The world knows what kind of a debater former President Donald Trump is: loose with the facts, quick with an insult and confident to the extreme. But what about Vice President Kamala Harris? While her 2020 presidential campaign barely registered – she ended her campaign in December 2019, before the first primary votes were cast – Harris did leave a mark in one important way. On the primary debate stage in June 2019, before she was his running mate or he was anywhere near the White House, Harris eviscerated Joe Biden. The issues of policing and race were key to the 2020 Democratic primary.

“I do not believe that you are a racist,” Harris told Biden, staring him down across the debate stage as he looked straight ahead or down at his podium. But it was hurtful, she said, that Biden would praise men like the late Sens. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and John Stennis of Mississippi, “who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.” Pivoting, she noted that during his long Senate career, Biden worked with these men on legislation opposed to federally mandated busing in local school districts.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said. “And that little girl was me.” It was a powerful moment, evidence of what Harris can do on the debate stage – clearly rehearsed, deployed effectively, unsparing and said to the face of her opponent, who would later elevate her as his running mate.

Harris has, no doubt, spent her debate prep time working on material to use against her rival this year. She and Trump are set to meet for the first time and debate Tuesday night in the key state of Pennsylvania. ABC News is broadcasting the event. Democrats have tried to frame this campaign as one between a former prosecutor in Harris and a convicted felon in Trump. Harris will have to live up to the billing as a tough prosecutor on Tuesday when she gets the rare chance to express Democrats’ years of festering anger with Trump to his face.

Unlike with Biden, Harris won’t have to go back to the 1970s to come up with lines of attack. She can look to his criminal conviction in New York, his liability in a sex abuse and defamation case, his nationalist policies, his unfounded claims about election fraud – for which there is no evidence – or his outrageous pledge to jail election officials. While Harris will have plenty to say about Trump, she won’t have the benefit of his interruptions. The candidates’ mics will be muted when it is not their turn to speak, so Trump will not be able to interrupt Harris with insults like he did with Hillary Clinton, when he told her, “You’re the puppet!” or “You’d be in jail,” during debates in 2016.

It also means Harris’ memorable moment in the 2020 vice presidential debate – when she said in response to Mike Pence interrupting her, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking” – won’t happen. Not all of Harris’ planned takedowns work quite as well as the busing attack on Biden. In another 2019 debate, Harris targeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the subject of Warren’s plan to break up tech companies. Harris tried to isolate that larger issue into something more digestible by expressing disappointment Warren would not call for Twitter (it was a very different company in 2019!) to suspend Trump’s account. Twitter would later suspend Trump’s account after the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, but the company was subsequently bought by Elon Musk and renamed X – and Trump is now active on the platform again.

The point Harris was trying to make felt small and allowed Warren to make a much bigger one. “Look, I don’t just want to push Donald Trump off Twitter, I want to push him out of the White House,” Warren said. That exchange may be a warning for Harris to avoid getting bogged down in details since Trump won’t – and he will, if history is any guide, happily manufacture facts to make his points.

Which brings us to a third telling Harris debate exchange from 2019. She was criticized by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard about her record as a prosecutor, which was to the right of the Democratic Party in 2019. Gabbard argued that Harris was too hard on marijuana offenders and had other criticisms of her time as a prosecutor. “I am proud of that work,” Harris shot back, arguing she worked as attorney general to make California better, opposed the death penalty and didn’t just “give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body.” The irony here is that Gabbard, now a former Democrat, has endorsed Trump, who likes to say he would use the death penalty on drug offenders.

Gabbard has reportedly helped Trump with his own debate prep, and Trump will want to paint Harris as to the left of the American mainstream – someone who changed her positions for political expediency in 2019 and has now changed them again to run for president. The importance of this debate may ultimately be in how those few undecided or movable voters perceive Harris, since perceptions of Trump seem to be set in stone.

In a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Sunday, the race is effectively tied, within the margin of error. Few likely voters – less than 10% – said they feel like they need to learn more about Trump in the poll. More than a quarter, 28%, said they need to learn more about Harris, perhaps suggesting she has more room to grow, or fall, after being given the chance to face off against Trump.

The First Debate in Years

The first debate between the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees comes after President Biden dropped his reelection bid in July. His decision was in reaction to members of his own party calling for him to step out after his much-criticized performance at the June 27 CNN debate against Trump. Now that the Harris and Trump campaigns have agreed to ABC’s rules following weeks of uncertainty, here’s what you need to know:

The Debate Details

The Sept. 10 debate is set to start at 9 p.m. ET and will last for 90 minutes with two commercial breaks. It will be held in Philadelphia — a deep-blue Democratic city — at the National Constitution Center. Pennsylvania is considered a key battleground state in the 2024 election cycle. President Biden managed to flip the state by a slim margin in 2020. You can watch it across ABC News’s properties, which include ABC News Live’s online streaming, Disney+ and Hulu. The debate will be moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir, as well as “ABC News Live Prime” anchor Linsey Davis.

Debate Rules and Logistics

The debate rules over live microphones initially became a sticking point for both campaigns. The Harris campaign wanted the microphones turned on the whole time, while the Trump campaign wanted them turned on only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak, sticking to the June 27 CNN debate rules. The Harris campaign agreed to the muted-mics rule in a letter to ABC on Wednesday, citing the risk of Trump skipping the debate, but added that Harris was “fundamentally disadvantaged” by the rule because it would “serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the vice president.”

