Philippe Reines, a former deputy assistant secretary of state and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, is standing in for Trump in practice debates ahead of the actual event on 10 September.
This marks the second time he has played the role, having previously acted as Trump during Clinton’s preparations for her 2016 debates.He reportedly takes the job quite seriously.
He mentioned on
The Michael Smerconish Program
on Sirius that he dressed up like Trump but avoided wearing an orange face or a wig. At one point, he applied self-tanner to half his face, but when no one noticed, he did not repeat the experiment.
Reines, who had worked on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign before joining Clinton’s first failed presidential bid in 2008, was once described by
Vogue
magazine as Clinton’s “Michael Clayton-esque image man and fixer.” In her memoir
Hard Choices
, Clinton portrayed Reines as “passionate, loyal, and shrewd,” someone she could “always trust to speak his mind.”
Having worked for Clinton for 17 years, Reines was a senior adviser when she became secretary of state and was deeply involved in her second presidential campaign, where he emerged as her Trump impersonator. About three weeks before Clinton’s first debate with Trump in 2016, Reines joined a team of advisers to help her prepare. He noted that he didn’t simply stand around shouting “crooked Hillary!” or repeating “email email email!” since that would not have been productive.
To prepare for the role, Reines studied Trump’s performances in the Republican primary debates and other forums. He even watched some of them with the sound turned off to focus on Trump’s mannerisms and body language. In a video released after the 2016 election, Reines is shown bear-hugging Clinton during a mock debate as they prepared for the possibility of an awkward hug from Trump, which led them to burst into laughter.
Reines emphasised that although he didn’t fully imitate Trump’s behaviour, he aimed to challenge Clinton during practice sessions. According to him, Trump is both a poor debater and extremely challenging to debate due to the sheer number of falsehoods he tends to assert, which makes it difficult to counter all of them. Reines advised a strategy of balancing between responding to these and maintaining focus on key messages.
Harris, like Clinton, may face a similar challenge. However, Reines suggests that the vice president is more adept at countering Trump’s tactics, as she has already incorporated mocking Trump and his running mate JD Vance into her campaign, portraying them as “weird.”
Moreover, Harris has demonstrated a readiness to match her opponents’ energy in debates, as seen in 2020 when she responded to interruptions from then vice president Mike Pence with the now-famous line: “Mr Vice President, I’m speaking.”
Reines believes that to succeed against Trump, one must adopt a more aggressive, direct approach. In a 2019 article for
Politico
, he argued that Democrats need to embrace blunt language in their attacks, abandoning traditional political restraint. Reines is likely advising Harris to pursue a similar strategy, encouraging her to hit back instead of getting bogged down in defending her record.
While Reines holds that Clinton won both of her debates against Trump in 2016, the public’s response was not enough to secure her victory. Harris, however, will have the advantage of being able to study Trump’s extensive debate history, and her legal experience as a prosecutor may also give her an edge in handling Trump’s unpredictable debate style.
As Harris prepares for her debate, she has repeatedly highlighted her experience in taking on tough adversaries as a prosecutor, district attorney, and attorney general, suggesting she is well-prepared to confront Trump directly. She frequently tells her campaign audiences: “I know Donald Trump’s type.”
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