doesn't sound like anything it just sounds like he's jumping around that's not what he's doing he's also seemingly he'll go off on Co for 10 minutes and not say Tony fouchy I mean four years ago he would go on for five minutes about Tony fouchy so there's something you know I'm in the camp that has always noticed that but just very narrowly in terms of watching everything he has said and done over the last few months and reading every word there's there's something not not right up there yeah and and you know we only play a little selection one of the selections which we'll play in a second is the is sort of notorious they're eating the dogs they're eating the cats which of course is both a sort of disgusting and racist slandered to group of people and also completely invented um but that answer came he started on the rallies like we played that rallies clip he got from like people go to my rallies to that and you know he he he cannot follow a train of thought he interrupts himself here's just a little smattering of what that looked like she's a Marxist everybody knows she's a Marxist her father's a Marxist professor in economics and he taught her well in Springfield they're eating the dogs the people that came in they're eating the cats they're eating they're eating the pets of the people that live there she was big on defund the police in Minnesota she went out wait a minute I'm talking now if you don't mind please does that sound familiar he was very proud of that last one he he referred to it as cute and he gave a little kudos to himself afterwards that he was like calling back a I'm speaking moment in in terms of the sort of set pieces like the baiting what how much of that was planned like it seemed to me that there were certain things that you know he won't leave alone John McCain Charlottesville very fine people the outcome of the January 6 election his rallies that were intentionally seated in her answers to get him to narcissistically obsess over them I think look you know she has seen him over the years the guy's debated seven times this was his seventh general election he debated I think 11 times in the primaries uh notably zero times in the 2020 Prim 2024 primaries and yet he calls everyone out for for being scared I think she was almost acting like she was watching it like she was you know kind of watching it on TV and saying hold on dude I mean what about this cuz that's what she was doing was calling out facts you know what's what's particularly I think telling when you show these clips of his digressions or whatever you want to call them is that they make no sense so fine you he's not Rubik's Cube he's not hard to figure out he's Jenga you know you just push one thing and he falls apart but if you say your crowd sizes are low and you people leave why wouldn't you say that that's not true that's very mean I'm really proud they're the biggest things what he actually starts doing is a different level of insanity yes I mean you're revealing it's a subset I mean what he's saying has never been truthful it has never been real it has never been normal but it is decompensating and I think because it's you know the thing about the Frog you know in water if you just boil them slowly they don't know what's happening we've all been so kind of ignor to it that we don't realize how serious this is and look I Joe Biden I love Joe Biden when Joe Biden was 78 and he ran for president no one thought I don't I'm concerned of how he looks Donald Trump is 78 you know if he wins we could be back in this conversation in two years did you and like oh how do we how are we supposed to know that he was going to go off the rails did you do off the rails as him you do everything I mean you do I'm the ball machine in my mind you know you got a good tennis player who wants to get better um I have friends who are obsessed with tennis they get a tennis pro you want to test your your you know backhand get set the the ball machine to test your backhand you want to do your forehand if you want to use the ball machine as a target for your serve great um it's really it's simulation it's I think any kind of prep whether it's Congressional prep deposition prep or any kind of interview you want people to