ABC News released the rules for its Sept. 10 debate, which are similar to those of the June debate between Biden and Trump. They include:

• No live audience in the debate room, nixing any opportunity for cheers or jeers during the event.
• The candidates will not give an opening statement.
• Moderators will be the only ones to ask questions.
• Candidates will have two minutes to answer a question, with a two-minute rebuttal, as well as another minute to follow up for clarification. Microphones will only be switched on for the candidate who is answering a question.
• A coin flip determined the order of closing statements, which will be two minutes per candidate, as well as the placement of the candidates’ podiums on stage. Trump won the toss, and he chose to give the last closing statement. Harris chose to have her podium appear on the right side of the screen (stage left).
• For the duration of the debate, candidates will stand behind their respective podium. They will not be able to have props or pre-written notes with them. Each candidate will be given a pad of paper, a pen and a bottle of water.
• There will be two commercial breaks. During that time campaign staff cannot interact with their candidate.

A Clash Over Mic Rules

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team was reportedly left “scrambling” to rework their debate strategy after losing their bid to change the rules on microphones. Former President Trump and Harris will face off for the first time on Tuesday in Philadelphia, in a debate moderated by ABC News. While the Harris campaign had insisted on moving forward with the debate as previously negotiated between the Biden and Trump Teams, it appears they were expecting the rules to change to make the microphones live throughout the event.

“Kamala Harris had planned to object, fact-check and directly question Donald Trump while he was speaking during their debate next week,” Politico reported on Friday. “But now, with rules just finalized to mute the candidates when their opponents speaks, campaign officials said Harris advisers are scrambling to rewrite their playbook.”

The Harris campaign, according to the report, had wanted un-muted microphones “so that the vice president could lean on her prosecutorial background, confronting the former president in the same way she laced into some of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and Cabinet members during Senate hearings.” Four of her own campaign officials now reportedly claim that she will be “handcuffed” by the rules set by her predecessor. Some Democratic strategists said the debate terms were bad from the start.

One told Politico, “It was a bad set of rules for someone [Biden] who needed to be protected, who never should’ve been on the debate stage. And now they’re stuck with it.” Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump departs a campaign event at the Central Wisconsin Airport on September 07, 2024 in Mosinee, Wisconsin. Democratic strategist James Carville, by contrast, suggested the rules don’t tip the scales either way.

“[Trump] won’t be able to do his shenanigans either,” he said. “So it seems kind of like a wash to me.” The same report also claimed, “Some Democrats privately dismiss the Harris campaign’s frustration as largely gamesmanship and expectation-setting around Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia.” Trump senior adviser Jason Miller reportedly expressed joy on behalf of the campaign that Harris “finally accepted the already agreed-upon rules of the debate that they wrote in the first place,” later adding, “Americans want to hear both candidates present their competing visions to the voters, unburdened by what has been. No notes, no sitting down, no advance copies of the questions.”

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. Harris’ campaign had repeatedly pushed back on the rule about microphones, trying to goad Trump into backing out of the original agreement to mute mics, even initially refusing to sign off on the rules in an attempt to renegotiate. The campaign sent a letter to the network last week officially agreeing to the original debate rules while still complaining about the terms. “Vice President Harris, a former prosecutor, will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President. We suspect this is the primary reason for his campaign’s insistence on muted microphones,” the letter read.

The Stakes Are High

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will take the stage Tuesday in the only planned debate between the respective Democratic and GOP presidential candidates between now and November. It’s the first presidential debate since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race following his own disastrous debate performance in late June against Trump. Biden, who faced mounting calls to resign, passed the torch to Harris back in July. The veep has embarked on an unprecedented and expedited campaign as she and Trump vie for the Oval Office. The election is just two months away.

Though the Harris and Trump campaigns clashed over debate procedures in recent weeks, both candidates have agreed to the finalized rules. ABC News, host of the debate, released the rules Wednesday. The debate will be Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern time at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The debate will be 90 minutes long and include two commercial breaks, according to ABC.

The Keystone State — where both Harris and Trump have spent a lot of time campaigning — could determine the outcome of the presidential election. The battleground state has narrowly flip-flopped in recent elections, with Biden turning Pennsylvania blue in 2020 after Trump secured a red win in 2016. The debate will air live on ABC News and will also be streaming on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. ABC News’ David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate the debate. Harris and Trump will each have two minutes to answer questions and two minutes to give rebuttals. They will also be granted one additional minute to clarify or follow up on anything.

Trump Takes Aim at ABC

Trump went on the attack over the details of the debate, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity during an interview Wednesday in Pennsylvania that “ABC is the worst network in terms of fairness” and “the most dishonest network, the meanest, the nastiest.” He accused the network of releasing poor polls on purpose ahead of a previous election to drive down voter turnout. Trump also claimed, without evidence, that Harris would get the questions in advance of the debate. ABC’s debate rules state that no candidates or campaigns will receive any topics or questions ahead of the event.

Vice Presidential Debate

Meanwhile, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance will battle it out at the vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News on Oct. 1 in New York City.